Robert Fulford: Mattel thinks hijab Barbie is cute and progressive. It’s not The hijab is more than a way of dressing. It’s a symbol that often stands for an array of social customs and regulations
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/robert-fulford-mattel-thinks-hijab-barbie-is-cute-and-progressive-its-not
In a burst of bogus feminism and commercial ambition, Mattel Inc., the global doll-maker, has announced that in 2018 it will market a Barbie doll wearing a hijab. Barbie dolls rarely impinge on political and social issues but this one is so unsettling that it evokes a wide range of responses.
We have to understand that Mattel likes to believe Barbie dolls positively influence the feelings of girls and help to point them toward the possibilities of adult life. That’s a self-justifying idea that runs through the company’s bloodstream. It suggests that Mattel serves a social purpose while selling its products.
After all, Barbies aren’t just princesses and wonder women. You can buy Barbies wearing practical clothing for offices, “chic summer suits” and camel-hair coats. This is Mattel’s bow to feminists who believe little girls should be discouraged from dwelling on fantasies of the future: they should learn, as soon as possible, the truth about what they are likely to become.
For girls with higher aspirations, you can get Barbies clothed in a cocktail dress, a classic black dress, or an Oscar de la Renta ball gown. One Barbie has a Hudson’s Bay jacket and another displays an Andy Warhol painting on the front of her dress.
Attached to the news about the hijab Barbie is a line from Mattel about “Continuing to inspire girls to be anything.” Girls are to become whatever their desires and talents can make them. Elsewhere, such as in admiring quotations from Glamour magazine in the Mattel publicity, the same idea appears.
Mattel fashioned their hijab Barbie after a real young woman, Ibtihaj Muhammad, a New Jersey-born athlete whose Muslim parents steered her toward fencing because it would allow her to be fully covered. She joined her high-school fencing team at age 13, and became Junior Olympic Champion while at university. Among fencers she ranks No. 2 in the U.S. and No. 8 in the world. At the 2016 Olympics she won a bronze medal while becoming noticeable as the first American to compete wearing a hijab. In the midst of arguments about Muslim immigrants she became, the Guardian said, “one of the best symbols against intolerance America can ever have.”
She’s collaborating with Mattel and has seen her Barbie replica, looking like her right down to the fencing uniform and white hijab. “I’m so excited!” she exclaimed. She recalled playing with Barbie dolls and wishing one of them looked like her. She didn’t have Barbies that wore a headscarf, so she and her sisters would sew their own.
“Through playing with Barbie, I was able to imagine and dream about who I could become,” she said. “I love that my relationship with Barbie has come full circle, and now I have my own doll wearing a hijab that the next generation of girls can use to play out their own dreams.”
But Mattel doesn’t explain the crucial facts about places where hijab is required apparel.
In those countries, regions or neighbourhoods, the future for girls is narrowly circumscribed. As they grow from childhood to maturity they often find it hard to get an education, a job or a personal bank account. A woman realizes eventually that she’s not to be seen in public with an adult male, unless he’s her husband or a close relative. A girl’s husband may be chosen by her family. Women may have their own ambitions but the key choices in their lives are not theirs to make.
The gang at Mattel Inc. does not know (or want us to know) that the hijab is more than a way of dressing. It’s a necessary symbol that often stands for an array of social customs and regulations. Unlike others in the Barbie catalogue, it is not an outfit a woman can wear or not, according to her wishes.
With this product Mattel illustrates the unfortunately widespread American wish to learn as little as possible about Islam and Islamic societies while allowing ignorance to raise profits. Hijab Barbie may well open new markets in the Middle East.
The company’s mission statement says that, “At Mattel, unwavering integrity defines our corporate culture on every level, guiding how we work and how we do business.” Its intentions sound good but establishing a reputation for integrity requires more than a wish.
It also requires honesty and a strong sense of self-criticism.
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