Dear Mattel, Inc.

I just purchased a Barbie B-Book Laptop from Spiegel for my seven-year-old niece, and I have to say that I am extremely disappointed. Barbie needs to get with the program.

Though the laptop design and concept are wonderful, I just can't believe the lack of care that went into the choosing of words for the word games. For instance, in the "Opposites Attract" game, a game where the child is to read a word and choose its antonym, "thin" was the first word to come up. Naturally, the other half of that winning pair was "fat," a word that was also paired with skinny in another level of the same game. Another very popular word in your games was "pretty," which was paired with "ugly" in the antonym game and showed up as a wrong choice for many of the other words. In fact, the words "pretty" and "thin" showed up in most of the word games on your laptop.

Isn't Barbie supposed to be smart and informed? She is, after all (whether we like it or not), a role model for millions of little girls. Doesn't she realize that the intense focus on and comparison of physical looks is responsible for disorders such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa, disorders that are ten times more common in adolescent girls than boys? Doesn't she realize that low self-esteem results when girls grow up thinking they are only as good/nice/deserving as they are pretty or thin?

Get with it, Mattel. Try pairing antonyms such as "kind" and "cruel," "loving" and "hateful." Instead of putting together "pretty" and "beautiful" in the "Perfect Match" game, try pairing "smart" and "intelligent," or "brave" and "courageous."

As a leading maker of toys, Mattel, Inc., is just as responsible for the mentality and emotionality of these little girls as are their parents, schoolteachers and any other teaching medium, including television and multimedia. Shame on you for being part of the problem. Commit to teaching these little girls something that matters.

Sincerely,

Stephie Smith