This week Mattel revealed a Barbie doll based on Sarah Gilbert, whom the toy company has honoured as a Barbie Role Model for her work as project leader on the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine that is now used all over the world.
It is hoped that the doll will inspire girls to get into science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) careers and, presumably, aspire to an unattainable body shape that is 2ft taller than the average woman with a neck 3in longer, breasts 4in larger and a waist that is 6in smaller. As one parent of a young girl put it: “Even if my daughter doesn’t become a scientist — let’s face it, the odds are stacked against her — at least she’ll come away with the right body image issues. You’re never too young to learn that you probably shouldn’t bother to achieve anything when your body is every shade of wrong. Yet if she can master how to hang tiny clothes on tiny hangers, that is certainly a skill for life.”
Barbie does exert a terrifying power, as did Sindy. (Where is Sindy? Has anyone heard from Sindy?) When Slave Niece was young she was obsessed by Barbie and when I said I couldn’t play any more because, frankly, the plots were all over the place and, anyway, Barbie is very boring, she looked me sternly and said: “Barbie is never boring.”
One prays, of course, that the Barbie that is Sarah Gilbert doesn’t have to endure a marriage that involves lots of head collisions with Ken — what’s the actual plot here, are they getting divorced or is this just a tiff? — and doesn’t eventually end up naked and spreadeagled with her head screwed off. Or buried in a shallow shoebox grave. It was a small funeral, but moving, I thought.
Some would say that Mattel is simply appeasing the zeitgeist to ultimately sell more dolls and that girls would be more encouraged into science by books, bug catchers and chemistry sets even if they would lose out on mastering how to hang tiny clothes on tiny hangers as well as other life skills, such as how to have nothing behind the eyes. Or how to have matted hair with a comb stuck in it. Or how to have a boyfriend who is handsome and strong, but has no scrotum. (“My daughter is now ready for any man who is handsome and strong, but has no scrotum,” one mother says. “I can’t wait to meet him. I hope he can overlook her squat neck.”)
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You do wonder if other Barbies are in the pipeline and whether some of them may actually prepare girls for what probably lies ahead, like Passed Over for Promotion for the Fourth Time Barbie, or Glass Ceiling Barbie, or Pay Gap Barbie, or How to Make Proposals That Your Boss Will Take the Credit for Barbie, or Poor Old Mansplained to Barbie, who finds herself trapped in a hi-fi repair shop for four hours when she just wants a speaker rewired. If Barbie has one of those strings that you can pull to make her speak, then Poor Old Mansplained to Barbie may well say: “Just wire the bloody thing and let me get out of here. Jesus!”
Meanwhile, the Barbie that is Sarah Gilbert isn’t, I have just realised, actually for sale. It’s “commemorative”. This could make you think that the doll is purely an empty, cynical gesture, just headline-grabbing nonsense, and it’s business as usual.
As it stands, there doesn’t seem to be any plan for, say, a CEO Barbie, but as the CEO of Mattel, Ynon Kreiz, has said: ‘‘This doesn’t mean girls can’t be whatever they want to be.” He added that he has the full backing of the board on this, to include Richard Dickson (the president and chief operating officer), Jonathan Anschell (the executive vice-president) and Anthony DiSilvestro (the chief financial officer). “There is nothing standing in any girl’s way,” he added. “Now, if you don’t mind, we have to get on with where it’s truly at, which is Hot Wheels.”
Tom Daley gave me the needle
The one doll I would most like to see is the Tom Daley Olympic Champion Doll, with knitting bag and crochet hook. Have you seen his knitting and crocheting page on Instagram? Have you? What, even, are you doing reading this when you could be looking at that? Because you didn’t think you could adore him more? Well, let me tell you: you are plain wrong.
The Tom Daley Olympic Champion Doll (with knitting bag and also crochet hook) would, I think, be suitable for all genders and all sexual identities because he is such an inspiration, full stop. As it is, I’ve taken up diving quite seriously. Only kidding. But he has inspired me to take up knitting again.
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My mother taught me how to knit when I was a child. My mother knitted all the time. When I left home it was weird not having the click-click-click of knitting needles always in the background, particularly when watching TV. She knitted her way through The Forsyte Saga, The Pallisers, Poldark (the first iteration), Ask the Family, Softly, Softly . . . It was always there, this click-click-click-click. I don’t think she put her needles down for anything, not even if Ask the Family got properly tense. It was jumpers mostly, and no one got away with it. I remember even our milkman going off with a jumper at some point.
So I’m back knitting, and the muscle memory is still there, amazingly. I’m just practising at the moment but will soon build up to something exciting, like a scarf. So thank you, Tom, and if there is a doll, here is my promise to you: I will curate your teeny-tiny Speedos with absolute care.
