Adiós, Barbie: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity ed. Ophira Edut (Seattle: Seal Press, 1998) pp. 236.

This book is written for women who are concerned about body image - which includes or has included most of us! Appropriately titled at the same time as the 50th anniversary of the omnipresent Barbie doll, it is a collection of essays about growing up not looking like Barbie, but eventually being able to leave that image behind. The need to look like Barbie, is explained by Gillman:

We urban, Jewish, black, Asian and Latina girls began to realize slowly and painfully that if you didn't look like Barbie, you didn't fit in. Your status was diminished. You were less beautiful, less valuable, less worthy. If you didn't look like Barbie, companies would discontinue you. You simply couldn't compete.

Twenty-eight young women write about their own personal journeys and leave a potent message that we can learn self-acceptance without looking like Barbie, and that self-acceptance does not mean defeat. Not surprisingly, many of the contributors have used writing as a means towards greater self-acceptance. Through their contributions, the impact of race, ethnicity, sexuality and other power-issues on body image are explored, and expand our understanding about factors that affect body image. One African-American woman tells of her struggle to value her own light-skinned complexion in a black culture that links racial authenticity and dark skin. Another woman writes that when her mother offers to pay for plastic surgery, she decides to keep her Jewish nose as a means of maintaining her cultural identity. Yet another reveals her personal revolution as a fat, disabled, punk lesbian. "Memoirs of a (sort) ex-shaver" humorously describes the struggle of fighting the political battle of body hair, making it through fall, winter and spring without shaving, but having difficulty maintaining that stance in the summer, when the author feels more exposed to the world. Still others explore the cultural meaning of hair styles, "big butt", being short, and being fat. One of the funniest essays is by Susan Jane Gillman, entitled, "Klaus Barbie, and other dolls I'd like to see" where she lists such Barbies as:

• Quadratic Equation Barbie - Nobel prize winning mathematician who comes with her own tiny books and calculator.
• Microbiology Barbie - comes with petri dishes, compute and Barbie Laboratory
• Bite-the-bullet Barbie - an anthropologist with pith helmet, detachable limbs, fake blood and a kit for performing surgery on herself in the outback.
• Our Barbies, Ourselves - internally and externally anatomically correct Barbie comes with own speculum, magnifying glass, tiny Kotex and books on sexual responsibility.

The anthology is a collection of stories, both touching and humorous, of women who have chosen to ignore, rebel against or redefine the dominant beauty standard in order to fully live in their bodies.

Donna Ciliska