Every woman, in their childhood,
owned at least one Barbie doll (If you try and say you didn’t then you’re lying
haha). She could be whatever our imagination wanted her to become. A mom. A
sister. A superhero. For me, she was my best friend that would keep me company.
I have two older brothers that tended to only hang out with each other, and I
would be left to my own devices, when we were younger. It was uncool to be seen
with your little sister, apparently (still hasn’t changed). Barbie was the
friend that would always be there for me. When my family life started to go
downhill, I would hold her to my chest and stroke her long blonde hair, as my
parents’ arguments became more common and violent. If I had her, I knew everything would be
okay. I never saw her as someone that I needed to look like.
That being said, when I first saw a
picture of Valeria Lukyanova, you can guess that I was shocked.
I was positive that the image was
an over edited picture of a girl wanting to see what she would look like with
the measurements of my childhood friend (my dolls name was Sophie). Too my
disbelief, the person in the photo is a 21-year old woman that claims to be
100% natural. No Plastic surgeries or photo shopping. In my opinion, she can
claim whatever she wants. That’s not natural. It’s her Barbie like appearance
that has made her one of the most famous women on the internet, in Russia.
Valeria is a prime example of
societal expectations of what is considered beautiful. She was probably one of
the little girls that envisioned herself as her actual doll. In her head,
perfect were the abnormally thin waist and the out of proportion boobs that her
Barbie had. This is just another example of how what we grow up seeing can
influence how we interpret ourselves. Our body image.
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