Not quite an orphan, yet not quite part of a family...

"Barbie in Therapy" is about what Barbie would say if she ever were to talk to a therapist about her life.  She can't express feelings unless they are expressed via materialistic images.  Her personality was programmed in her.  She doesn't even know what anger is.
   "She never had time for any kind of childhood. 
     Not quite an orphan, yet not quite part of a family
     Barbie finds she's been given so little vocabulary
     to talk about her feelings."
Barbie has been forced to enter adulthood too early unlike Sue in Barbie's Queer Accessories (page 107-108).  Sue preferred Ken, but asked for a barbie.  Once she got her, Barbie was despised.  Sue wanted to go outside and leave "girl toys" inside.  Sue says, "I resented being supposed to do the girl thing all the time.  I wanted to do the boy stuff.  I think the Barbie thing was also about being treated as too young.  I was the youngest of four girls, and my family kept treating me as younger than I was...It was another example of how my family did not want to let me grow up."
   Barbie was forced into adulthood and Sue continuously was pushed into the childhood Barbie never had the chance to experience.  Totally different right?  Wrong.  Both were misfits to their families.  Both had little they could say to change the situation.  Funny how family works like that. 

I picked these passages mostly because I really liked the idea of Barbie being in therapy. It wasn't overly difficult to understand, but there were many hidden messages that spoke to me throughout the passage.  It just seemed to be in line with how I feel Barbie feels.  As soon as I read the line about her not quite fitting in, I thought of Sue and how her family treated her differently too.  Both books were interesting.  Barbie's Queer Accessories wasn't really my cup of tea, but it had a lot of information that was interesting in it.  But Kinky was more fun for me to read.  I liked the way the passages worked together to create a book that had meaning.  Reading one on its own was interesting, but felt empowered after reading several at a time.