Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 8:54PM Hey, look! It's my soapbox AND my high horse!
I did something a little unusual tonight. I left the house. As in, went somewhere that was not the grocery store, library, or restaurant (or, uh, a fabric store). UMKC and the Kansas City Public Library hosted a great lecture given by Courtney E. Martin about Barbie and her lack of impact on female body image. We took Justin's family to see the Barbie exhibit at the Kansas City Toy and Miniature Museum (I highly recommend it) a few weeks ago, and it appears to be Barbie month at UMKC.
I agreed with Courtney's stance - Barbie definitely didn't influence how I viewed women. Her hair was all staticky and she was always losing her shoes. I aspired to neither of those things. Courtney brought up the idea that girls actually work through the concepts of what it means to be a women by playing with their Barbie dolls - giving them careers, dramas, and basically acting out what they perceive to be femaleness.
My Barbies went to the pool. Always. They had no careers, they had no dramas. They went to the pool, I braided their hair, and then the dog chewed on their feet. But I wasn't one of those kids who wanted to grow up and be a princess or anything glamorous. I wanted to be a dog. (On the way to the lecture, I was wondering what my defining characteristic is. I think I just found it.) I'm not sure how I worked out my ideas of women, but I don't think it was with my Pound Puppies. My mother will surely chime in that I talked to myself - out loud and frequently - and made up stories for no one in particular. It has made for an interesting view of the world.
Anyway, I always wonder about the different types of feminists. Some people are Feminists with a capital F, like I'm a Knitter with a capital K. There are active feminists, militant feminists, quiet feminists. I fit into the I-love-being-a-woman feminist group. I'm thankful that woman in the generations before mine did the fighting and the struggling. I only have room in my life to be militant about a select few things (good bread, nice yarn, and naps.) I love doing all the things women were once supposed to do but now can do as a luxury - knitting, weaving, baking, growing my own vegetables. Reclaiming handcrafts and housework, to me, are the best way to express my own feminist beliefs. What are yours?
brain drain 
Reader Comments (3)
Bravo!
I never had a Barbie, although friends had Barbies and clothes and houses and swing sets and whatnot. If I'd had one, she would have been a bookworm loner, like me!
How do I express my feminism? I live. I choose. I do the things that nurture me - knitting, spinning, reading, writing. I ignore polemics (except those like yours, obviously, since you are a rational being). I banish judging on sexual orientation or gender issues from my head, I keep my own name as a married woman, I make no excuses for not having had children...
I'm (quite) old enough to have been part of the first wave, and it sickened me quickly. Underwear as politics? No no no. Equal pay, equal opportunity, equality in all personal and pollitical matters - these things matter. They still do.
Ok, now, I'll get off my own high horse!
kristin -
i actually came here to try to find you to tell you that you won my stacking ring giveaway... but then i got caught up in your beautiful blog and your barbie post! i was NOT a barbie girl. i loved lego much more than dolls! and i chose my career over almost everything when i grew up, eventually becoming the youngest manager at my organization.
and then... i had my baby. my daughter. and i find myself embracing everything that has to do with my new role and with being a wife. i KNOW i am not a feminist with a capital F, but i am a mommy with a capital M. does that count???? :)
xoxoxo cy
p.s. of course - you won my giveaway! let me know which ones you'd like!
muffintopdesigns@hotmail.com
Wow, look at me commenting months after the fact!
I am a Feminist with a capital F, evidenced by the fact that I have already informed Evan that I don't want any sexist language/Bible verses at my funeral. I love this piece that talks about what feminism is. I am grateful to those who came before us, but so much work is still left to do in terms of equality. And not that you asked, but I didn't really start identifying as a feminist until 18 or 19. I had a sociology prof who opened my eyes, and also the women's soccer team won the World Cup.
Oh, and my Barbies mainly played hair salon and picnic :) I even had a "working" sink for the hair salon playset.