Growing up I was a huge barbie fan. My sisters and I would play barbies all the time and turn my parent’s furniture into our barbie mansions. As I got older barbie started to receive a negative connotation among many different groups. Barbie has been said to give off a ” I have to look beautiful for my husband and be a stay at home mom” look. Barbie has also been under public scrutiny because she has been said to fail at  representing the female gender as anything but beautiful and she fails to equally represent different races. While I always listened to these complaints and the several other complaints that came up I always loved Barbie and always have said that I can’t wait to pass my barbies on to different girls in my family. I would say the view I have held has often been called wrong and people have said it will put barriers on the females in my family if they grow up with the same attitudes that I had.  Those views were shared by many until recently. Barbie is changing her image! Mattel Canada has been helping to promote barbies differently with the “I Can Be” campaign which is all about female empowerment.  In Toronto, they held the campaign where preteen girls could come to the show and choose out of the 125 different careers Barbie has had since her debut in 1959. Once they chose their career they got their picture taken and then got to strut down the pink carpet to Barbie herself who handed the girls a diploma. This event was very well perceived and I think was a very good marketing plan. While I don’t believe that Barbie affected me negatively I think campaigns like this will help Barbie impact and influence young girls dreams in a positive manner. To read more about the campaign click here. If you want to see some of the new female empowerment barbies click here