Plastic

Some seek to explain the social differences  between men and women through their respective childhood toys. Such analysis makes sense as it as a fact that many human characteristics are explained by experiences a child underwent during his/her childhood. However, when investigating the impact that Barbies have had on women, Prager seems to overlook many seemingly obvious facts.

Prager implies that men are at fault for the problems women face by asking, "Did Mr. Ryan design Barbie as a weapon?" The underlying message behind this statement seems to say that men, somehow, purposely designed the Barbie to suppress women from a young age, similar to Big Brother. However, it is obvious that this was not Ryan's purpose when designing the Barbie. Ryan does not use easily manipulated plastic for the body of Barbie to symbolism him molding women to a certain standard. He actually uses plastic because it was the most efficient and profitable substance to use for the Barbie at the time. In fact, Ryan must've used a moldable substance because a naturally solid substance that is impossible to mold doesn't exist. Thus, even if Ryan's purpose wasn't to suppress young children, the symbolism of the plastic is suspect at best. With this logic, every plastic object could be seen as an attempt to mold humans into a certain template, which certainly isn't true. 

Furthermore, Jack Ryan isn't even seen as the mastermind behind Barbie. Instead, Ruth Handler, a women, is largely credited for the invention of Barbie. This is even confirmed by a quick google search - a search of "barbie inventor" doesn't even mention Jack Ryan once in any articles, instead mentioning Ruth Handler as the inventor. Jack Ryan worked as the head of the research and development department and was in charge of some of the design of Barbie and the accessories that Barbie carried. He was not in charge of the main body of the Barbie, as Prager suggests. Moreover, because the Mattel Corporation created the Barbie, it would be near impossible for all men to create the Barbie. Instead, the collective effort of both men and women would be needed to create a product that created $944M in profit for Mattel in 2013. Thus, it is absolutely false that a women had no hand in designing Barbie, going against a large part of Prager's piece.