Happy Birthday Barbie…I think.

So this week’s been a special one. Not only has it been international women’s day but it was also Barbies birthday. As a result of this, I have a question for you.   How can one of the biggest toy brands still not have gender equal career barbies? How can we bring up our daughters to believe they can be anything they want to be, when a toy they play with everyday says otherwise? 

I did some digging on Barbies website, as I know it’s been a controversial topic for a while now.  Barbie released a video on their website this week stressing that little girls could be anything. All I could find on the website was nurse Dolls, teacher dolls and vet dolls to name a few. The most gender neutral being a soccer doll. 

Where are the physicist dolls, the army dolls and the chemist dolls? All jobs which girls can do. Surely if they can have a campaign which stresses that girls can be anything, then they should have dolls to match. Where are the dolls which show our daughter’s that can be anything they want to be? They can be anything from bricklayers to mechanics but Barbie seem to focus on the dolls which promote staying at home and bringing up the child, like the twin playset and when they do have career dolls, they are typically ‘girl’ toys. 

Maybe we need to start with the toys our children play with every day, in order to really be equal. The time when they are playing with Barbies is the time they are learning about gender so why should they have to have a certain career path because they are a girl, or have to be saved by a handsome prince? In my eyes that’s not equal     .

Maybe Barbie doesn’t deserve a birthday after all.