Barbie Dolls and Your Career

03/21/2014

Experience teaches only the teachable.
Aldous Huxley

"An Oregon State researcher has found that girls who play with Barbie dolls see fewer career options for themselves than for boys," according to the college's website. One of the researchers involved in the study, Aurora Sherman, observed, "Playing with the Barbie has an effect on girls' ideas about their place in the world. It creates a limit on the sense of what's possible in the future. While it's not a massive effect, it is a measureable and statistically significant effect...."

"Childhood development is complex, and playing with one toy isn't likely to alter a child's career aspirations," Sherman noted. "But toys such as dolls or action figures can influence a child's ideas about their future.... For parents, the most important thing is to look at the child's toy box and make sure there is a wide variety of toys to play with."

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