by Rachel Howells

Created on: July 01, 2010

Those ever maligned feminists warned it would happen. They said little girls were given a psychologically damaging message when Barbie was in the dollhouse. No human female could carry those proportions and still be alive or at least walking upright on tippy toes while maintaining that serene smile.

Little girls who grew up playing with Barbie would be left feeling inadequate and unworthy in the shadow of her absurdly perfect image. Any manner of dysfunction or risky behavior would ensue, from eating disorders to invasive cosmetic surgeries, depression, body dysmorphic syndrome and believe it or not, ultimate demise.

Others argued that Barbie fear was nothing more than the fanatical rhetoric of feminism. Barbie was simply a harmless piece of plastic that little girls loved to play with. However, it turns out plastic is not as innocuous as was once believed and neither apparently is Barbie.

Finally, Heidi Montag, and her 10 plastic surgeries in one day, represents a certain bittersweet vindication for hardcore Barbie haters everywhere. Montag is even quoted as saying that she underwent multiple cosmetic surgeries because she wanted to look like Barbie. Barbie is the ideal woman, and Montag has come as close as any human being has to transforming herself into a living version of the doll. Nearly her entire body has been in some way "barbified" or plasticized, perhaps even her brain.

But is the desire to be Barbie, Barbie's fault? If so, then maybe Barbie really is inappropriate for little girls. On the other hand, nothing in human experience exists within a vacuum and Barbie is no exception. If Barbie is inappropriate, then the society in which she resides must also be inappropriate. In reality, though, Barbie in and of herself is no more inappropriate for little girls than a stick or any other inanimate object is for little boys.

It is when a society promotes violence and sexuality to its youngest members, inadvertently or otherwise, that sticks and dolls become a problem. A society that glorifies violence, for example, may find its sweet little boys first using sticks as pretend guns before graduating onto lifelike video game reenactments of violence, and then finally real-life acts of brutality.

In addition to this romanticized view of violence, Barbie and the little girls who play with her live in a social atmosphere that is obsessed with body image, especially female body image. Enhanced sexuality and impossible physical perfection is promoted alongside

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