Of delicate darlings and Barbie dolls

Last fortnight, Barbie, the famous doll, moved away from its most popular, stereotypical, slim-blonde form as three different avatars — petite, tall and curvy — hit markets worldwide. Through the launch of these models, Mattel is making a desperate move to reverse the drop in Barbie sales and revive its sagging bottomline. The curvy one with wider hips, fuller face, protruding tummy, larger feet, plump thighs and calves, and dark hair makes the most definitive statement. This comes after decades of criticism aimed at Barbie’s waif-like form — it is estimated that if Barbie were real, her 110 lb or less than 50 kg weight for a height of 5’9” were standards impossible for most women to achieve.

In the last few years, sales of the doll, which is sold in 150 countries, have fallen. Time magazine, which featured her on its February 8 cover, reported the brand does a whopping $1 billion in sales, and about 92 per cent of American girls in the age group 3 to 12 years have owned a Barbie, priced at an affordable $10. Of course, 56 years ago when it first hit the market, its price tag was $3. But over the decades, women, specially mommies, have frowned at Barbie’s slim form and Caucasian features, including her blond hair. Of course, Mattel has introduced diverse skin colours and hair textures, but generally the stereotype was of a slim waist and an ample bosom. Competition from other dolls led to sales dropping by 20 per cent between 2012 and 2014.

In 2014-15, with Kim Kardashian flashing her uncovered ample derriere on the cover of Paper magazine, and women across the world refusing to starve in order to have a stick-like form, Barbie-makers had no choice but to give her a makeover.

Of course, critical gender issues are much more than just about body forms, despite synthetic dolls and beauty myths perpetrated by the multi-billion dollar beauty industry pressuring women to look “beautiful”, “glamorous”, and of course slim.

That’s why across India, thousands of women would have chuckled if they had caught a glimpse of the new and first female chief of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Archana Ramasundaram, when she told a TV channel interviewing her on the difficulties women face in the police force: “The police is no place for delicate darlings.” So the Barbies are certainly out! She raised quite a few pertinent points in the spate of interviews that followed her appointment as the first female chief of this border security or paramilitary force. An IPS officer of the 1980 batch, she was the only woman in her batch. Of course being a woman IPS officer in a police force with less than 10 per cent female officers, was definitely a challenge at various phases in her career.

But at this stage in her career, should gender matter is the moot question. (She would have become the first woman CBI director but for the Tamil Nadu government taking her to court, charging that she took up the post of additional director in the CBI without relieving orders from Tamil Nadu.

This resulted in her having no work while in the CBI, and a transfer.) “It shouldn’t but it does,” she says, pointing out that her batchmate and predecessor at the SSB, BD Sharma, had got the post three years earlier. But her getting the post three years later became a big deal because she was a woman!

Perfect reasoning. And yet, heading an armed border force is considered a macho thing, and we are conditioned to think that a male officer is the fittest for the job. But women are breaking all barriers… in the police, the armed forces, scientific institutions.

More than sheer muscle power, policing the border requires agility, planning, manoeuvring, strategising and co-ordination with different agencies, including politicians. This is no bull fight or jallikattu, if you like.

So why apply ghisa pita gender stereotypes when women bag such positions? After all, Archana has in her bag of credits impressive achievements such as cracking the infamous Telgi fake stamps racket, which was handed over to the CBI by the Karnataka police in 2004. At that time, as joint CBI chief, she headed the team that investigated and concluded the case. And, as she has said in many of her interviews, she comes from a middle class family and has worked her way up.

So, for a change, let’s come out with more meaningful dolls for our little girls… different from those smooth, fair and eyelash-blinking figures… a police officer, a scientist, an astronaut, and in all skin tones, including dark and dusky.

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