Stories for April 1, 1998: Admissions Numbers Disappoint Clark Kerr: Higher Education in Perspective There's Something New Under the Sun at Cal Day '98 Deconstructing the Barbie Myth Selection Process Nears Completion For Regents' Chancellor's Scholars Notes on Barbie History Goes Digital at the Hearst Museum Code Blue Stations Go Online It Pays to Exercise Happy 100th Birthday to Campus Plan Community Relations Projects Benefit Both City and Campus Acknowledging Public Health Heroes A Micro Laser Is on the Horizon Food on the Run Around the Globe New Titles in Order for Christ, Hyatt Fast Facts are Foremost as "Jeopardy!" Comes to Campus Mukansinga Aids Rwandan Survivors Student Callers are Stars in Telephone Fund Raising ASUC, University Agree on bookstore		Deconstructing the Barbie Myth posted Apr. 1, 1998 About 20 students attended last month’s “Barbies We’d Like to See” conference hosted by Berkeley’s Women’s Resource Center. Students were invited to bring their own Barbies reconstructed to fit a more accurate image of women. According to Women’s Resource Center staff members, if Barbie were human, her doll proportions would translate into a woman 5 feet 6 inches tall, 110 pounds, with a 39-inch bust, an 18-inch waist and 33- inch hips. Guest speaker Alicia Brown of San Francisco State University suggested that reconstructed Barbies help people combat the need to fit a Barbie image.“Barbie is a myth, you can never be her,” said Brown. ”Subversive Barbies make us question the beauty myth.” Other subversive Barbies present at the conference included GI Jane (GI Joe in a Barbie dress), new age pharmacy Barbie, nuclear lab Barbie, chemist Barbie, astronaut Barbie, doctor Barbie and Wonderbra Barbie. [ Back to top ]

			Copyright 1998, The Regents of the University of California. Produced and maintained by the Office of Public Affairs at UC Berkeley. Comments? E-mail berkeleyan@pa.urel.berkeley.edu.