Today “Barbie’s Dreamhouse” opens in Berlin, Germany. Yes it’s that Barbie. Barbie doll Barbie made
by Mattel since 1959. The Barbie dolls your
sisters and your mother’s played with. The Barbie your daughters and granddaughters,
play with. It is that Barbie whose boyfriend
was Ken.
The Berlin Dreamhouse is a 27,000 square foot
portable mansion.
Apparently left-wing feminists
(mern and women) are going crazy over Barbie’s Dreamhouse, protesting its existence, The following
information is from:
Culminating weeks of criticism, feminist groups plan to
demonstrate outside the giant pink mansion to call attention to what they say
is a sexist role model that embodies the "pinkification" of
childrens' toys. It certainly won't be the first time that the blonde, anatomically
impossible doll has drawn the ire of gender rights activists, but something
about the attempt to make the fantasy into an actual "experience," as
the Barbie Dreamhouse organizers call it, seems to have hit a nerve.
Coverage of the attraction -- which features an
"endless" closet, cupcake baking kitchen, fashion runway and pop-star
karaoke stage -- have been decidedly less flattering than the Barbie outfits on
display there. "Glitz, Glamour, Ghastliness," read a Wednesday headline
in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, which went on to describe it as a
"horror house" where the overwhelming prevalence of pink actually
puts visitors in a foul mood. "It is exactly as the harshest critics
predicted -- a pink-colored, sparkling world of beautiful illusion. A
superficial nightmare in pastel," the paper said. The dollhouse for humans
is a "Hell in Rose Pink," a headline in daily Süddeutsche Zeitung
said last week.
The group says its protests aren't targeted at parents who bring their children to the Dreamhouse, nor the children who enjoy playing with Barbie dolls, the group says. "Our protest is directed against the perception of women that is being propagated by the Barbie Dreamhouse in Berlin, and against the exhibition of the social conditions that it represents, namely that the role of a woman is to always look good, and to cook and clean."
The youth chapter of the environmentalist Green Party on
Wednesday also encouraged anti-Barbie protesters to come out for the opening,
releasing a statement that called for the doll to be banned, saying she not
only undermines gender equality, but also "projects sexist roles and leads
to eating disorders."
Located near Alexanderplatz, a main shopping hub in central
Berlin, the 2,500-square-meter Barbie Dreamhouse Experience will charge €15 for
adults and €12 for children ($19 and $15, respectively), and remain open until
Aug. 25, when it will move on to other European cities. Dreamhouse creator
Koschitzki, a father of two young girls, told SPIEGEL last month the attraction
was "just about having fun," and called the protests "totally
unnecessary."
Mattel, the US toymaker that has been producing Barbie dolls
since 1959 and issued a license for the project in Berlin, has likely become
accustomed to criticism of what the doll is perceived to represent. Indeed,
"Barbie has again become a tool for some to advance their own
agenda," a spokesperson for the company's German unit told news agency
AFP.
My Take On Barbie Dreamhouse
Protesters
So
we have protesters who don’t like the Barbie lifestyle. We have protesters who
don’t want a pinkifcation of toys since its stands only for being cute and
sweet and who could possibility be in favor of sweet and cute. Ruthless and ugly would be so much better don’t
you think. We also have the Green Party
claiming Barbie and the Barbie Dreamhouse "projects sexist roles and leads
to eating disorders."
These protesters could protest the
oppression of Muslim women prevented from getting educated or stoned to death
for some transgression. Or they could
protest the recent rapes of young women in India. They could protest female genital mutilation
which is practiced mainly in
28 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, particularly Egypt
and Ethiopia, and in parts of Asia and the Middle East. They could protest the plainting of land mines. They could protest hundreds of
issues but they have dedicated themselves to protesting Barbie’s Dreamhouse.
I am not
certain this is a cause I would donate to or take time off work for. Although, I have blogged before about women protesting
something by going topless, see http://www.bheadman.com/2012/01/topless-protest.html
I encourage all women protesting the Barbie Dreamhouse to
remove their blouses and bras and protest topless. If they agree to this, I
will be right there with them on the front line of the protest.
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