Community Chat

[Chloe Piper]

Barbie might be trying to show a brainierside, but little girls who play with the iconic dolls are learning more than anatomic impossibility: They're also lowering their career aspirations, reports Fast Company. A new study—conducted on an admittedly small scale of 37 4- to 7-year-olds who spent a few minutes playing with Doctor Barbie, Fashion Barbie, or Mrs. Potato Head—finds that when shown photos of 10 professions, only those who played with the dowdy potato emerged believing they could follow just as many career paths as boys. Those who played with either type of Barbie saw diminished career options for themselves.

"Something about the type of doll, not characteristics of the participants, causes the difference in career aspirations," says study co-author Aurora Sherman. The authors, who admit deeper study is needed, theorize that girls are forming their ideas about gender roles from Barbie's sexual-yet-anatomically-impossible nature. For writer Carey Dunne, if further research could "solidly prove that Barbie's influence is a negative one, maybe Mattel would at least consent to giving the poor doll enough room for a liver." But don't think that Barbie is going the way of a super-skinny dinosaur anytime soon: Huffington Postnotes that the doll turned 55 yesterday.

[MomOf4]

No, do you?

[Yuban3]

Nope.

[RainyDayGal]

They asked 4-7 year olds?! Honestly, how much do they know about careers at that age? I would think they'd be more interested in play and snack time.

[Cyndog]

Yes, although I don't remember exactly how, I do remember my Barbie. My mother made her the most beautiful clothes to match the clothes she made for herself.

[Marianne1]

yes. I survived.

I had a lot of fun with my sister playing with Barbies, we were very creative in our play.

And my grandmother made us clothes for our Barbies, so it was a family activity!

[Preds]

Yep, a friend made beautful clothes for them so I liked changes their outfits all the time. Then I'd put them up and go outside to play with my Matchbox and Hot Wheels. My troll dolls were my favorites.

[151949]

I don't think little girls the ages of 4 to 7 are normally the ones playing with Barbies. i would think more like 10 year olds would be interested in fashion dolls and the different outfits they can wear.

[luvdoodles]

On 3/10/2014 MomOf4 said:

No, do you?

I think she was referring to in the past and you know that. How childish of you with that answer. Maybe you meant it to be funny, but I don't think so.

[gazelle77]

Oh yes! I had many Barbies and all the other dolls, Skipper, Midge, Alan, Ken etc, I had several dream houses and several cars. Tons of clothes. I also had trolls galore with houses, furniture etc. My aspirations as a little girl was to be a Mommie with lots of babies .....as it turned Out I chose to be child free!