Bald Barbie: can it be done?

Posted by Kayla Phantom On Friday, January 13th 2012 in Health

Even though she is not a real person, for many years Barbie has been a role model for young girls. A campaign is currently ongoing on Facebook in order to create a "Bald Barbie" as inspiration for young girls battling hair loss conditions or going through chemotherapy.

"We would like to see a Beautiful and Bald Barbie made to help young girls who suffer from hair loss due to cancer treatments, Alopecia or Trichotillomania," was written on the introduction to the Facebook page entitled: Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let's see if we can get it made.

The page was made by women who had children dealing with baldness or were battling the issue themselves. On Friday it had more than 86,000 "likes."

"My daughter is battling leukemia right now and she's been going through chemotherapy for the last two years," said Beckie Sypin, one of the founders of the campaign. "She was bald for about seven months and we would go to the store and people would stare or kids would ask her why she's bald. It's not something they're used to seeing. We think [a bald Barbie] would be therapeutic and I think it would help baldness become more quote unquote normal. It would be seen. It wouldn't be this odd thing that people don't have hair."

In response to the campaign Mattel issued a statement on Friday:

"We are honored that Jane Bingham and Beckie Sypin believe that Barbie could be the face of such an important cause. Mattel appreciates and respects the passion that has been built up for the request for a bald Barbie doll. As you might imagine, we receive hundreds of passionate requests for various dolls to be added to our collection. We take all of them seriously and are constantly exploring new and different dolls to be added to our line."