Over the years, your support has made Women’s Web the leading resource for women in India. Now, it is our turn to ask, how can we make this even more useful for you? Please take our short 5 minute questionnaire – your feedback is important to us!
In this short post, a mother reflects on why the Barbie doll cannot impact on her daughter anymore!
I used to be scared of Barbie.
Then I became a mommy to the most wonderful, impressionable and sensitive little girl. She is seven now and loves to play with dolls. Barbie with her hyper-sexualized body parts and emphasis on appearance, was making me highly uncomfortable. She represents the trap of ideas that a woman is only of use if she is pretty.
Until I grew up. Until I looked at how my daughter looks up to me . Until I realized that I have the edge here, because I am and always will be her primary role model. I will be the operating system she will download and the point of reference she will always internalize.
Barbie doesn’t stand a chance because with this in mind, I try.
I have run two half marathons in two years. I am a physician and I regularly bring my daughter to my hospital to show her where and why Mom occasionally gets delayed. I write and I have even started my own website . My home is an equal opportunities area – my husband is a wonderful partner to me (who plays badminton and occasionally quills with his daughter). My daughter and I bake, walk and most importantly, talk about everything . She knew what a period was at the age of 3 and she is very comfortable with (and proud) of the fact that she was breast fed until 5 years of age.
Most importantly, though, I am raising her to be the best version of herself – she has no need to be a wife or a mother unless she chooses to.
Barbie can’t hold a candle to me, because in everyday life I try very hard to impress on my seven year old the value and joy of being authentic and creative. With no room for the preening and primping and passivity that this foreign doll implies.
And with that reflection I am okay with my daughter bringing home this doll .
Because Barbie, you don’t scare me anymore!
Barbie dolls image courtesy Shutterstock
Megha is a physician , a mother and an avid gardener. She did a course in Mindfulness Meditation in 2009 and has applied those principles to transform the way she lives and works .She is convinced read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
He said that he needed sometime to himself. I waited for him as any other woman would have done, and I gave him his space, I didn't want to be the clingy one.
Trigger Warning: This deals with mental trauma and depression, and may be triggering for survivors.
I am someone who believes in honesty and trust, I trust people easily and I think most of the times this habit of mine turns into bane.
This is a story of how a matrimonial website service turned into a nightmare for me, already traumatized by the two relationships I’ve had. It’s a story for every woman who lives her life on the principles of honesty and trust.
And when she enters the bedroom, she sees her husband's towel lying on the bed, his underwear thrown about in their bathroom. She rolls her eyes, sighs and picks it up to put in the laundry bag.
Vasudha, age 28 – is an excellent dancer, writer, podcaster and a mandala artist. She is talented young woman, a go getter and wouldn’t bat an eyelid if she had to try anything new. She would go head on with it. Everyone knew Vasudha as this cheerful and pretty young lady.
Except when marriage changed everything she knew. Since she was always outdoors, whether for office or for travelling for her dance shows, Vasudha didn’t know how to cook well.
Going by her in-laws definition of cooking – she had to know how to cook any dishes they mentioned. Till then Vasudha didn’t know that learning to cook was similar to getting an educational qualification. As soon as she entered the household after her engagement, nobody was interested what she excelled at, everybody wanted to know – what dishes she knew how to cook.