芭比娃娃新形象诞生

自20世纪60年代发布了Christie-芭比的黑人朋友之后，美泰玩具公司已经发行了一系列厚唇，宽鼻子，高颧骨的黑人芭比娃娃。

Long, straight hair?

Many black women are praising Mattel for its efforts - Black Barbie hit the shelves in 1980 with white features shared by many of the dolls following her.

But some say the long straight hair does not address the beauty issues that many black girls struggle with. In the black community, long, straight hair is often considered more beautiful than short kinky hair.

Chris Rock highlights the issue in his "Good Hair" documentary, which opens in select cities on Friday and shows black women straightening their tight curls with harsh chemicals and purchasing thousand-dollar hair weaves.

"Why are we always pushing this standard of long hair on our girls?" asked Gail Parrish, 60, a playwright in Alexandria, Va., and a mother of four grown children. "Why couldn't one of the dolls have a little short afro, or shorter braids or something?"

McBride-Irby said she originally designed all the dolls with long hair. Combing her Barbie's long hair when she was a girl was the "highlight of my play experience," she said. She was advised to create some dolls with curlier hair, so she did.

There is a So In Style hairstyling set so girls can curl, straighten and style their dolls' hair over and over. (It costs $24.99, more than a pair of dolls at $19.99.)

That is troubling to Sheri Parks, an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park, because it actively involves girls in the process of straightening hair. She worries that it reinforces the message that there is something wrong with natural hair.

"Black mothers who want their girls to love their natural hair have an uphill battle and these dolls could make it harder," Parks said in an e-mail.