I went to see the Barbie movie twice.  Hereś why–

I believe that women should be allowed to say what they think and become whoever they want to become.  There, I said it.  

In so many places in our world today, on our beautiful Earth, women literally cannot speak their mind.  In Belarus, there are women sitting in jail, in isolation, because they spoke up against their government.  They just spoke up.  They made their voices heard.  And now they are in solitary confinement.  Does that seem just?  

The Barbie movie gives Barbie a chance to say how messed up the world is today, and in pointing out the painful reality of our lives, it heals women because we get a chance to experience that we are not alone.  We are not alone in noticing our dollar bills have pictures of dead white gentlemen on it.  I love Grant, I have Grant´s biography on my bookshelf, but I do notice that women are relegated to coins, which few people use now.  Everytime we use a bill, we see a white man staring back at us. And then Barbie sees that all the Presidents of our great country have been male.  At least in the Supreme Court, there are women.  Deborah would be proud.  

And so there is pain in seeing that the world is not like Barbie Land.  At all.  The pain of living in a society that has come a long way, no doubt, and is full of wonderful men who affirm women and their ability to be whoever they want, and yet a society that makes people like Beth Moore suffer when she pointed out just the blatant reality of how Trump treated women.  Just the reality that maybe Trump spoke about women in a disrespectful way.  Just for saying that, Beth was ostracized.  But she literally just spoke the truth.  

I have heard some of my favorite conservative commentators label the Barbie movie ¨pure propaganda.” Heck yeah, it is. It is propagating the idea that women are having a pretty hard time in society right now, yes, even now, and yet they can, together in community, become whoever they want, their full selves, their full selves as mothers and as career women, their full selves as God intended them to be.  

Critics have pointed out that the initial scene of the movie is disturbing.  I agree.  We don’t have to smash baby dolls to make the point that we can be who we would like to be in the public arena.  However, we do have to put the baby doll down for a minute in order to engage in career pursuits.  And that means someone will have to watch the baby–whether that person is a man or a woman.  Someone will have to step in to help.  We women cannot do everything ourselves.  We become who we are meant to be in a community.  

We need each other – men need women and women need men.  Women need men–just ask any single mom.  Is it fun?  No, it is not fun.  It is difficult every single day.  Men and women in my life have stepped up so that I can have a job, so that I can go to a conference, so that I can be a normal person who has real career pursuits that I am passionate about.  My family and my ex-husband and his family made it possible for me to be a contributing member of society.  I am not saying they did the work for me, because girl, itś a lot of work that we have to do as women.  I am saying that they did their part (especially my family).  To say that their part is not essential is just not true in my case.  

I am writing this because Barbie woke me up from my depressive stupor.  By speaking the truth about our society in a community of women on screen, the Barbies inspired me to speak my truth again.   And yes, itś hard to speak my truth because as Jon Baptiste describes it, many of us live in a gray area–I have family and friends from all over the world and all different backgrounds and perspectives.  I do not want to offend anyone because I see both sides of many issues.  And so it has been easier to stay quiet.  But given the present situation, I know I cannot stay quiet forever.  When I hear my conservative friends totally dismiss the Barbie movie, I want to go full Raja Kumari on them and rap about how ESSENTIAL women´s voices are with all her talent and passion.  We all can´t rap like that, but to be contributing members of society, we have to verbalize our experiences in the ways we are able. 

And sometimes that experience is the depressed Barbie with her mascara all over her face and her hair uncombed.  To be honest about what we have experienced in the last four years on this planet is to be honest about the times of tears.  That is another reason why I appreciated this movie–because Barbie cried freely.  Honestly, parenting tweens and seeing the horrible war in Ukraine continue, I am depressed Barbie a lot. And yet, just in saying how much what is going on right now sucks, there is healing and there is freedom.  

I believe God made men and women to speak out.  Otherwise, wouldn´t only the men have vocal chords?  We are meant to speak our truth.  With dignity and with respect.  But we must speak it.   Not to do so would be to play into the Devilś persistent thoughts of death, thoughts that are very real and cannot be glossed over.  And yet Barbie chose Life in our world.  We are created to choose life.  We were created – men and women – to be our full selves – with our myriad passions and ways to serve.  Who is anyone to tell a woman she can only be a career woman?  Thatś as ludicrous as saying a woman can only be a mother.  And who are we to say that we do not need each other?  I know it was tongue-in-cheek in the movie to say that Ken was not essential.  But good men are ESSENTIAL.  Good men who are loving mercy and walking humbly.  Who stand for what is right.  Who protect womenś voices.  Please, we need them so much.  

And thatś the bottom line for me– we need womenś voices.  And menś voices.  In an atmosphere of interdependence, love, and respect.  We need that now more than ever.  

The End.