I have never been a Barbie girl, and this is why we never hit it off.
With all the hype around the new Barbie film, I couldn’t resist reflecting on why I never aspired to be a Barbie girl.
The clues were there in the 1970s when I saved up to buy my first ever “big” purchase. It took weeks for 6-year-old me to save up £3. That was a lot of money for me to part with, but it meant that I could buy a Six-million-dollar man, complete with bionic eye, arm, and I think that I remember a bionic leg too. I loved the TV series that ran from 1974-78 and inspired the toy.
The voice over at the start of the show claimed:
"We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better...stronger...faster."
He was a secret agent, solving crimes and saving the day. I was hooked and would have happily told you that I wanted to be the Six-million-dollar man when I grew up.
There was another spin off show called the Bionic Woman, but she did not captivate me in quite the same way. The six-million-dollar man toy had an option to buy a bionic repair and transporter station (it looked a bit like an operating theatre), but the bionic woman had a beauty salon. You can imagine which toy was marketed to girls. Something was a little bit off and I was not falling for it.
I never owned a Barbie but did receive a Sindy doll from a relative one Christmas. She was dressed as a ballet dancer and not what I wanted to play with at all! I did not aspire to be Sindy, or a ballet dancer. I had already tried ballet classes, taken an exam wearing a white tutu, and been assessed as “satisfactory.” It was not for me.
I did ask Father Christmas for a Baby Alive doll one year. A very odd-looking doll with a big mouth. This was less imaginative play and more hands-on experience. She was marketed as: “She really eats and drinks. Feels soft like a real baby.” There were packets of dried food to mix into gloop, that she ate from a spoon, followed by washing it down with a bottle of water. You could then change her nappy.
Excellent skills to prepare a young girl for motherhood. The part where everything poured through the doll, leaked through the nappy, and soaked into your clothes was incredibly good preparation indeed.
The messages that got through to me loud and clear were that boys did exciting things, sports that I was not allowed to do, grew up to do interesting jobs, and were in charge. I grew up wanting to be as good as or better than the boys at my school. I chose swimming as my sport at junior school because I could be “Better...stronger...faster” than some of the boys. I was learning that to be successful meant acting like a boy.
In my early years, I had very few female role models in my world who did the things that I wanted to do.
At the age of 11, I was incredibly lucky to go to an independent girl's school. There were plenty of female role models and girls went on to do amazing things when they left school. I no longer wanted to grow up to be a boy but a successful woman, wife and mother, with a career in medicine. But there was still a pervasive message about competition and needing to act like or be better than boys. Having to prove myself as worthy enough to sit at the table started early.
When I was a doctor in training there were lots of female trainee doctors who would become the Consultants of today, but there were few female Consultant anaesthetists as role models and some of them were quite fierce. They had to be to survive. I learned to behave like “one of the boys,” and in some ways it was like being at primary school again! Don’t ask for help, cope at all costs, don’t compromise and never admit weakness.
What traits do you need to be successful?
Many of the traits associated with success have been described as male and if a male exhibits them, then they are desirable. I am thinking of traits like assertive, driven, competitive, decisive, risk takers, able to self-promote etc. However, if a woman behaves the same way, she bossy, selfish, cutthroat, impulsive or pushy. Dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.
Female traits or responsibilities are seen as weak or less desirable. When I was planning my return to work after my first baby, I was told by a senior male supervisor that “good trainees don’t go part time.” I replied in my usual assertive fashion “well just watch this one, do it,” but I still internalised all the negative beliefs that I would be less than the full timers in more ways than the number of hours that I worked. If anything, when I returned to work, I was even more assertive, competitive, decisive, and driven than before. I had to prove that I was still a “good trainee.”
Good leadership needs both male and female traits. This article from Forbes highlights 15 traits or approaches that all leaders could cultivate.
Adaptability
Emotional intelligence
Perseverance
Discipline
Humble self-awareness
Curiosity
Authenticity
Risk taking capabilities
Accessibility
Observant decisiveness
Accountability
Genuine respect
Viewing failure as learning curves
A growth mindset
Customer centricity
By emphasising these traits and behaviours, it fosters a change in culture and the way that we treat each other.
What would really help is changing the narrative around male and female qualities. I think good leadership qualities should not be gendered. I have learned through experience that “Don’t ask for help, cope at all costs, don’t compromise and never admit weakness,” does not work for me. My best leadership qualities are the exact opposite. And when I speak of leadership, I am not just referring to work. You are the CEO of your life and no matter what you do, you need good leadership skills.
I have not been to see the new Barbie film yet, but I have read several reviews. This quote is from The Guardian by Mark Kermode :
After a heavily trailered 2001-parody opening, we move to a pastel pink haven in which, “thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved”. This is Barbieland – a fantasy world in which big-haired dolls can be anything (lawyers, doctors, physicists, presidents), thereby inspiring equivalent feminine achievement out there in the “real world”. (“We fixed everything so all women in the real world are happy and powerful!”)
It is good to see that Barbie has fixed everything, since I was a little girl growing up in the 1970s.
I could go to see the movie this weekend, but in true Lucinda style I have decided to to try out “Better…stronger…faster.” I am going to a Crossfit taster session (hopefully I will survive). The CEO of my life has decided that she is going to use some of her leadership skills and invest in her future old lady body.
Thank you for mentioning Sindy doll! She is rarely mentioned. I had one in my childhood, and though she had more realistic bodily proportions than Barbie, I cut off her hair and stuffed her in the back of a cupboard.
I wonder what you thought of the Barbie movie? I seem to be one of the few who disliked it. I loved the sets, costumes, actors, scenes (especially the ones travelling between Barbieland and the real world), but I thought the messages the film conveyed were confused, one-dimensional and hostile.