Thread by @Ada_Palmer

Barbie 2020 Career of the Year is (for the first time) a team, Political Campaign team featuring 4 dolls: Candidate, Campaign Manager, Fundraiser, and Voter, w/ diverse race body types. barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/… Interesting to compare to past Career of the Year Barbies THREAD (1/?)

I'll give the list first, then some analysis. Barbie had already had many earlier careers, including astronaut, president, business woman, and others, but the formal Career of the Year series launched in 2010. (2/?)

2010 = Computer Engineer
2011 = Architect
2012 = Fashion Designer
2013 = Mars Explorer
2015 = Film Director
2016 = Game Developer
2017 = no Career of the Year doll for 2017 that I can find
2018 = Robotics Engineer
2019 = Judge
2020 = Political Campaign Team (four dolls)

Barbie has had a lot of careers over time, including earlier iterations of astronaut and president, & the 60th Anniversary Career set has astronaut, firefighter, soccer player, airline pilot, news anchor, and "political candidate" barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/… (4/?)

The WSJ did a great piece on Barbie's history as a political figure back in 2016 when Barbie did a version running for president with a female running mate, clearly referencing Hillary's campaign wsj.com/articles/barbi… (5/?)

2016 was the 6th presidency-focused Barbie:
1992 = President
2000 = Presidential Candidate
2004 = Presidential Candidate
2008 = President
2012 = "USA President"
2016 = President & Vice President
2020 = Campaign TEAM and NOT SPECIFICALLY PRESIDENT

Sorry, 1992 is "Barbie for President" not "President" Note that 1992, 2000, 2004, 2016 & 2020 all *candidates* while 2008 & 2012 are Presidents, i.e. already victorious rather than running, an interesting choice for the window right after Hillary lost to Obama in 08 primary (6/?)

The 2016 and 2020 political barbies have variety in skin tone and hair color, and 2020 variety of body type as well, in line with Matel's recent changes, whereas 1992-2012 are all distinctly the original blonde Barbie moving into a political career. (7/?)

But no earlier president or presidential candidate barbie was in the Career of the Year series, which is the most visibly political moment of Matel's year, the Barbie choice they expect to get the most discussion and spark the most newspaper coverage etc. (8/?)

Career of the Year started as something of a disaster in 2010 when the well-meaning Computer Engineer Barbie was launched w/ an accompanying book which focused on her repeatedly messing up and needing male programmers to turn her concept into a game time.com/3595106/mattel… (9/?)

When Architect was next (2011) I remember thinking about the fact that (at the time) when you looked at lists of college majors by expected salary, architect was usually listed as the highest-paid major for women. In fact the story is really cool placesjournal.org/article/what-i… (10/?)

The great article linked above discusses the campaign for architect barbie, effort to convey power via her glasses & hardhat, & the experiments presenting her to girls to make sure the doll's professional skill went unquestioned, unlike her computer engineer predecessor (11/?)

2013 Mars Explorer was the 1st mission-specific space Barbie though there had been several astronauts. She was pinker than average though less sparkly than average, and accompanied by many science facts. (12/?)

2014 Film Director was a clear response to discussion happening at the time about how few female film directors there were in Hollywood. She did come in an African American version (version options on some of these are hard to trace) (12/?)

2016 Game Developer was a direct effort to redo and recover from the mistakes of the 2010 computer engineer. She (left) has one of the least pink least feminine outfits ever on a barbie, a silver (not pink) laptop and much more technical info on the box. 2010s on the right (13/?)

One Casey Feisler on Flickr did this great compilation comparing the packaging for both plus for the 2018 Robotics Engineer career of the year barbie. Note the new focus on precisely what she does *herself* not leaving it to colleagues (14/?)

The robotics engineer doll was very similar, still glasses and a laptop, but notable for the African American variant being used in publicity images a lot more, almost 50/50 with the white version (15/?) barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/…

I'm still trying to figure out why there appears to have been no Career of the Year barbie for 2017. I've looked and looked at this strange gap between the two very similar engineering dolls of 2016 and 2018. I'd love for someone to solve the mystery. (16/?)

It's worth remembering that Matel had very excitedly made their all-female presidential ticket President & Vice President pair in 2016 and seemed really invested in Hilary's campaign to be the first female president - was it a morale thing that slowed them down for 2017? (17/?)

Regardless, after 2018's robotics engineer, Matel exploded into the super political last year with 2019's judge barbie, a clear and extremely not-neutral reference to the activities of RBG on the Supreme Court, and Republican stuffing of the courts bizjournals.com/bizwomen/news/… (18/?)

And as you'll see from the above sample, the 2019 judge Barbie, like the presidential set from 2016 and the two engineering barbies, actively spotlighted its increased diversity in hair color and skin tone in its media. (19/?)

Which gets us to 2020's Career of the Year TEAM, the first team and, so far as I can tell, the first politically active barbie that isn't focused on the presidency specifically, but could be running for congress, senate, local office, anything (20/?) barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/…

The distribution of race and body type was clearly carefully calculated, with an African American candidate, a medium-skin-toned POC-looking voter (could be Latina, First Nations, many things), and Matel's new heavier body type for the blonde in the role of fundraiser (21/?)

It's about teamwork, both the idea that a successful campaign requires many people beyond the candidate, & about the importance of many kinds of races, continuing Judge Barbie's turn toward branches of government beyond the Presidency (22/?)

So many Barbie careers are about celebrity (actress, singer, rapper, princess) & the Presidency is a celebrity position (moreso under Trump) so the break w/ celebrity & focus on non-famous staffers & voters & less spotlit races is a bigger change for Barbie than it may seem (23/?

Mattel's goal is clear, their contribution to the turn-out-the-vote movement, but I think the attention to teamwork and the importance of non-celebrity people, of the people who aren't the center of attention, has a potential power beyond the political. (24/?)

Careers of the Year have always been the one in the spotlight: the director, the architect, the designer, the one who steps on Mars, the president, with little discussion of being on the team, or the fact that movies, buildings, Mars missions are teamwork (25/?)

So after six presidents or presidential candidates (and one VP) and many other Barbies-in-the-spotlight I hope this teamwork focus will help girls feel like they're powerful *even if they aren't* on the stage, in the spotlight, or in charge. A good message (26/?)

Almost done, just 2 footnotes. First I accidentally skipped the 2014 Career of the Year "Entrepeneur", strangely vague, forgettable, and much mocked at its release with headlines like "Entrepreneur Barbie will Inspire Girls to Be Vaguely Ambitious." theatlantic.com/business/archi… (27/?)

It was very well researched underneath, made in consultation with some major global feminist leaders like Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, but it struggled to get a clear concept across (28/?) wired.com/2014/06/entrep…

The vaguenessof Entrepeneur Barbie for me is an exposure of the strained path-to-wealth archetype in our society, since it's so much about networking, pitching, acquiring companies, buying out rivals, moving money around rather than making things; hard to describe on a box (29/?)

The fact that there's no comprehensible clear thing an entrepreneur Barbie would do or make other than have money and move money around to make more money is an example of how hard it is to communicate to kids how power and money really work (and how nonsensical it often is) 30/?

Finally there was one other recent non-presidential political barbie, in the 60th anniversary career set, but she was a repackage of the 2016 presidential candidate in a different box w/o her running mate & with lighter skin & straighter hair. Interesting. (31/31)

Summary thought: Keep it up, @Mattel! This year's team is great, let's see more Career of the Year teams! Design teams, surgical teams, the Mission Control team, crisis intervention teams, pharmaceutical development teams, publishing teams (author, editor, publisher, publicist)!