Aspiring Equal Oppertunity Feminist Granola girl.

What's your favorite thing most people get wrong?

About history? Well, there are so many, but my favorite- in terms of not driving me totally up the wall every time I hear it and being fun to correct -is that Barbie was the first fashion doll to represent an adult woman.

I'm not going to get into exactly why this is wrong, at least not in depth, because dolls that represent adult women with some degree of anatomical detail date back at least to ancient Rome.

(You could argue that ancient Egyptian paddle dolls represent adult women because they often appear to have stylized pubic hair, but for my purposes, I'm only counting dolls that are humanoid in shape.)

But the popular myth that Mattel encourages is that Barbie's creator, Ruth Handler, noticed an absence of adult-bodied fashion dolls for her daughter to play with. She then spotted Bild Lilli, a sexy gag gift meant only for adult men, while on a trip to Germany (bonus scandalous origins for a children's toy!). And Barbie was born.

The more nuanced version is that dolls that represented adult women weren't as popular in the 1950s, but they still existed. Madame Alexander's Cissy, Ideal's Miss Revlon, Uneeda's Dollikin, and many others. Where Barbie stood out from the crowd was twofold:

1. She was smaller and far more affordable than most existing adult-bodied fashion dolls (compare Cissy at $15-20 to Barbie's original price of $3, and their heights of 20" and 11" respectively). The idea for Barbie came less from a total absence of fashion dolls on the market, from what I've heard, and more from Handler noting her daughter's fondness for paper dolls- small, inexpensive, and fashionable.

2. Her face looked far more mature than that of Miss Revlon and company.

So while Barbie was unusual at the time, she wasn't the first of her general type- or occupying a vacant spot on the shelf.

(Also Bild Lilli wasn't just a saucy gift for men- she was also marketed as a children's toy in many European countries, and her manufacturers also sold outfits for the doll. Doesn't exactly have the same ring as "Barbie was based on a SEX DOLL!!!" but it's the truth.)