Mattel released a Barbie doll this past week that has sparked an important discussion about what representation looks like in doll form — and why a pretty girl wearing headphones and a cute outfit might not be representative of a severe autism diagnosis, or why we shouldn’t be celebrating something we can try to understand and prevent.
“President Trump ended DEI in the government, and I was really, really, glad about that, but it appears there was more work to be done. We need to end the DEI in toys,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”
In Mattel’s press release on the new Barbie doll, it writes, “The autistic Barbie doll features elbow and wrist articulation, enabling stimming, hand flapping, and other hand gestures that some members of the autistic community use to process sensory information or express excitement.”
It also writes that her eyes are “shifted slightly to the side, which reflects how some members of the autistic community may avoid direct eye contact.”
“I’m not making fun of people with autism. I actually think it’s terrible. And I’ve done a lot to try to help get us to the place where we can figure out what is causing autism, but we are at this weird place where the left is like, ‘Actually it’s great if people are autistic. Actually I love that my family member’s autistic. I hope we get more autistic people,’” Gonzales comments.
“I want to solve what’s happening to people. I want to solve why so many people are being diagnosed with autism, why so many people can’t make direct eye contact, why so many people need noise-canceling headphones,” she continues.
“It’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd,” she adds.
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