I'm Not A Barbie Girl

I HAVE a special birthday this year and although I still can t do a handstand and I do have to mount operation cover-up once a month to hide my grey hair I can do various yoga postures that people half my age can t do and I don t seem to have too many w

I HAVE a special birthday this year and although I still can't do a handstand and I do have to mount 'operation cover-up' once a month to hide my grey hair I can do various yoga postures that people half my age can't do and I don't seem to have too many wrinkles (thanks mum).

But someone who is much better shape than I am is Barbie who celebrated her 50th birthday this week. Barbie Millicent Roberts was launched at a New York Toy Fair in 1959 and was named after Barbara Handler, the daughter of the woman who created the doll. Ruth Handler, presumably with her tongue placed firmly in her cheek, said at the launch, that Barbie represented a woman who has choices.

"Women who will one day make up the first major wave of women in management and professionals."

Hmmmm, not quite sure then why this apparently feisty, independent, career woman was dressed in a black and white swim suit and high heels, sporting an impossibly small waist which was out of proportion with her top half, and with a pout that Angelina Jolie would die for!

Hardly the look of woman destined for the board room.

I'm not sure if my parents were concerned with unrealistic body image issues but I had the much more wholesome Sindy doll who was eventually delisted in 1997 after losing out to Barbie. Something very familiar sounding about all of that!