On November 18th, I attended a D200 floor program. Julie, our RA, ran a program about Barbies. She started the program by showing us a picture of a woman holding a Barbie doll. The woman had lines on her body that showed how a real human would have to change their body in order to have the proportions of a Barbie doll. The point of the program was to point out that Barbie dolls are a problem. Little girls grow up looking at this unrealistic figure thinking that this is how a pretty girl looks.
For the program, we created dolls of ourselves who’s body proportions were to scale with those of actual human beings. I am not the best artist, so drawing the doll was a bit of a challenge. I tried to make it look like my doll was wearing the same clothing as me. I gave her a blue tank top with a gray cardigan and black pants and flats. My hair color did not exist in the colored pencils we were using, so I just made her hair yellow. In the end, the doll did not look much like me. But it was close enough.
When we were done making the dolls, Julie took a picture of each one of us holding the doll we had created. These pictures were sent to the Barbie corporation as a form of the unrealistic proportions of a Barbie doll. After everyone had their picture taken, Julie glued all of the dolls to the paper we had used as the back drop for our photos. The dolls are still there on the wall in our hallway.
The idea behind this floor program is something that is very important. Many girls spend their childhood playing with Barbie dolls. These dolls give them an incorrect impression of what beauty is and as a result they strive to look like these dolls. Such an unrealistic goal is dangerous. The dolls that little girls play with need to be more realistic to the body proportions of actual humans.