Excerpted from NY Daily News
Barbie is the ultimate big-haired blonde, but there’s a grassroots movement afoot to make her go bald.
Two women whose lives have been touched by cancer are urging toy giant Mattel to make a Barbie without a ‘do to help kids come to terms with hair loss.
Their Facebook page for the “Beautiful and Bald Barbie” campaign had won about 50,000 fans by Thursday — more “likes” than Mattel’s corporate page.
New Jersey photographer Jane Bingham helped kick it off in December after reading about a 4-year-old Long Island girl who received a one-of-a-kind hairless Barbie from Mattel.
Bingham, 41, lost her own hair while fighting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma last year and noticed her 9-year-old, Belleliana, had a tough time with it.
“She would imitate me, putting scarves on her head,” said Bingham, who lives in Sewell, N.J. “I’d really love to see this Barbie come with some scarves, maybe a hat and maybe a wig, to make it interactive.”
Bingham joined forces with California resident Beckie Sypin, mother of a 12-year-old girl with leukemia. Her daughter Kin, whose hair fell out, loved the idea.
“She wants to take a bunch of them to the children’s hospital where she gets her treatment,” Sypin said.
So far, a Facebook campaign has already generated more than 11,000 likes calling for a bald Barbie doll which they say will help boost the self esteem in women and children experiencing hair loss from cancer treatment, pulling one’s hair out and other diseases that cause the immune system to attack hair follicles.
