Redefining Power Dynamics: Barbie, Ken and the Patriarchy
The power of the patriarchy is something we choose when we forget the power within ourselves.
The Barbie movie cleverly packages heavy topics like patriarchy and gender equality as easy nostalgia and entertainment. It’s like a dose of the amoxicillin antibiotic when it comes in the pink bubble-gum suspension: you don’t appreciate that it’s killing pathogens because it’s yummy. But what you get from the movie depends on how deep you are willing to go. The movie is an invitation to consider and question how we unwittingly facilitate a world driven by fear and insecurity, and what this means for our relationships and ourselves.
First, the presentation of patriarchy in the Barbie movie is savvy because it inverts gender roles, first showcasing how the dominance of feminine power in the “Barbie world” hurts Ken. Once the audience has identified and empathized with Ken and his struggle, the movie then likens Ken’s experience to the experience of women in the “real world.” The word “patriarchy” does not even show up in the movie until it is seen as the inverse of what had hurt Ken and his brethren.
But what is more compelling is the demonstration of the invisible nature of patriarchy. Masculine energy integrates every aspect of our world. It is so pervasive that we do not see it or know it as what it is. And how could we understand it when there is no counterpoint for comparison? Much like Ken who could not conceive of a masculine-centric society until he experienced it, we lack opportunities to understand what a world balanced with feminine energy would feel or look like. There are no examples or standards. We don’t know what we don’t know.
But what we do know is that external societal standards for women are incongruent, limiting and unattainable. In the movie, America Ferrera’s character, Gloria, delivers a poignant monologue highlighting the hypocrisies:
“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas.”
Most of us do not need examples from the movie to appreciate how these pervasive standards limit and deny women.
But, to take it one step further, we misunderstand the root of the injury when we focus exclusively on the standards themselves. The real source of injury is not hypocritical standards, but rather our reliance on the standards or authorities in the first place. We deny ourselves when we constantly look externally for affirmation, safety or worth. This includes when we look externally to other people or special relationships. We then unwittingly feed a reciprocal desire in the other person to find a sense of control or superiority from the relationship. Both are driven by an intention and desire to satiate underlying fear or insecurity through something external. Both energies and intentions feed each other and distract from an ability to address the root issues and find our sense of safety, worth or truth from within ourselves.
Ken can’t figure out who he is outside of his relationship Barbie. He clamors for her attention while feeling badly. After he is introduced to the patriarchy of the “real world,” he reverts to seeking to dominate and control the Barbies. Both strategies are attempts to cope with insecurity without actually addressing what is limiting. Ken remains unfulfilled and lacking and doesn’t find fulfillment or joy until he begins to focus on his relationship with himself.
What is more, is that a patriarchy or society plagued by an imbalance in gender power is not something men participate in alone to the victimization of women. It is something that men and women dance in together to the detriment of all. Barbie and her friends had to “de-program” the other Barbies to discontinue the imbalance. But there is no victim, because there is a path forward if one party discontinues the dance. It starts by noticing our need for externalization.
Our relationships are pathways to find ourselves, and the best relationships we have are those that support our ability to find our truth from within and without resort to external figures, rules or guideposts. We diminish ourselves every time we seek external sources, authorities or standards to govern or validate how we show up in this world. And every time we define ourselves through our relation to – or power over – another, we give oxygen to the belief that we are not enough.
The answer to an imbalance in gender power or patriarchy is not to simply get mad and fight for different standards, rules or authorities. The answer is to give less power to the standards or rules themselves. This happens when we learn to trust what comes from within and can embody the full expression of our authentic selves in our choices and relationships. It is not about changing the game or concentrating power differently. It’s about embodying the choice to boldly let go of the game altogether. We can learn to love ourselves enough to just “be” without externalization. As with the characters from the movie, the call to action is for each of us to show up as who we are.
Originally published by the Good Men Project here