A West Virginia lawmaker wants to legally ban Barbie in the state, citing the dolls’ negative influence on girls.
The creatively named Barbie Ban Bill proposes to ban sales of the doll (and presumably its accessories) in West Virginia, arguing that the dolls negatively influence young girls by putting more emphasis on physical beauty than their intellectual and emotional qualities.
“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,” Democratic Delegate Jeff Eldridge, who is pushing the bill, said.
The bill’s criticism of Mattel’s dolls isn’t exactly new – feminists and social critics have derided the messages of materialism and superficiality embodied in Barbie’s impossibly small waist and pencil-thin limbs for some time now. Considering how old this argument is, as well as the amount of dolls (like those damn Bratz toys) out there that arguably perpetuate even worse values, it’s a bit odd that West Virginia would suddenly want to get up in arms about Barbie. Eldrige himself seems to be aware of how silly this all is.
“I knew a lot of people were going to joke about it and poke fun at me,” he admitted. “I couldn’t get anybody to sign on the bill with me but I said I’m still going to introduce it.”
Yeesh, he must really hate Barbie. Well, at least he’s trying to ban dolls and not videogames. Nobody show him a Dead or Alive game or he’ll try to get that banned too.
[Source: MSNBC]
