Barbie executives
They’re still mostly men
By now many of you have likely seen the Barbie movie. For those who haven’t, this isn’t going to be a big spoiler. At the movie’s Mattel headquarters, Will Ferrell is the boss, flanked at a huge conference table by about 20 men in identical suits. It’s visually funny, sure, and played for laughs. At one point all these suits ride one long tandem bike together, heading to Barbieland to capture Barbie and put her back in a box. The repeated visual of this swarm of men in suits says, “Ha ha, look, we can laugh at ourselves.”
Well, good. But also, if you take a look at Mattel’s actual executive leadership page, the ratio of men to women is still 2:1. Ha … ha? I’m not sure where the joke is here.
Women are the new face of leadership, but we’re not in the human portion of the Barbie movie, and we’re certainly not there yet in real life. That’s why we’re all here. There’s a long way to go, so let’s keep going.
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