Barbie Doll Publicist Has Sexist History

Ruth Handler created the original Barbie doll, also known as Barbara Millicent Roberts, in a striped bathing suit and launched her in March 1959. This was a revolutionary breakaway from the baby-faced dolls of the day. A new doll with adult characteristics and loved by millions. Now celebrating her 50th birthday, Barbie appears to have been publicized by a Yale-educated Jack Ryan, a 70’s swinger, but a man with a frenzied sexual appetite.

Ryan’s wives included such ravishing beauties as the spirited Zsa Zsa Gabor. Stephen Gnass, Ryan’s confidant and friend, said hearing Ryan speak about Barbie, was to think he was discussing some sort of sexual episode. Ryan is known to have entertained high-class call girls and held orgies at his mansion in Bel-air. Ryan is reported to have suffered from gonorrhea.

Barbie was portrayed, over the years, with what was meant to be seen as some kind of everyday opulent lifestyle. Even to splitting up with her boyfriend of many years, Ken Carson, in 2004. By February 2006 the happy ‘couple’ were reunited.

Over time Barbie has been the proud possessor of around forty pets which have included cats, dogs, horses, a panda, lion cub and even a zebra. She also had a variety of careers, including everything from a flight attendant, to holding a license to fly a plane. She has ranged from being a doctor to an astronaut. There is also an Islamic Barbie, called Fulla, alongside an Hispanic and African Barbie.

The term ‘Barbie’ in the late 1990’s, came to symbolize any female who is considered to be shallow and empty headed. Presumably this was a flow-on from the ‘blondes have all the fun’ syndrome of the 1980’s. Barbie with her unrealistic shaped body, was the cause of sharp criticism, with the very real threat of endorsing anorexia in young girls. According to a study by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, any girl with a Barbie-shaped body, would be unable to menstruate, being short of 17 – 22% necessary body fat. The Barbie mould was redesigned in 1997 and given a wider midrift. In 1997 there also came a friend of Barbie in a pink wheelchair.

Another study in 2005 showed that some girls can go through a ‘hate Barbie’ stage, in order to end their ‘Barbie Doll Days’. Barbie could end up being melted down in a microwave oven, or even beheaded. Yet, 90% of well over 100,000 passionate Barbie doll enthusiasts, are women over 40 years of age. On an average these women purchase over 20 Barbie dolls annually, with 45% of them spending around $1000 a year. A 1959 Barbie originally sold for just $3. That same Barbie, still wrapped in its mint-condition box, sold on eBay in October 2004 for $3552. The highest price ever recorded for a Barbie doll, was at Christies in London - nine thousand pounds sterling. This was a Midnight Red Barbie from 1965 and part of a private collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls being sold by two Dutch women, Ietje Raebel and her daughter Marina.

The creators of Barbie are reproducing the original 1959 Barbie to celebrate her 50th birthday.