Our Barbie Ourselves

Summary of Our Barbie's, Ourselves

In "Our Barbie's, Ourselves" Emily Prager discover that Barbie was created by a man; inventor and designer Jack Ryan (para1). Emily Prager acknowledges that Barbie appeared about the same time during the feminist movement when women fought equality and small breast were king. Prager examines three different reasons why Barbie's anatomy is the way it is. First, she argues that there are millions of women who are subliminally sure that a thirty-nine inch bust and a twenty inch waist are the epitome of lovability, which attributes to the popularity of breast implant surgery (para3). Second, she questions if Mr. Ryan designed Barbie as a weapon? (para5). Third, she confirms that Barbie lacked certain softness, something indescribably masculine behind the breast and high heeled feet (para5). Finally, says Prager that Barbie was her own person which accounts for her vast popularity into free love and fun colors, anti class, and possessed a real, molded boyfriend, Ken, with whom she could chant a mantra (para6). Prager concludes that Barbie's boyfriend Ken had no genitals and Barbie had humongous breast and Ken could never make love, no matter how much sexuality Barbie possessed, she would never turn Ken on forever withholding, forever detached and wondering why Barbie's designed with such obvious sexual equipment and Ken not. She admits that she has always felt weird about Ken and sensed an injustice at work (para7). She concludes that there was loneliness about Barbie's situation that was always disturbing and twenty-five years later, movies, and video tapes are still filled with topless women and covered men. As if were all trapped in Barbie's world and can never escape.