Barbie Must Die: A Primer on Implementing Feminism for Dads of Daughters.

There was a period of my life when I spent a lot of time among the Lubavitcher Hasidim in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Why I was there is a long and difficult story for a different post. For the purposes of this one, all you need to know, if you’re neither Jewish nor from New York, where they are just about ubiquitous, is that the Lubavitchers are a community of ultra-Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists—or, as they are colloquially and somewhat derogatorily known among their less observant coreligionists, the Black Hats.

Because this time of my life coincided with the time of my life when I would have screwed any chick who gave me the time of day, I misguidedly attempted to chat up some of the Lubavitcher girls. This was, to put it mildly, utterly futile. The Lubavitchers, like all the Black Hats, are stringently observant of every jot and tittle of the 613 laws (and you thought there were only ten). They’d as soon have done me as don a bikini to grill shrimp kebabs on the Sabbath. But I did get some interesting conversations out of my attempts.

To my question of, “Do you ever feel resentful that your observance of Judaism forces you to wear long sleeves and long skirts all year round, and doesn’t let you go to college, and basically relegates you to a life of churning out and caring for a damn near constant stream of lil’ Hasidim?” (albeit more tactfully phrased), the answer was, universally, “We hardly think women outside are ‘liberated.’ We consider ourselves liberated from all the expectations that women on the ouside are subjected to.”

On one level, this sounds a lot like those female apologists for Islam who claim that they feel protected by their burqas (and, presumably, don’t miss their clitorises at all, either). But on another level, the Hasidic women did make a powerful argument—one which I didn’t think of at all until I had a daughter.

Since I blog more or less anonymously, I’ll cop to being a closet misogynist in the way that every single man in the world is a closet misogynist. I fully admit to having objectified women, muttered horrible imprecations against all women every time I got shot down by one, and having either stated, or agreed with statements, that they’re just not as smart/organized/logical/practical as men.

But that all changed when the ultrasound technician handed me a slip of paper with the words “Think Pink” written on it. Suddenly, the divide between me and the Fairer Sex—the distance which allowed me to objectify them—disintegrated. Suddenly, there was going to be part of me in a woman, and not in the good way. Suddenly, a woman—a female—was going to share my DNA, my personhood, that ineffable quality that makes me who I am. And in that moment, I ceased to be a pig the way, arguably excusably, all men are pigs, to being the father of a daughter. At which point, being a pig ceases to be excusable.

As I drove away from the hospital with the words “Think Pink” tolling around in my head like Big Ben, I remembered being in Crown Heights, talking “feminism” and “liberation” with women who had no interest in either. And I found myself torn. Because, while I was repelled by the thought of my daughter in the situation of the Lubavitcher girls—never having the chance to go to college, for example—I was equally repelled by the thought of my daughter suffering all the horrors that our post-70’s world foists upon girls.

The sexual revolution was a good thing. My daughter, thank God, will not be disqualified by her gender from becoming a doctor, an astronaut, an archaeologist, or a zoologist (her current career plan). But she also won’t live in a community whose mores and customs protect her, and the vast majority of whose members will not value her purely for how hard she can make their shmeckels. Women used to be objectified for their dowries and their ability to birth kids. Now they’re objectified in new and, arguably, worse ways. We’ve replaced the tyranny of the patriarchy with the tyranny of pilates, waxing, plucking, hair salons, aerobics, weight obsession, food issues, bulimia, anorexia, and all the other horrendous baggage that goes along with having your self-esteem rely upon your ability to attract attention with your looks.

All of which makes me think that feminism, for all its great strides, has one hell of a fuck of a goddamn of a long way to go.

Granted, I’m not claiming any originality here. This has all been said a zillion and seven times before. But if you’re the father of a daughter, and you aren’t thinking this way, then you don’t deserve to be the father of a daughter.

I really don’t have the answer. I haven’t finished raising the girl whom I hope will be a happy, successful, well-adjusted woman who’s comfortable in her own skin. But I do know that the first step is killing Barbie.

My house has a strict no-Barbies rule. I hate that bitch. I hate her silky blonde hair, I hate her long, perfect legs, I hate her sparkling blue eyes, her wasp waist, her retrousse little nose, and her smooth, hairless plastic body. I hate her because, if genetics are any indication, my kid is not going to look anything like her. My kid is going to be short, hippy, busty, swarthy, hairy, and frizzy-headed. In other words, she’s going to look a lot like her mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers on both sides.

In other words, she’s going to be absolutely beautiful.

The Barbie moratorium at chez JP is fanatical, obsessive, and absolute. And I realize that, by enforcing it in clear contravention of my daughter’s expressly stated wishes, I am behaving patriarchally. So sue me. I’m a patriarch.

But, because I do try to teach my children both to challenge, and to demand accountability from, authority, I did sit her down and try to explain why Barbie was persona plastica non grata at stately JP Manor, and this is, essentially, what I told her.

“Kiddo, you’re not going to look like Barbie. And I’m glad, because your mother doesn’t look anything like Barbie, and she’s absolutely beautiful. But more importantly, I don’t want you to think that you have to look like her to be pretty. You don’t.

“We don’t have Barbie in this house because Barbie doesn’t teach the right lessons. Barbie teaches you that you have to look a certain way, and that having  a ton of stuff will make you happy. Barbie teaches you that you need a Dream House and a convertible and a bunch of clothes and jewelry to be happy, but that’s a lie. Happiness doesn’t come from what you have. It comes from what you do.

“You won’t become happy by looking like Barbie. People spend their whole lives trying to look different than they do, because they think it will make them happy. It doesn’t. Happiness is finding people who like the way you look--but more importantly, it comes from finding people who like you for who you are, not how you look or what you have.

"Barbie teaches you that people will give you stuff if you're pretty. Sadly, this is sometimes true. But it's sad. It means that girls who could have been doctors, or scientists, or artists, or businesswomen, never discovered what they could have done, because they spent all their time trying to look pretty to get stuff for themselves. It's sad for all the people they could have helped, and didn't; it's sad for all the cool things they could have done, but didn't; but mostly it's sad for those girls, because they lived an empty life that never made them happy.

“Remember that, babe. Remember that happiness doesn’t come from having stuff, or by looking the way you think other people want you to look. That’s why, every day, I tell you that I love you not because you’re pretty, but because you’re smart, and funny, and compassionate and kind to others. That’s what’s important in life—not being pretty.

“Oh, and incidentally, Ken’s gay.”