The link between imagination and destruction

"Barbie, that plastic icon of girlhood fantasy play, is routinely tortured by children, research has found." Indeeed, scientists were shocked by "the rejection, hatred and violence she provoked when they asked the children about their feelings for the doll. Violence and torture against Barbie were repeatedly reported across age, school and gender. No other toy or brand name provoked such a negative response," it sez here.

Why, oh why is the dolly tortured so? Academics were swift to offer hypotheses. "The girls almost always talked about having a box full of Barbies. So to them Barbie has come to symbolise excess. Barbies are not special; they are disposable, and are thrown away and rejected." And on "a deeper level Barbie has become inanimate. She has lost any individual warmth that she might have possessed if she were perceived as a singular person. This may go some way towards explaining the violence and torture."

Or try this one on for size: "Previous research from the U.S. into Barbie abuse suggested that prepubescent girls destroyed the doll because she reminded them of adulthood at a time when they were still clinging to their childhood, but [important scientist somebody-or-other] found no evidence of this. She also dismissed the idea that overweight little girls might be jealous of Barbie for being the girl who had everything, including a tiny waist. It was more likely to be a simple reaction against a toy that the children had grown out of, she said."

"[W]hile adults may find a child’s delight in breaking, mutilating and torturing their dolls to be disturbing, from the child's point of view they were simply being imaginative in disposing of an excessive commodity, in the same way as one might crush cans for recycling." Finally, insight into what little girls are really made of.