Quote of the week: Sarah Haskins

“Barbie. Happy 50th [birthday]. You haven’t had it easy, serving as both the template for idealized female beauty and a lightning rod for controversy.  How did I—the daughter of a feminist and working woman, myself a future feminist and a generally liberal, Prius-driving recycling lady—play with my Barbie? I took off her clothes and sent her looking for love. My Barbie got around. One day it was He-Man behind the sofa. She got it on with Ken from Sears and spurned him for Derek. And it wasn’t just me. To walk into the bedroom of any of my Barbie-owning friends was to face a sordid truth. ‘You want to play with Barbie?’ she would ask innocently and gesture. Off in the corner—a bucket of large-breasted, pantless women. We treated you exactly as we didn’t want to be treated, breaking and defiling the Golden Rule with your every after-school roll in the sofa cushions.”

Sarah Haskins in The Washington Post