AND FINALLY

Toymakers Mattell have been under fire this week. Not only do they warp young girls’ (and boys’) body images and gender stereotypes by pedalling the plastic doll and aspirational fantasy world of Barbie, but they’ve also been packaging her using materials supplied by Asia Pulp & Paper.

APP is infamous for the way it indiscriminately wrecks Indonesia’s forests, destroying the homes of some of the last tigers, orang-utans and elephants. Greenpeace has successfully previously forced Carrefour, Tesco, Kraft, Nestlé and Unilever (what a rogue’s gallery) into dropping APP and at least promising more greenwash, er stringent standards in future.

On Tuesday (14th), activists rolled out banners on Mattel buildings with an exasperated Ken remarking “Barbie, it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.” Mattell were quickly forced into placative statements about how they are ‘moving toward’ creating a ‘sustainable procurement’ policy,  That may be a start but Ken is still refusing to take Barbie back, and she was last seen sobbing alone in her dreamhouse.

Greenpeace UK are aiding pre-teens without a Barbie doll of their own by hiding over 800 of them in trees across the UK..  But isn’t it every girl’s dream to fight deforestation, stop global warming and save endangered species?