By John Garcia

March 8, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s finally happening. After years of complaining and mothers going mad with rage, our beloved Barbie doll, which Mattel first put on the shelf 50 years ago on March 9, may become banned in parts of the U.S.

I know. They’ve got to be joking, right? Nope.

Democratic Delegate Jeff Eldridge proposed a bill in West Virginia that would ban the sale of Barbie and other dolls like it.

“I just hate the image that we give to our kids that if you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful and you don’t have to be smart,” Eldridge said.

This is a valid statement, but is banning Barbie going to do the trick.

Eldridge claims that Barbie is beautiful, but not smart. This isn’t necessarily true.

The occupations of Barbie could fill countless books and numerous web pages without even scratching the surface. To state the obvious, Barbie is a genius. Just to name a few job titles Barbie has held throughout the years, Barbie is a teacher, a surgeon, a U.S. Navy Officer, an astronaut and the President of the United States. How’s that for a resumé?

One of the more diverse jobs Barbie had came in 1997 when she became a paleontologist. In May of that year, my little sister received this doll for her birthday. Now, at 17, my little sister is planning on being a paleontologist when she reaches adulthood. Coincidence? I think not.

Despite what Barbie’s IQ actually is, the issue of her voluptuous body is still at hand. Many of her critics claim that she promotes an unrealistic self-image.

This may be true, but Barbie is also made out of plastic and has no genitalia (believe me, I’ve checked), so it’s expected that for people to be like her is unrealistic.

But if Barbie is going to be banned for promoting a poor self-image, then every magazine, every cable channel, watching/listening to Paris Hilton and looking at billboards should be banned as well.

Look, Barbie’s just a doll, but the women we see in ads are real people who have been morphed with the powers of Photoshop to look better than what is physically possible. Parts of these girls may be plastic, but they weren’t built in a factory and being starved models is their only occupation.

The underlying issue in the “Barbie Ban” bill is respectable, but if it is passed then this new law will in no way help what Eldridge and others like him are trying to accomplish.

When Barbie was first introduced in 1959, women were still expected to be household maids and to look pretty for their husbands.

But now in our modern times, women and men are equal. Women and men can hold the same job titles and demand an equal amount of respect from each other.

Has anyone ever thought that maybe it was Doctor Barbie who inspired some of the women who grew up to be doctors? Perhaps it was Professor Barbie who planted the teaching seed in your English professor. Believe me, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Just ask my little sister.

I’m not saying that Barbie is responsible for our equal rights, but throughout the years she’s probably helped more than anything.

Despite the claims, Barbie isn’t the one who is causing our children to seek something unrealistic. If anything, it’s the media.

But with all the problems going on in the world, at least our government is focusing on something of the utmost importance.