I’m not anti-Jen. I was just pointing out the issues I had with her Barbie. I already noted that women are allowed to put on tefillin. The thing about Barbie is not that Jewish stereotypes dictate that no Jewish women look like Barbie, but rather that a realistic perception of women dictates that no women look like Barbie. She represents an impossible to acheive ideal. But whatever…

pixie nose and blond hair eh? I bet you have brown eyes… heh.

Jen has something special: a sense of humour, by means of the deployment of irony. Not only was she commenting on women’s ritual roles in Judaism, but also commenting on Jewish stereotypes with regards to “looking Jewish” AND dealing with Barbie stereotypes in a fun and lighthearted way.

Three birds with one stone, if you ask me.

Often, humour is the most effective way to open up discourse and break down taboos.

I’m with her all the way.

PbP, who happens to be naturally slim, have a pixie nose, blond hair AND be Jewish. And, yup, does tefillin.

Tsk, tsk! A shonda!

Certainly true that one does not need to be a feminist to find Barbie offensive…but also that being a feminist doesn’t preclude one from not finding Barbie (and tongue-in-cheek repurposings of her & her outfits) offensive.

I’d be more worried about falling prey to the rampant consumerism that can come from the “gotta get ‘em all” (yes, I know that’s Pokemon) bewildering array of Barbie Paraphernalia than just about body image issues specifically, though they’re certainly a concern.

I tend to agree with those who say that Barbie is not exactly helping but that there are other more powerful cultural forces that are more influential in doing the damage: I’m not about to let any (right now theoretical) kids of mine be raised on only a steady diet of Barbie eye candy, nor would I give in to the whim to get the Barbie Dream House and Fast Car and Kitty Litter Box and You Name It.

For the record, when growing up: I had some, but not a lot, of Barbies; some, but not a lot, of other dolls (depicting ages from baby to woman, in materials from fabric to porcelain to plastic); and a lot of books. With lots of nifty girls in them…from Nancy Drew and Nancy, Tacey, and Tib (anyone else read those?) to Laura Ingalls Wilder to sci-fi heroines (Podkayne of Mars; Candidia Maria Smith Foster) and fantasy sword-wielders (Eowyn and her ilk).

Barbie notwithstanding, I never bought into the beauty-pageant ideal, not even in our Jewish context: for Purim I preferred to go as pouty Vashti than as Esther.

I have had some trials with the scale and the mirror (body image distortion etc) myself, and although I can’t speak for Wolf’s more recent work, _The Beauty Myth_ was part of the long path out.

Whether as a parent you choose to keep Barbies out of the house or to buy them but try to raise your kids’ awareness, — those are policy decisions.

My daughters played with Barbies. My sister and her friends, etc., etc., etc. No nose jobs. One case of anorexia among them all, which no one has ever pinpointed to Barbie. And from what I’ve seen from my sister’s friends, they were closer to 38-18-34 some decades than they ever will be again.

And none of them live in pink houses except for one but she’s from a Hungarian family, so that explains that.

LOL! Nice one, Shy Guy.
But seriously, folks…how many Jewish women have got their noses “fixed” because of Barbie? Don’t get me wrong, struggling with our beauty aesthetic pre-dates this doll, but this tall, pixie-nosed, slim-hipped socialite with straight blonde hair just ramped it up.

Further to CK’s “… Ruth Handler based Barbie on a German sex doll called Lilli.”:
This reminds me of a Saturday Night Live sketch where they lampooned the trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie by dressing a Barbie doll up in a teensy Nazi uniform & put her on a scale balcony reviewing a parade. Anyone remember this?
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Controversial Barbie costumes are nothing new. SNL did it in 1983.

I’m going to have to go with CK on this one.

As I said, most women of our generation/GenX-ers/however we categorize ourselves share my opinions & reactions to Barbie. You’re not one of those women

I knew this history of the Barbie Doll you cite, & have zero problem with ther inventor & the process she went through. What I take exception to is the end product & how that has ultimately taught girls to hate our bodies, sent non-white women the message that we are not beautiful & generally been used as a tool to undermine women’s self-value. It’s Women’s Studies 101. The superficiality/publicity ploy can be separated from its inventor, but not from the doll, IMHO.

ps – I really miss hanging out with you & Mike!

But Barbie pisses me off because I’ve known too many women with eating disorders occasioned by unrealistic images of female beauty foisted upon girls by the media and products like Barbie.

Enjoy Weekday Davening Bulimia Barbie and make sure to take the tefillin off before she goes to barf out her breakfast in the Barbie Temple toilet.

For once, the Saudi Jihadists were right!

This over-30 woman doesn’t find Barbie to universally denote “trivial,” and is anything but offended by the playful–even, to me, empowering–image of Davening Barbie (as my husband & I call her: she’s got a tallis as well as tefillin, so she’s more than just Tefillin Barbie by me! Weekday Davening Barbie, to be precise…).

Not all feminists are anti-Barbie, nor is Barbie or her history necessarily anti-feminist. Barbie was created by a Jewish businesswoman, Ruth Handler, who named Barbie and Ken after her daughter and son; after undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer, Handler developed a better type of breast prosthesis (along with post-mastectomy swimwear) as the “Nearly Me” line. (See her entry on the PBS “They Made America” site, where she’s honored among the Innovators.)

Barbie need not be a bimbo, and the woman who created her certainly wasn’t one. I’d definitely allow (even encourage!) any daughter (or son) of mine to play with Davening Barbie as well as the proposed Egal Minyan Ken.