You Can Be Anything...Just Not President

You Can Be Anything…Just Not President

By Ella Mordarski

Art By Ella Mordarski

As a child I assumed the president was a woman—it never even occurred to me that a man would be capable of doing the job. In my little 5-year-old brain, it was women’s work. 

On the brink of the 2008 election, I had to be told the leader of your country was a man.

After I had the hard truth broken to me, I thought I could go back to playing with my dream house. Then, all the sudden, the second bomb was dropped: “Actually, we’ve never had a female president.” I remember being shown photos of former presidents, not being able to tell the difference. They all looked the same to me. Middle aged white man after middle aged white man. I was extremely confused, because according to the shelves of Target, Barbie was the president-elect. This had to mean the actual leader must be female right?

Barbie first began campaigning for president during the 1992 election, and while she sat out the ‘96 election, has continued to run for the coveted job every four years since. It feels natural Barbie would be a multi-year presidential-elect, her resume is stacked to the brim with impressive achievements and unique careers. From an astronaut, to winning an Olympic gold medal, Barbie has continuously crushed the glass ceiling. Mattel, Barbie's parent company, even teamed up with The White House Project for many of her campaigns. While the non-profit is now defunct, it aimed at increasing female representation in politics.

I vividly remember seeing the 2008 presidential Barbie in stores. Her fun navy and silver striped pantsuit sparkled in the fluorescent lights. Maybe I just really liked her outfit at the time, but she made a lasting impression on me. I truly thought she was the real president. That's the thing about Barbie, she is more than just a toy.

I loved my Barbie dolls growing up. Compared to the other dolls in my playroom, they were akin to the cool 5th grade girls at school. They got to wear whatever they wanted, shine their lips with gloss, and have cool accessories like a pink sparkly flip phone. I didn’t just like playing with them, I wanted to be them. 

There is a misconception by adults, that when children play pretend, it’s trivial and confined to narratives set by society. In actuality, a child's playtime can be compared to that of a major television production, filled with interesting storylines, complex characters, and drama galore.

When I was a child, I sure as hell never just played mom. While I had Ken at one point, his head kept falling off (typical man), so I just threw him out and played with only female dolls. Often, I was replicating what I was seeing in the real world. The amount of times my Barbie got a divorce should clearly tell you my parents are no longer together in real life. 

This concept of play replicating and becoming reality is why Mattel developed the slogan “You can be anything.” Barbie is a personification of real girls growing up in a society that often teaches them you can’t be anything. This is exactly what her creator, Ruth Handler, wanted when developing Barbie. As a mother of a young daughter, Handler specifically set out to develop a doll with the hope of inspiring girls to play out scenarios other than mother or wife. 

However, President Barbie was, and still is, just that: a scenario. Little did I know my revelation of the president's gender, was only the first time I would be introduced to society's misogynist view towards women. One day you're five learning the president isn’t a woman, and next thing you know it's been 15 years and you’re a first time voter watching the election get called for yet another man. The irony is not lost upon me that I, as a 21-year-old, have less rights than I did at five when I was playing with Barbies. 
While it's discouraging that once again America has chosen a man over a woman, we must continue to fight for representation. I’ll be honest, the days following the 2024 election were pretty dark. I felt immensely hopeless and angry. While it feels disparaging, you and I both must find something to keep us going. For me personally, I think back to that little girl who wholeheartedly believed the president was a woman. Barbie was my representation that “ou can be anything,” and while that was great, I want to keep fighting so that little girls in the future have an actual female president to look up to. Just like Barbie, women will never stop campaigning for a female president.