How 'Barbie' Is Helping Us Reclaim Our Femininity
Make it pink and make it pink quickly.
Ever since news of the Barbie movie broke, it seems as though the world has been cast in a hot pink haze and we’ve all decided to wear heart-shaped, rose-colored glasses.
While one might think it odd that a movie about the Mattel doll has caused such a frenzy in grown women in particular, the film holds a deeper meaning. Living in a red-pilled, post Roe v. Wade world, a movie purely designed for the female gaze is the refreshing sip of pink lemonade we all need. In a day and age where disgruntled men feel bold enough to suggest that a bikini picture of a woman qualifies as “fatherless behavior,” a movie dedicated to all things girly, glittering and pink provides a visual ode to and reclamation of femininity.
View this post on Instagram
For far too long, anything and everything associated with femininity has been thought of as inferior. The so-called fairer sex has a storied status as second-class citizens with all remotely femme-aligned interests regarded as trivial. Fashion, beauty and the color pink are all seen as frivolous, according to the patriarchy. If men dare to wear the objectively aesthetically pleasing color, they are labeled as effeminate or gay with a derogatory side eye.
As vintage fashion expert and Christies’ specialist Paige Rubin can attest, pink wasn’t always associated with women. She shares, “At the turn of the century in the 1910s, more people would dress baby boys in pinks than girls. Pink first became a symbol of womanhood when First Lady Mamie Eisenhower wore this gorgeous, pink dress and ever since, people started to think of pink as this really feminine color.”
She continues, “At the start of World War II, they needed a way to separate genders again because women had entered the work force while men were at war and wanted to put women back in their place. Subsequently, there was a wave of pink products — from kitchen appliances to dresses. Making pink a symbol of femininity allowed for that gender-based inferiority to be brought back into the cultural context. That’s where the root of our modern conception of the color as a super feminine shade stems from.”
Barbie is a role model because she can flex her intellect as a scientist, surgeon or President — all while wearing her signature shade of hot pink.
Although the rosy hue is experiencing a resurgence, society at large still tends to infantilize and belittle femininity. Self-proclaimed girly girls have to endure double standards as while they may conveniently adhere to conventional beauty standards, they are degraded as bimbos or airheads for their interest in seemingly superficial matters, despite the fact that we all wear clothes and must groom ourselves. Barbie‘s timely premiere allows so many of us to indulge in the girlhood we were too ashamed to enjoy. Seeing the doll brought to life is undoubtedly healing our collective inner child.
And yet, Barbie still does not get the respect she deserves.
View this post on Instagram
Fashion writer Damien Woolnough blasted Margot Robbie‘s outfits as “unintelligent,” expressing that he wished her press wardrobe had better portrayed Barbie as a role model rather than showing that “there’s more inside [her] head than the faint scent of plastic.” He claims that it “reinforces stereotypes” and that it is “difficult to detect any attempts at irony through the layers of pink.” What Woolnough fails to realize is that Barbie is a role model because she can flex her intellect as a scientist, surgeon or President — all while wearing her signature shade of hot pink.
It is deeply misogynistic to imply that dressing in a highly feminine way is unintelligent as it perpetuates the idea that only menswear and by proxy, men’s interests, can be considered serious.
Barbie is known as the doll that can do it all. Always well-dressed, the blonde beauty has an enviable resume, including stints as a lawyer and doctor. The doll has even flown to the moon as an astronaut, four years before Neil Armstrong. In some aspects, the perpetually high-heeled figure has been scapegoated as an emblem of antiquated gender roles and toxic body standards. However, one look at Barbie’s 200 career long LinkedIn page will tell you that she is the original boss babe, providing proof that women can do anything. Many ignore the fact that Barbie was, in fact, created by a women as Ruth Handler crafted the toy after noticing that her daughter preferred adult dolls over baby dolls. She saw that girls wanted to be more than just mothers. Barbie was originally designed as a role model for young women and has become just that as more and more inclusive toys are added to the Mattel family. As Rubin states, “Barbie is an example of the reclamation of pink as her color isn’t a meek pastel, but a hot fuchsia shade that speaks to our current subversion of gender hierarchies.
It is deeply misogynistic to imply that dressing in a highly feminine way is unintelligent as it perpetuates the idea that only menswear and by proxy, men’s interests, can be considered serious.
One thing is clear from Barbie’s press tour, Margot Robbie’s stylist, Andrew Mukamal, deserves his own Oscar. The Australian actor has not missed a single step as she donned custom designer looks to match the doll’s exact outfits as well as iconic runway ensembles. Barbie’s spirit entered Robbie as she rolled out the vintage bubblegum-tinted Versace chainmail dress –the exact one worn by supermodel Claudia Schiffer in 1994. Mukamal revealed his magnum opus as he recreated Barbie’s 1959 black and white swimsuit, putting Robbie in a striped Hervé Léger dress. Robbie has completely transformed herself into Barbie as the dedicated actor committed to the bit even in the airport, rocking a vintage tweed Chanel jacket.
View this post on Instagram
Robbie understands the assignment. So many of Barbie’s fans were robbed of their childhood because men like Woolnough led us to believe that in order to be taken seriously, we needed to water ourselves down in order to be deemed “professional” by their standards — aka boring. We’ve adopted a “make it pink and make it pink quickly” mindset for the sole purpose of giving our inner teen girls the pure pleasure of being unapologetically feminine.
To suggest that a woman cannot be brilliant and a well-rounded role model because she wears a pink dress is, to put it succinctly, stupid.
