TOW #22- Male Barbie

Recently, Barbie has started selling their new lines of Barbie dolls that are dressed for different professions, have different body types, and are of different ethnicity and race. The Onion, taking a naturally satirical view, published an article titled, "Mattel Releases New Male Barbie To Inspire Girls To Imagine Holding Highest Leadership Positions".  This article's purpose was not to ridicule Mattel's variety of dolls, but rather to use this current issue as a platform to argue that women and young girls should be able to dream of becoming a very successful person, without having to be a man to do so.  The main audience of this article was most likely both the Mattel business itself, and the customers that buy their product.  To the business, it could be seen as a motive to make female-business leader dolls.  To customers, it could be seen to set a new perspective, that dolls should not be needed to allow a young girl  to think that she is capable of being successful.  Being a young woman, it is extremely enlightening to read this article, as it shows the subtle truths of today’s society, no matter how many feminists are starting to emerge.  

By using a very typical tool in teenage world, sarcasm, the author of this article was able to talk about a serious topic in an amusing and efficient way.  The author pretended to have interviewed the CEO of Mattel and quoted him sharing that, "When young girls play with Barbie, we don’t want there to be any limits on what they can imagine possible, and that’s exactly why we created the first-ever male version of the doll…” (The Onion).  Actually laughing out loud while reading this, I realized that this is probably an opinion that many Americans truly believe.  Unfortunately, no matter how far we may have come in society, it is still much easier and common for a male to be “the boss.”  Thankfully there has been much improvement, seen evidently in schools.  When talking about my own future, I am not asked how many children I want to have, or what type of husband I am looking for, but I am asked what major I am looking for, and if I have considered how my job will affect how much I could mother my children.  As a world, we are improving, but this article shows just how prevalent gender issues still are.

http://www.theonion.com/article/mattel-releases-new-male-barbie-inspire-girls-imag-52635