Barbie and Violence
by Rahima Baldwin Dancy
We’ve had a lot of response from readers to our articles “Barbie Come Home, All is Forgiven!” and “Barbie Dolls.” Here’s more, on a study describing children’s destructive behavior toward Barbie dolls.
The source for this information is an article in the British press called “Barbarism begins with Barbie, the doll children love to hate” by Alexandra Frea, Social Affairs Correspondent for The Times (12/19/2005).
Psychologists and management academics from the University of Bath in Britain were studying the role of brands among 7 to 11-year-old school children. They had not intended to focus on Barbie, but they were amazed by the hatred and violence children demonstrated when asked about their feelings for the doll. Violence and torture against Barbie--including scalping, decapitation, burning , breaking and even microwaving--were repeatedly reported, regardless of age, school and gender. No other toy or brand name provoked such a negative response.
Researcher Dr. Agnes Nairn said, “You might expect little girls to love their Barbie and expect an imaginary love in return. Instead girls feel violence and hated towards their Barbie.” Although adults may find a child’s delight in breaking, mutilating and torturing their dolls to be disturbing, Nairn and her colleagues Christine Griffin and Patricia Gaya Wicks concluded that the children were simply being imaginative in disposing of an excessive commodity, in the same way as one might crush cans for recycling.
These researchers found no evidence that the prepubescent girls were destroying the dolls because they signified an approaching adulthood at a time when they were still clinging to childhood, as had been suggested by previous research in the US into abuse of Barbie dolls. Nairn also dismissed the idea that overweight girls resented Barbies’ unrealistically thin figure. Nairn felt that it was simply a reaction to having so many of a toy they had grown out of: “The children we were talking to were aged 7 to 11, whereas the right age for having a Barbie seems now to be 4, even though Barbie doesn’t exactly look like it is aimed at four-year-olds.”
Bratz dolls, which have recently surpassed Barbie in sales, were featured in a February 2006 essay in Time magazine. For my take on the two genres, see "Barbie Come Home, All is Forgiven." What has been your experience?
--Rahima Baldwin Dancy
