It’s late August, and I’m sort of on vacation right now. It doesn’t feel like it.
Barbie Working Woman launched in 1999. She is a hard worker and a city girl just like yours truly. That is pretty much where all the similarities end. Barbie Working Woman can be purchased in two monoracial versions : Black or White. She likes to read emails. She has a consistent morning routine. Most importantly, she has a reversible wardrobe to easily transform between performances of corporate go-getter and 20-something, nightlife it-girl.
I had my very own Barbie Working Woman in the early aughts, and she came with a CD-ROM of an interactive game where you can follow her from home to work. Despite the efforts to teach youth about how cool it is to be a girl-boss, the Matel company failed to omit some pretty key information : Has Barbie Working Woman inherited generational wealth that contributes to her professional success? Was she able to become a homeowner before or after paying off her student debt? Does she put down other women in the office to claim space for herself? Does she pay her interns? Does she overuse “sorry” in her emails? How has she responded to the pandemic in the interest of protecting her staff’s job security and access to health insurance? How is Ken supporting her career goals when they’re not going out dancing together? Has her company also unrolled a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion plan since this summer’s uprisings? What has she done to either activate or dismantle the patriarchy in her workplace?
Reading :
Liz Barr, Body Works
Description : “Body Works considers the different ways we maintain and modify our bodies for the sake of either living up to or rejecting cultural standards. Which ways are visible, which are accessible, or necessary, or safe?”
This is a beautifully edited book and a quick read. It blends social media posts and artwork along with Barr’s personal writing when expanding upon definitions of body modification within and beyond the gender binary. You can purchase a copy on a sliding scale here.
Looking :
Some art about bodies at work in many forms: