Adele: Mommy, what’s Barbie Science?

Mommy: Scientific studies that confirm our culture’s gender stereotypes. They hardly ever do, really, but it becomes Barbie Science when we say they do, like when people say that it’s natural for boys to shoot pretend guns with their fingers or for girls to prefer dolls over all other toys or for boys to be better with protractors or girls to be better with nurturing.

Adele: Guns are fun!

Mommy: You don’t know what a gun is yet, Petunia. Or a doll, really.

Adele: Can a doll have a gun?

Mommy: Only boy dolls in army or superhero or hunter clothes have guns. Girl dolls have shoes and little ponies and dogs with tiny combs to keep them groomed and nice. Girls like to groom. It’s just in them.

Adele: I want a doll that shoots people.

Mommy: I’m sure you do, Petunia. I’m sure a lot of girls do, but so many of us think–so many of us are SURE–that girls don’t want to shoot anyone or pretend to be soldiers because of Barbie Science and because we ignore the way socialization can make your choices for you. Your father sent me this “article” the other day about how girl brains and boy brains are different. What a bunch of shit. I mean, all our brains are different from one another’s. And sure, there might be some generalized differences between boy brains and girl brains, but there’s also the tremendously middle class and white and hetero-normative angle of all these boy-brain, girl-brain studies and stereotypes. Can you say, “socialization,” Petunia? Try it. Go on.

Adele: I don’t want to be social. I want a doll that shoots people and I want her to lift weights. Big booming barbells.

Mommy: Of course, in that “article” there was this test (I won’t provide a link because it’s just too stupid, like Gilligan’s Island was really too stupid to watch), and I took the test, and I had to say yes or no to questions like “I get lost when I use maps,” or “When I was a child, I hated to lose,” or “When someone insults me, I prefer knocking the shit out of them to crying.” Are you kidding me? This is being passed off as science?

Adele: Did you hate to lose?

Mommy: I don’t remember. I was busy trying to get through all that therapy. By college, though, when I played things I wanted to play, like cards and darts, I was fiercely competitive.

Adele: Me too! I hate losing!

Mommy: Who the hell doesn’t, really? If you care about what you’re playing, I’d guess that either gender would dislike losing. Think about it. Did I care that my team lost softball in P.E. when I was in 8th grade, menstruating into a pad I was afraid would leak, wondering why my boyfriend hadn’t called the night before? No. I can safely say that I did not care if I lost any game in any Physical Education class I ever had. But what if I’d been a softball player, on a team and into it? I’d have cared a lot. It’s that kind of specificity that’s missing from all these “articles.” Bitch Magazine has a great article about this. Thank god for that publication. Could we get smarter, people? Start questioning these concepts we have of girls-are-this-way and boys-are-this-way? Start thinking about our culture? For god’s sake.

Adele: My doll will shoot them all and laugh at all the blood! And she’s going to weigh 275 pounds, all muscle, and she’s going to have short red hair and a black girlfriend, and everyone will think my doll is beautiful. She’s going to like pink, though. I think she’ll wear pink dresses and Keds.

Mommy: Will she make eye contact? Boys don’t like to make eye contact, you know. That was proven on 20/20 a decade ago. I bought every word of it, too. Yuck.

Adele: No eye contact! Except with her black girlfriend and every stupid person she shoots. She won’t kill them or anything. She’ll just teach them a lesson. But she’ll be honorable. She’ll meet them in the eye.

Mommy: Like a real man?

Adele: Like a woman, Mommy. Like a real woman.