Hey There Barbie Girl

In July of 1959 the furthest thing from my mind was the name of the company that had launched a grown up looking doll in a zebra striped one piece...All I knew is that my world would come to an end if I didn't get a Barbie for my ninth birthday. Then, in December 1960, I was struck with desire and knew I could not go on living if I didn't find Chatty Cathy under my slim, artificial, Florida Christmas tree. I should be concerned about the name of the creator of these life changing toys? Hardly!

Barbie had everything a pre-teen wanted: endless outfits and breasts. Chatty Cathy was all a girl could ask for: someone who didn't tell you to wash your hands or eat all your vegetables and she was someone who asked you to take her with you or tell her a story and tell you she loved you when you pulled that string on an 0-ring. For a girl whose parents divorced at the age of seven and was being transferred from one school after another, Barbie and Cathy were the best companions a young girl could have.

When I was 11 years old, the next best thing to getting a puppy occurred. Barbie got a friend and I got Ken. And even though he had underwear painted to cover his shapely buttocks and his near-flat crotch area, my best friend (Linda) and I couldn't wait to get Ken naked to see what sex was all about.

It's really unfortunate that it took me fifty years to discover Mattel and Ruth while rediscovering Barbie! But before I comment on Robin Gerber's new book, Barbie and Ruth (The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her), almost as interesting is what piqued my new found fascination for Barbie. My husband and I spent a recent Saturday night at the shul. We thought it was going to be a simple Slichot kind of evening. But it turned into Havdalah, an Oneg and a film and discussion of The Tribe, a 2006 Indie film and Sundance Award winner. Tribes are as ancient as the Old Testament and popular as Seth Godin. Everybody wants one; something to belong to and with which to identify. In this 15 minute film, The Tribe takes a look back at Barbie and her creator, Ruth Handler and then fast forwards to what it means to be Jewish today. Using black and white film clips, edgy and hip music, young people and Barbie, The Tribe provides an opportunity for engagement and a forum for discussion on today's American Jewish identity! That being said, it was in the midst of this unusual setting that I learned that my Barbie, my blonde, perky Barbie was created by a Jewish woman. So, of course, that triggered my need to know more.

Love, marriage, sex scandals, AIDS, breasts of large proportions,bitchy women at the top of the corporate ladder, law suits, cancer... It's all here in Barbie and Ruth.

Born in 1916 in Colorado to Polish Jewish immigrants, Ruth Mosko was the youngest of 10 siblings. Nicely paired, Barbie and Ruth takes you on a life journey of a wife, business partner and working mother of two (Barbara and Ken); a woman named Ruth. (You could make strong parallels between Ruth Handler and Bibical Ruth: loyalty, leadership, constant). What started out as a business in their garage, Ruth and Elliot and friend Harold Mattson began making pictures frames. Matt and El, known as Mattel, started a business that soon changed its focus to doll house furniture and then toys. While this book focuses on their 60 year marriage, love and business life of Ruth and Elliot, you will find hints of unhappiness of her children who were ignored as a business empire thrived; a son whose life was spent in a closet of guilt; a woman who got caught up and was indicted on 10 counts of mail fraud, falsifying statements to the SEC and was charged with $57,000 in fines and 500 hours per year for five years of community service; damaged by cancer; creates a bra for masectomees and dies of colon cancer. Known for years in Mattel as a hard assed force to be avoided and detailed oriented to a fault, Ruth loved attention and loved being a woman in a man's world.

It's unclear about the outright plagerism by Ruth that gave birth to Barbie. She bought German designed dolls that were used by Bild Lilli as men's titillating toy dolls. Copied them down to the nipples that were filed off. She them handed the doll and her clothing to her designers, put the evidence in boxes, buried them in Mattel and six years after the overwhelming success of Barbie she settled with Bild Lilli and bought them out for $6k. Seems history may have been rewritten a few times on Ruth's inspiration for Barbie.

Not one to stand still for long, Ruth was also always entertaining ways to expand and purchase businesses including Turco Manufacturing and Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Ruth's fall from grace proved her unstoppable. Rising up from breast cancer and her humiliation in the press, she pressed on to become a model for young women in business with life her life changing philanthropic efforts. Thanks Barbie and Ruth for the memories.