Women Writers

As a child, I had a small collection of Barbies that I played with on a regular basis: Totally Hair Barbie; Ocean Friend Barbie with baby Keiko, the whale; Teacher Barbie. I had gymnasts, ballerinas, and princesses. And while Barbie had already begun to scratch the surface of the hundreds of careers that she would […]

At 7:30 on a Monday morning in the high school office, I listen as the principal explains to my ex-husband how he will mentor, not fire, the wrestling-coach-turned-algebra-teacher who called our older daughter a bitch. “Mr. S is young,” Principal W says. “He made a mistake.”  I am thinking about how twenty-five years ago, I […]

Even now, at 50 years of age, when I hear that a friend or colleague had a Barbie Dreamhouse as a child, the pull of envy in my chest cavity tugs ever so slightly.  My cousin had one. I remember her never wanting to play with it when I was at her home, despite my […]

Much to her chagrin, I told my daughter, Zadie, I had to see the Barbie movie before deciding if she could watch it. Thankfully, Barbie’s brand of PG-13 is mostly just grown-up jokes that would sail over my 7-year-old’s head as she lost herself in a candy-colored wonderland, so we went together on a Saturday. […]

My father was stationed in Germany in 1973, where he served as the Chief of Pediatrics. My family arrived in Landsthul mid-year. School was in session, and friendships had already been formed. My sister Cynthia and I created an imaginary world in our bedroom that centered around Barbie. This imaginary world became my refuge. Unlike […]

I loved playing with Barbie dolls. As a little girl in Michigan, I spent hours putting my dolls through dramas, creating stories alone in my room, or in tandem with my best friend who lived next door. My first Barbie was conventional with blonde hair and hard plastic legs. Later, I acquired Malibu Barbie and […]

Barbie dolls make me uneasy. Is it their coloring or impossible dimensions? Somethingabout them doesn’t sit right with me as a Gen X woman who lives in the real world.  When I moved from India to the US as a young bride, I expected to inhabit a world in whichpatriarchy was vanquished. I expected to […]

“You don’t need my permission… I always hoped for you, like I hoped for her. We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.” Ruth Handler, the literal creator of Barbie, says this when Barbie asks her for permission to become human. The idea seems silly—a doll asking […]

I’m 50-something and saw the Barbie movie with my girlfriends in the first few days it came out. We dressed in pink and piled into the Barbie box to take photos. The opening scene, mirroring 2001: A Space Odyssey, hooked me and cleverly introduced the movie’s theme of individuality and identity. The costumes and Barbie […]

I was a certified “Barbie head” growing up. I was that girl who had tons of Barbies and was always on the hunt for more. My first—Black Barbie—is closest to my heart. I don’t remember when my mother gave her to me—I just remember owning her. She had an afro, wore a red leotard, and […]

By the time my daughter was three years old, many of her friends had Barbies. She began asking for one of her own. I was of the mind that Barbie was a clueless bimbo with weird feet, and Ken was a putz. I didn’t buy one until that day in the grocery store. It had […]