I grew up playing with Barbie; I had a dream house by the age of three, and more dolls and accessories than I care to admit. When Mattel Inc. introduced architect Barbie as part of its “I Can Be…” series in 2012, I became very nostalgic for my old dolls. When I was little, I remember having a Barbie who was a dentist, a fire fighter, an astronaut, a teacher (see I told you I had a lot of them….) but never an architect or anything like that.  I didn’t even really know what an architect was or what they did when I was that age.  Now as someone working in architecture, I find myself wondering why I didn’t know more about the design fields as a young girl.

 

I think about my field and the reality is that there is a lack of female architects profiled as leaders.  An article by Don Tropp, notes that women make up 40% of architecture graduates with only 17% going on to become members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).  The realities of this number are evident when I think about my college classmates where men outnumbered women 3:1.  Architecture for the most part has been inherently a male dominated profession, but slowly more and more women are becoming recognized thanks to prominent female architects like Zaha Hadid, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2004.

 

When the AIA introduced Architect Barbie, it was praised as an opportunity for young girls to dream about the field of architecture and the impact they can make on the world around them.  The creation of Architect Barbie is a good way to make young girls aware of the profession, but I question what kind of image she portrays of women in architecture.

 

Let’s start with her accessories.  Architect Barbie comes equipped with black heeled boots, a pink tube for carrying blueprints, a white hardhat to be worn on the construction site, stylish black glasses, and a pink model of a nondescript building.

 

Mattel notes that they consulted with the AIA to keep the doll authentic to the field of architecture; however I think they could have done better.  Ask any woman (or anyone for that matter) in architecture and they’ll tell you that you do not wear high heels to a work site-you need boots.  We don’t carry around drawing tubes anymore-those types of drawings are now contained on laptops, and while a carrying tube and blue prints are a nice symbol that young girls can associate with an architect, it dates the profession. 

 

The addition of the building printed onto her dress and thick rimmed black glasses are too cliché.  I would have rather seen Architect Barbie wearing black pants with a top in Barbie’s traditional pink color, and black jacket. Put her in boots that play to the stylish demands of Barbie but are also practical and authentic to the career today, swap out the hard hat for a pink laptop and ditch the pink dream house model for a model of an actual building or something more interactive that girls can actually take a part, build, and rebuild.

 

When I think back on what I wanted to be when I grew up in the days when I played with Barbie; I wanted to be a dentist or a teacher.  I’m not saying that Barbie influenced my desires to work in those professions but I do think Barbie has the power to influence what little girls want to be when they grow up through exposure.  Creating a doll like Architect Barbie allows for the introduction of a less publicized, but in demand, career that girls can aspire to be a part of.