30 Barbies and 1 Ken? (30 Rock)

**LOL I'm referencing Emma's anecdote to fit this post title with my Netflix show for

the week (30 Rock)**

thumbs up for all the gifs/images in this blog

It's a standard so common, so glaringly prevalent, that we've begun to be blind to it... the beauty standards set by the idealized image of the "perfect woman," ones that will never be realistically attainable (unless, of course, like the "real life Ken," you plan on spending $371,795 on 340 procedures). While the girls themselves may outgrow the Barbies, the stigmas that will follow them throughout adulthood in the forms of Instagram models, advertisements, and "one size fits all" labels that don't, in fact, fit all, remain.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a 00 pant size haven't spontaneously arisen alongside commercialization, though.  Let's not forget that the "ideal" race in Nazi Germany was Aryan-- signifying that these beauty standards present today have been years in the making, subliminally reinforcing the idea that beauty is clear-cut.  If you don't look a certain way, dress a certain way, or act a certain way, you'll never be accepted by society as worthy, and you'll never find love (because, of course, that's the only goal that women can hold in their pretty little minds).  As Prager put it, "a thirty-nine-inch bust and a twenty-three-inch waist are the epitome of lovability" (354).  Perhaps the innate desire to match these beauty standards are what drove Americans to get 15.9 million cosmetic procedures in 2015 alone, leaving many to become literally plastic.  After all, there are only so many Kens in the world, and how else are women supposed to even compete for a man's attention if they don't look like over-sexualized Barbies and allow themselves to be objectified?

Even the basic anatomy of the Ken doll offers some bleak insight on how society views gender roles: while Barbie's genitalia are unmistakably there, Ken's aren't, suggesting that "somehow his equipment, his essential maleness, was considered more powerful than hers, more worthy of the dignity of concealment" (Prager 355).  Even as the girls themselves grow out of playing with Barbies, the ideals of what are considered as desirable, placed within their minds once upon a time, only expand with time.  The rhetoric offered by images in the media today only reinforce the distorted views of women; plastic surgery, Photoshop, and social media outlets for women to compare themselves with each other all leave a pink elephant in the room:  who did it better?  Perhaps this is where the stereotype of women being petty stems from, as they feel constantly pressured to be "better" than everyone else.  How will they do this?  Society has taught us that unless women wish to be seen as old-timey, Jesus-loving puritans, they should steer clear of modesty.  Maybe if they just show a little more skin, maybe if they buy that push-up bra, they'll finally have the same amount of "likes" as the Kate Uptons and Kim Kardasians of the world, because isn't that, like, totally the dream? 

these are real people...... 

There's a double-edged sword here, though.  If you don't conform to Barbie standards, you're a tightly-wound prude, but if you do, you might as well be carrying around a "24/7 always open" neon light-up sign.  Rape culture is developed; women are all too often blamed for sexual assault simply because they were "wearing something too provocative".  It shouldn't matter what a person is wearing, how misleading she could have been, or how much alcohol was consumed on either end; all that should matter is that rape is wrong.  Nevertheless, rape culture is validated by the social norms that exist to confine women.  From a young age, it is taught that exposed collarbones or more than three inches of thigh is simply "slutty" behavior.  Instead of teaching young girls and boys how to label others, perhaps we should focus on teaching everyone not to objectify each other in the first place.

   

this is important

There's much to do to begin this change in perspective, after all, Rome wasn't built in a day... but where do we start?  Perhaps the place to look is the visual rhetoric in which advertisements associate selling a product with selling womens' bodies.  (For more you can check out this video on #WomenNotObjects)

Advertising literally holding a woman down with a label... what else is new?

because what's a burger without Heidi Klum?

Is this advertising a clothing brand or rape?

Yes, go by your neighborhood convenience store and pick yourself up a 

disposable, replaceable, woman! 

Don't be mistaken, these sexist advertisements aren't exactly a new development....

...revolutionary!

this is not okay

If we were to reverse the roles, the advertisements look absurd.  This absurdity has been there all along, but the blinders society put up when it comes to women are all that keep us from noticing the patriarchy; only when men are portrayed in these advertisements as the women are, do we see that something is not quite right.

It's a big feat, changing a viewpoint that is so deep-seated into our mindsets, a feat so large that some have already abandoned it.  But we can't expect that sitting around with the blinders on, hoping for change to just happen will yield real results.  Even if all we can do is talk, or notice, or know that the standards set by Barbies, Victoria's Secret models, and commercialization aren't definitive, we should be doing something to realize that beauty is only skin (or plastic) deep.