Crazy as this might sound, 10 years ago I honestly thought Barbie was tottering on her tiptoes, ready for a well-earned retirement. A few years earlier, my book, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, had energetically questioned why we not only assumed it was natural that girls would love dolls but also why we expected girls to turn themselves into pretty objects in turn.
My questions coincided with growing unease in society with the way the apparently innocuous doll contributed to harsh stereotypes for girls. Barbie made girls less ambitious, psychologists said, or more prone to eating disorders. Sales began to slide; “Barbie slump”, the headlines had it in 2016, or “Barbie out of fashion”.
