Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on what Barbie's shoes tell us about women's choices

What do you get when a group of podiatrists team up with a Barbie doll collector? A research paper published in the journal PLOS ONE that looks into 65 years of Barbie history. 

The idea started when one of the authors was watching the 2023 Barbie movie. In it, there was a scene when Barbie steps out of her high heels and her feet flatten for the first time. For those of us who grew up with Barbie, we know that her feet used to be in a permanent tip-toe position. The researchers found a Barbie collector and analysed 2750 of their Barbie dolls from her debut in 1959 to June 2024 with a specific tool designed to measure foot posture of the doll. 

They found that over the decades Barbie has moved from a world of endless stilettos to one where flats are more common, especially when she’s on a job. 

Just like many women today, Barbie now 'chooses' her shoes based on what she needs to do. If she's skateboarding, working as an astronaut, or heading to a medical shift, it's flats all the way. But when it's time to party, those heels come back out. 

In the 1960s, all Barbies stood on tip-toes, ready for a night out. But by the 2020s, only 40 percent of Barbies had that high-heel-ready posture.  

That change aligns with Barbie’s expanding résumé. From being an astronaut in 1965 to a surgeon, Barbie has boldly entered fields once dominated by men. 

As women gained more workplace rights and opportunities, so did Barbie. In fact, by 2024, 33 percent of Barbies represent real-world jobs. And with that shift came new footwear more functional, more stable, and more diverse. 

The study found that Barbie’s foot posture reflected more than just job roles. It mirrored broader changes in representation and inclusion. 

For example, Barbie dolls with prosthetic limbs wore flat shoes to reflect stability, but intriguingly, some dolls in wheelchairs still wore high heels, reminding us that fashion and function can coexist, and that breaking stereotypes isn’t always about ditching glamour. 

The topic of high heels often comes with warnings - about bunions, knee pain, back problems. But here's the twist: these issues are also common in people who don’t wear heels. And most research into high-heel risks involves people who rarely wear them or wear them during high-impact activities. 

There’s a lot we don’t know about the long-term effects of regularly wearing high heels. What we do know is this: they slow your walking pace and challenge your balance. But risk varies depending on heel height, shoe design, and individual lifestyle. 

Ultimately, Barbie reflects us. She's not just a plastic fashionista, she's a cultural mirror. Her shift from stilettos to flats isn’t about turning her back on glamour. It’s about making purposeful choices. 

Barbie wears heels when she’s feeling fabulous, and sneakers when she’s saving the world. And maybe that’s the real message here: women can and do make thoughtful decisions about their footwear based on comfort, identity, and function. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
It'b and it is time for our science the study
of the week and what can Bobby tell us about
women and their fashion choices when it comes to footwear
over the age as well? Quite a bit, as it
turns out, because somebody has studied this.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Michelle, good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Where did you find the study this?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Do you know what? I do a science study every
week and I always say, you know, go read it.
Blah blah blah. If you have never read an academic
scientific study before, this is the one for you. Don't
read any of the others. It's the most delightful research
I have ever read. It's totally random, it's easy to read.
Its open, saucy. You can just google it and it

(00:53):
is lovely. Yeah, I stumbled across it. It was published
last week in the journal Plos one, and it's called
fat out, flat out fabulous How Barby's foot posture and
occupations have changed over the decades. And it literally is
a lot of pictures of Barbie's feet from the nineteen
sixties through to today and how they have changed.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Because I think we all, I remember them always being pointed,
which tells you a little bit about how old I am.
I don't know if I either got to the flat
footed Barbie.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
No, so us old people. They were always poinenty high
heeled Barbies. And I didn't realize this, but ninety two
percent of girls in the US and the Western world
have owned a Barbie, so most of us will know
at least one Barbie. They've sold over a billion of
these dolls, and I didn't realize how cool and actually
game changing they might be from a diversity perspective. So

(01:48):
in this study, they basically took twenty seven hundred and
fifty different Barbie dolls that had been released from Barbie's
launch in nineteen fifty nine all the way through to
the latest one in June twenty twenty four, and they
devised this beautiful custom mode Barbie foot angle measuring tool

(02:10):
called a Goniometer to measure basically whether her feet were
flat or she was on high tiptoes or somewhere in between.
And usually if she's on high tiptoes, it's because she's
come with stilettos, because standard Barbie only ever came with stilettos.
Right in the beginning, because standard Barbie never had a
job because regular Barbie back in the nineteen sixties and

(02:33):
many women didn't work, and so Barbie was just about
being fashionable and being gorgeous and wearing fancy clothes, and
that's all Barbie meant. But things changed and I did
not know this. So actually, in nineteen sixty five, before
we had the moon landing, there was astronaut Barbie, which
is actually quite cool. And then in nineteen seventy three

(02:57):
there was surgeon Barbie, and you go, oh, yeah, that's fine.
But at the time, in nineteen seventy three, ninety one
percent of doctors were men. So this is cutting edge
and quite disruptive. And then in nineteen ninety eight, and
this study has standard me because obviously a lot has
changed recently. In nineteen eighty eight, the law in the

(03:17):
US changed which allowed women to have their own business
because prior to nineteen eighty eight in the US, women
could not take it out or secure alone without the
permission of a man and his co signature. So from
eighty eight Barbie started having businesses and she could do
a whole bunch of stuff. So she killed off a stiletto,

(03:39):
she got jobs, she got flat, and she started to
enter male dominated fields. And I think it's really cool
that this study basically has looked at how women have changed,
but also has barbied has changed over time.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Absolutely, Barbie reflecting as thank you so much, Michelle, nice
to kick up with you.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
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