I like being a girl and I like girls. I actually couldn’t think about my life some other means, and I’m grateful daily that the gender I used to be assigned at beginning is the one which I really feel with each fiber of my being. My spouse is transgender, and listening to her discuss concerning the methods womanhood makes her completely satisfied to be alive ranks as a few of my favourite moments in our marriage. I perpetually exist in a state of the Soarse Ronan “Ladies —” meme from Gerwig’s “Little Ladies,” however being a girl is tough.
It is exhausting. It is painful. Now we have to navigate a minefield of continually contradicting requirements and expectations that suck so badly that it is wonderful any of us make it by the day in any respect. So when Barbie lastly looks like she’s been defeated by the newly emboldened Kens and offers up, I felt it in my bones.
Barbie has been an essential presence in my life for so long as I can bear in mind, however I do not know if I had ever sat down and puzzled how Barbie feels about all of this. Sure, after all, she’s a toy, however she’s additionally one of the vital essential girls in my life. Seeing Barbie break down and cry about how the burden of the patriarchy is simply an excessive amount of to deal with and that she feels responsible that her mere existence might need made issues worse for different girls gave me the area to really feel these emotions for myself.
Barbie has all the time been an extension of those that play along with her, whether or not or not it’s our fictional imaginations or a automobile for our personal emotions. Experiencing it the opposite means round for the primary time in my life was one thing I used to be not ready for, and had me masking my mouth in order to not disturb the remainder of the theater with my heaving sobs.