

Lord wrote in 1995 in “ Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll.” “The doll functions like a Rorschach test people project wildly dissimilar and often opposing fantasies on it,” author and Barbie scholar M.G. It was more like a boom, sending children and parents (and subsequent generations) scurrying to possess this icon of femininity and setting off a decadeslong debate about impossible beauty standards, gender roles, race and role models. When Barbie debuted in the American toy market in 1959, clad in a black-and-white bathing suit, she didn’t just make a splash.
