What Barbie Tells Us About Women

Our Monday gender issue focus

Equipped with a smart phone, a tablet and her distinctively shapely proportions, pink-clad Entrepreneur Barbie just arrived.
Because Barbie reflects what has become culturally acceptable, I guess we should applaud her newest incarnation. In 1959, Barbie (her name was Barbie Millicent Roberts from Willows, Wisconsin) began as a teenage fashion model but since then, examples of her 150 professions include astronaut, presidential candidate, Women’s World Cup Soccer player, surgeon and news anchor.

The one missing category was CEO.

From: Salon

So yes, now as an entrepreneur, we can finally expect her to run a firm. Tweeting, “Remember if you can dream it, you can be it,” she takes the first step. But according to a Dell study, here is what else she will need:

And, she is in the right place. Looking at entrepreneurial ecosystems, business environments, and entrepreneurial aspiration, according to the Dell study, the most welcoming entrepreneurial environments are in Australia, Sweden, and the United States.

Covering 30 countries, here are the best places to be a female entrepreneur:

empowernet.com.au

And finally, I guess it did not matter that Barbie broke up with Ken for several years before they got together again:

From: Dell

Our bottom line: Barbie is a barometer of normal. If she is an entrepreneur, then women have indeed begun fully to contribute their human capital in the US.
Did you own a Barbie doll? Her profession? The year? Maybe we can gather some of our own Barbie history. Please let us know in a comment.