Yes, because there is nothing more important in the Islamic world than controlling what women wear, think, read, see....and now, what little girl's play with.

Someone needs to update them (and Ms. Clark-Flory) as well, however. The last 5-6 years, Barbie has NOT been top-heavy. In a response to parent's demands, as well as a reflection of contemporary fashion, the Barbie's you remember from your youth -- big boobed, narrow hipped -- are entirely gone.

Currently manufactured Barbie's have smallish chests and rather wide, maternal looking hips. (For what it matters, they also have shorter necks and shorter legs, and occasionally, much larger feet.) Generally, they look sort of juvenile, which makes sense if you consider that the average age of a girl who plays with them is about four.

Why exactly, little Iranian girls can't play with Barbies dolls dressed up in head scarves or burkhas, I have no idea. I guess there is nothing remotely more important in the world, at a time when there is a war in Iraq and violence in Gaza, and this is what Iranians are concerned about?

Right on queue, Flory posts another story of misogyny in Iran. I guess there weren't any lacrosse players to be outraged over today.

Iran... A far away culture her audience knows little to nothing about and has little relevance to their lives. But, it's an easy target for pandering weather vanes like Flory, considering everybody in our disposable opinion culture agrees Iran is the new boogey man since "young girls" are now attending school in Afghanistan as Bush is fond of saying, and Iraq is no longer torturing people since we are.

But yeah, everyone, hyperventilate about Iran!

Let me help people get started:

"OMG! No Barbie in Iran!!!! It's the end of the world!! Nothing could be more important. Those pigs, denying girls a chance to play with the iconic American doll!!!"

Never mind she's probably made in China and I wouldn't be surprised if she's literally toxic. Never mind American faux-Feminists have been protesting and boycotting Barbie for decades, a quality they now share with Iranian wingnuts. Never mind we may be about to start bombing Iran, killing many real people.

"OMG!!!! No Barbie in Iran!!!!"

For one second, think me irregular proportion of Barbie pose danger and this make little bit sense because life-size Barbie for sure tip over. Unfortunate, read Svutlana word wrong.

For sure Barbie ban come soon. Or at least Barbie burqa.

Svutlana

...will, when adults aren't around, spend most of her time naked, or in an evening gown made from an old sock, having sex with other "Saras." And after a few years, she'll have ballpoint pen tattoos, a crew cut, and be missing key limbs.

Kids will be kids, whether in America or Iran, and a Barbie by any other name will still get treated like a Barbie.

Just out of curiosity I looked up some Barbie traditional proportions to see what the hysteria was all about.

Actually, contrary to many *outraged* feminist myths, Barbie has always been fairly close to proportional for a real woman and the differences are understandable considering she's a doll and made to wear clothes or ordinary fabric which is several times relatively thicker. So it would be as though a real sized person's clothes were entirely made of thick wool sweaters, even the pants. This is another example of idiots being outraged for decades over nothing.

Barbie's height is double her bust, with an average American woman's height being 65" (5'4") that translates to a 32.5" inch bust, and her breasts are of course rigid shaped plastic knubs, meaning in real life soft tissue would actually be smaller.

Barbie's inside leg is about 45% of her height, or 30". Which longish but not by much, and not at all considering the thick fabric of doll clothes and a desire to look correct clothed. Women generally have longer legs than men of the same height That's actually the proportions of some Western Europeans and some Africans. For example, a 6" (72") male typically has about a 32" inseam.

Barbie stands about 7 1/2 heads tall. Which is also the norm for classical proportions going back to the Classical Greece.

Barbie's waist, presuming a height of 65" (5'4") would be about 20', and her hips about 28" and also her arms are thin. But again, accounting for clothes several times too thick it makes sense, otherwise she would look overweight clothed just as a normal person will wearing several sweaters.

So, even classical Barbie was between a size 6 - 10 depending on thickness of clothes.

It's amazing people have been so outraged over such nonsense for so long.

It is actually revealing, the ayatollahs have figured out what is, in the longer run, the greatest threat to their regime: barbies, computer games, Harry Potter, movies... the article doesn't mention the other dangerous items: jeans, makeup, music videos, etc. Crap pop culture is a far greater threat to them than Bush's sabre rattling (and Hillary's incineration threats).

And how frightfully fairy tale: the thing causing the irreparable harm is "unrestricted importation of toys". Now the ayatollahs are being mean to little girls, and in the long run, keeping Barbies out of little girls' hands is going to be a lot harder than keeping crack off the streets of Baltimore, and the effort to do so is probably going to be as damaging to the state as the cultural threat anyway.

> "Now the ayatollahs are being mean to little girls..."

Yeah, those misogynistic bastards. Why don' they act more civilized, like us, and bomb the hell out of other countries?

No wait: We were RIGHT to destroy Iraq because, well, er, it's a cousin of Iran (sort of: Both are IRAs...one ending in Q, tuther in N) and wants to conquer the world using SBBs: Suicide Bomber Barbies.

It's only right that we kill-kill-kill them. T'is the Christian thing to do, after all.

But where is Al-Qaeda Ken in all this?

Barbie proportional to a normal woman? hahahaha. I guess you MUST be a guy, because no woman (who played with Barbie as a child) could possibly think this.

"Her breasts are of course rigid shaped plastic knubs" (you presumably mean "knobs")....yeah that's realistic alright. Anyhow, in order to rest your theory, I actually pulled one of my old Barbies out to measure. (This again, to re-emphasize my first post is an OLD Barbie of the kind not made anymore.) Old Barbie is 11.5 inches tall, which would translate to about 5'6", and her bust is 5.5 inches, which would translate to about 33" -- not that huge. But then her waist is only 3 inches -- a real life 18"! Holy Scarlett O'Hara! -- and her hips 4 inches, about 24".

As you can see, the problem isn't that she's so "busty" (except that those "knobs" aren't like human breasts at all), but that her waist and hips are abnormally small in comparison. She was designed to resemble a 3-D fashion illustration (of the 50s). You are correct that some of her smallness is to accomodate tight, revealing clothing, though old Barbie outfits (the original ones) were so beautifully made out of fabrics specially chosen for their proportionality, that this wasn't really that big of an issue. Barbie is and was supposed to look like our cultural ideal -- super skinny, very long legged and necked, and with high, firm, "perky" breasts that never sag (or have nipples). The frustrating thing to many women is how out of touch the "ideal" is to most real, flesh-and-blood human women (though not to healthyskeptic, who apparently really thinks that women with 18" waists are out there waiting for him).

This is quite interesting, but again, it's something in the past. This type of Barbie is not made currently, and has not been manufactured for a number of years. Where are the Iranian's getting the dolls they are screaming about anyhow? Vintage stuff on ebay?

A MODERN Barbie doll is shorter -- about 11" (5 feet) and smaller busted and much larger hipped, than her ancestor Barbies. She has shorter legs and a shorter neck and more juvenile facial features. Much of this is in response to parent's concerns but it's also a reflection of contemprary tastes -- we prefer the look today of a Miley Cyrus to our parent's taste of an Elizabeth Taylor or Sophia Loren. Big boobs look terrible in little skimpy t-shirts. The old Barbie didn't have a cool belly button to show off in hip-huggers.

Old Barbies were generally considered to wear a size 6 or 8, if they were real (and if they were, they'd look so freaky, you would run down the street to get away). But NEW Barbies are made to appear to wear a size 2 or 4 -- they have that "lollipop" look where you have a super-skinny body and a large head.

None of this really explains why Iranian officials find this worth ranting on about. That much I agree with you about. But dolls do represent a lot of our collective thoughts, dreams and desires -- that's why they are interesting.