Are We Closer to Barbieland Than We Think?

In the movie "Barbie," Barbieland is a fictional world that is supposed to flip the script on male/female relations in the "real world." In this pepto bismol painted plastic playground, women hold all positions of power and the Kens are nothing more than decorative props. As the film says at the beginning, "Barbie has a great day every day. But Ken only has a good day when Barbie looks at him."

But while Barbieland was supposed to give men an insight into what it feels like to be a woman, some felt that the portrayal already looked pretty similar to their experience in the world.

While legally women have achieved equality, I think both men and women are struggling to find their footing in a new dichotomy where the two have to want, vs need one another. And like Ken in the movie, some men want to undo the gains feminism has made and re-implement a patriarchy so they don't have to compete with women or evolve to succeed in this new order.

Evolution says that those who cannot evolve will go extinct, and perhaps some of these sexists' bloodlines deserve to die off. But for the rest of us, what happens in the immediate future between men and women is highly consequential. And unless we can find a way to meet one another's needs on an equal playing field and ensure both genders can thrive, we're going to have a lot of unhappy people.

"Barbie" confronts these conundrums head on, and I say we should too.

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