The Australian Women\'s Weekly - June 2018

JUNE 2018 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 125

I

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he is the woman who has everything – her own

dream house, a pink convertible and a long and

varied career. Soon to turn 60, she is still iercely

loved by a global legion of pink-clad acolytes, yet

like many prominent women, her place in the

spotlight has come with criticism and abuse. Angry students

burned her in the 1960s. Iran exiled her in 2002. German

feminists cruciied her and held a “Barbie’cue” to protest the

opening of a life-sized dream house in 2013. For a woman

who has been an Olympic gold medallist and the President,

Barbie is a controversial and polarising igure.

She is not real, of course – the 29cm miniature

mannequin is mostly plastic and rubber – but her inluence

is huge. More than one billion Barbie dolls have been sold

into 150 countries since 1959, meaning there is now one

Barbie for every seven humans on earth. Ninety-nine per

cent of America’s daughters own a Barbie. A 2006 UK

study suggesting she causes low self-esteem is a favourite

reference of Barbie critics but that hasn’t stopped young

devotees continuing to beg for a Barbie of their own.

“She’s a projection of what you want to be,” says Karen

Valentine, 47, who owns more than 500 Barbies.“You get→

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