We've all seen the hype around the new Barbie movie. From Zara’s new Barbie-inspired clothing line to tiktok and Instagram trends, everything has been about Barbie. As a teen who never really played with Barbie, I thought that movie would be a fun and quirky one that would offer some giggles and laughs, but it was so much more than that. It’s not just a movie about Barbie it’s about every woman and every girl, it’s about you. It talks about some extremely important issues that no one seems to be talking about. How women feel so unsafe in public spaces. How in the real world women bring other women down instead of uplifting them. In Barbie land, every Barbie supports the other, compliments the other, and encourages the other Barbies. In reality, when we see another woman wear the same dress as us, we enter a sort of competition with them on who looks better in it. Another thing to not is that when Barbie saw an old women she thought she was beautiful, you know why because Barbie didn’t know about the beauty standards of the real world and how we consider aging as not a normal human experience that does not make someone less beautiful and actually celebrates womanhood but instead as a sign of decline. This is not just it, Barbie also pointed out the struggles of being a woman, the struggles each and every one of us goes through but just never really talk about because we’ve seen it so much and so often we believe it’s normal. How sometimes we’re so tired and burnt out that we just don’t feel ourselves anymore. We are so tired of acting perfect all the time, of listening to everyone on how we should live our lives. We always want to be the prettiest, the smartest , the coolest, and the best to stand out. We have to do so much just to be recognised and acknowledged, and still, it doesn’t seem to work. In reality, we don’t need it, we don’t need anyone to tell us that we are pretty or smart or cool, we don’t need to constantly be seeking external validation from other people, we need to make our lives about ourselves and discover ourselves. If there’s one thing I have learned from this movie is that when you make your life about someone else, your life just becomes this toxic place you don’t want to live in, just look at ken and Kendom, Kendom was never about kens, it was about ruling over other Barbies, being the priority in Barbies’ lives not their own. Similarly, we will always remain unhappy as long as we want to become the priority in someone else’s life and not make us our own priority. Thinking about if boys like us and what they think about us and what everyone thinks about us we’ve become so involved in that, that we’ve forgotten about what WE think of our own selves whether we like who we are or have we just created a version of ourselves that’s acceptable to others. Remember ken at the start of the movie, he was all about Barbie, he focused on whether Barbie said hi to him, smiled at him and wanted to spend time with him, he wasn’t happy. We have to take control over our own lives, since everyone wants us to act a certain way, look a certain way and be a certain someone Barbie showed as that even if we were perfect like the stereotypical Barbie, whose hair, feet and dresses were all perfect we will truly never feel happy until we accept ourselves and actually give ourselves the validation and encouragement we expect from others. No matter what you do, you will never be able to please everyone, so choose to please yourself, choose to make your life about you. Barbie was also a tribute to all the mothers out there who compromised on their dreams and needs so their daughters could have theirs. This article is also dedicated to our first examples of beauty and resilience , the ones that made us feel beautiful and strong, the strongest humans we know, to the ones who stand behind so their daughters can look back at how far they’ve come, our mothers. Barbie healed some’s inner childs, touched some hearts, enraged some, and left others questioning their lives with their eyes filled with tears, truly a masterpiece. *The movie was not anti-men, and neither is this article , it’s just doesn’t prioritise men. So let’s just let the ladies have a moment.