The most detrimental playtime girls have left well into adulthood is what I call “Barbie World.” This world is entered when young girls receive and begin to play with the wildly popular Barbie doll (or any of the popular comparison dolls), the Barbie corvette, the Barbie dream house, and the adorable Ken doll. Once little girls become women, many of them want to emulate or duplicate the idea of ”Barbie World” in the real world. For example, once they have great friends, complete their educational goals and find themselves with a great job and because the only thing they feel is missing from the puzzle piece of life is their Ken, but “Barbie World” is just a platform for my next theory, the “Picket Fence Theory”.
“Picket fence theory” is when a girl has believed in the concept of “Barbie World” to the point where she has unconsciously incorporated and integrated it into her real life. With this theory, she believes that she is supposed to have a husband, child/children, and a home to live happily ever after. Conversely, men are taught to act on their feelings, but not taught to be in touch with them. While little girls imagine their prince charming, boys are often busy fighting; playing with toy guns and/or video games, sports and other referred to as “guy activities”, etc. It is unfortunate that little girls are designed to be emotional and that boys are not taught to identify with their emotions because they are usually taught to minimize them.
How do you communicate effectively with someone who has been taught their whole life not to understand you? How do you convey and expect to be understood by someone who is not normally taught to tap into their emotions? What can be done to close the communication gap between girls and boys? Sex education should be considered a science course and should include information about how the different sexes think and where it all stems from. With this new kind of revamped sex education, you can help young adults bridge the communication gap by increasing effective communication between women and men through knowledge. As always, it wouldn’t hurt to start the process at home.
*This article is not intended to offend Barbie or her creators, it is used for example purposes only.
