It is a fact commonly understood by women the world over that Barbie can be and do anything she sets her mind to. Her possession of such a fearless and tenacious attitude has always been intrinsic to her charm and is a driving reason why she is both beloved and iconic. For generations of girls, Barbie has served as the pinnacle of female beauty and achievement and, as we grow up playing with our various Barbies, each one kitted out for a new career or adventure, her narrative becomes the template on which our own hopes and dreams are written. These forays into creative narrative overlay, for many girls, represent a first articulation of their dreams and ambitions, a roadmap for how they want their lives to unfold.

It is uncommon, if not impossible however, that any woman aspired to the summit of her dreams alone. So too is it easy to forget that Barbie’s success has never been a story in isolation. Her sister, Skipper, and best friend, Midge, have long been her support crew… and yet, they seem to perpetually languish in her shadow. From a feminist perspective, their invisibility is an unspeakable crime, and it is high time that this neglect was addressed. Thus, this chapter asks the important question: Who are Skipper and Midge, and what role does each woman play in Barbie’s identity and mythology?

My analysis considers the evolution of Skipper, that is, how she is represented as a doll and in different forms of media (notably children’s books), across the decades since her creation. This analysis will include a discussion of specific Skipper dolls from my own collection (images can be included) along with some oddities, such as the ‘Growing up Skipper’ doll from 1975. Of interest to my discussion is the gender fluid identity of Skipper. Here, I will draw on the fact that she is a character who has been both a carbon copy of Barbie in some iterations, and an androgynous figure in others. Using gender theory (Hall 2021, McNay 2022) and queer theory (Leckey & Brooks 2010), the chapter argues that Skipper is integral to Barbie’s identity in that she is a representation of a type of person that, because of her role as the quintessential woman, Barbie could never be.

Interestingly, Skipper’s feet play a primary role in how she is received and perceived as a young woman and a gender fluid character. In choosing to mold Skipper with flat feet, Mattel have ensured that she would never be able to wear Barbie’s shoes, which were a staple in establishing Barbie’s femininity and her role as a mature fashionista. Skipper’s androgyny, whilst an inhibitor to ascending to the role of mature women or exclusively feminine icon, provides an outlet for children who seek to explore their own gender identity. Thus, she is both an empowering and fascinating figure within and outside of the Barbie universe.

In contrast to the gender dynamic Skipper is Barbie’s best friend Midge. From a gender binary perspective, Midge represents the parallel life which Barbie could have had (and considering the era of her creation, the life she was perhaps expected to have). Whereas Barbie has lived her career dreams (as an astronaut, movie star, doctor, and veterinarian – to name a few), Midge married her high school sweetheart, Allen, had a family, and settled into a life of perfection and domesticity (or so we can assume). While she is often featured as an accessory to many of Barbie’s adventures, their lives could not be more different, leading one to wonder what the two women have in common and how they have sustained their friendship for over half a century.

In the case of Midge, I argue that she remains part of the Barbie lexicon specifically because she speaks to the traditional, nuclear idea of femininity. Whilst she might not be Barbie, she is close enough to Barbie for their lives to intersect so that Barbie might inhabit (albeit briefly) a more conservatively feminine persona. For many of the girls who play with Barbie (and Midge), the life of feminine domesticity and tradition remains a very real aspiration. The fusing of these two characters through their friendship, legitimates both lifestyles.

The chapter will ultimately conclude that it is her relationships with both Skipper and Midge that allow Barbie her universal popularity, because through them she is truly able to embody every woman. Rather than seeing Skipper or Midge as separate to Barbie, we might perhaps be better to view them as an extension of her.