The Right Kind of Doll: Sarah Moss on the Prides and Pressures of Girlhood

“You knew… that taste was indistinguishable from morality and yours wasn’t good enough.” Other people had Barbie and Sindy dolls. You couldn’t tell the difference, they were both blonde and blue-eyed and exquisitely thin, and they both came with beguiling wardrobes of sparkly sheer synthetic fabrics, ballgowns and evening dresses, tiny high-heeled shoes for their tiny high-heeled feet. They had hairbrushes, which had to be bigger than the shoes so you could brush their hair with your clumsy human fingers, and tiaras and sparkly hair-clips like ballet dancers. (You were sometimes taken to see the ballet, because it was art, especially with the orchestra playing nineteenth-century music, even though there were also pink silk shoes and sequined tutus and the dancers’ legs were bare right up to the top and they often wore strapless tops and danced en pointe , which ought to have been even worse than high heels if the objection was to women crippling themselves for beauty.) You went to other people’s houses to play with their Barbies and Sindies and with their dressing-up boxes which included their mothers’ old handbags, patent leather and, let us hope, fake crocodile and snakeskin, with metal snaps you could twist and stiff silky linings that smelt of perfume and powder. You used to try on their mothers’ old high-heeled shoes, a net curtain on your head being a veil though not usually bridal, just feminine, just pale and sheer and lacy, and old party dresses from dancing days. The Jumbly Girl preferred backpacks, hands free for the pram or the shopping, never touched make-up, wouldn’t have been seen dead behind a lace curtain and the thing is you’re the same now, aren’t you, you travel the world, show up at posh literary festivals, with a tatty hand-luggage-only backpack, won’t use a wheelie suitcase because it slows you down, because how’s that supposed to work when you need to sprint to make a tight connection at an airport or a station, or when you decide to spend a day hiking between hotels? You sometimes buy high heels but you never […]

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