Teen Talk Barbie is an edition of

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in more ...

Barbie Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by American toy company Mattel, Inc. and launched on March 9, 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration. ...

doll, introduced in 1992, that incorporates a voice box to speak one of four randomly selected phrases when a button is pushed. It became controversial because one of the phrases was "Math class is tough", and was also later used for a protest wherein some dolls had the voice boxes exchanged with those for Talking

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...

G.I. Joe ''G.I. Joe'' is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier ( U.S. Army), Ac ...

action figure An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are usually mark ...

s produced by

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

Doll

Teen Talk Barbie was introduced at the 1992 American International Toy Fair and became available for sale for about $25 in July that year.Linda van Laren
"Math Class Is Tough"
in ''Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia'', ed. Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Volume 2, Westport, Connecticut / London: Greenwood, 2008, , pp. 423–24.
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', October 21, 1992. 350,000 were produced.Dawn Herlocher
"Barbie & Friends"
''200 Years of Dolls: Identification and Price Guide'', 3rd ed., Iola, Wisconsin: Krause, 2005, , p. 81. The dolls contained a voice box programmed with a random assortment of four phrases out of 270 possibilities, including "Will we ever have enough clothes?",John Boone
"The 14 Most Controversial Barbies Ever"
'' Entertainment Tonight'', November 24, 2014. "Let's plan our dream wedding!",David Firestone
"While Barbie Talks Tough, G. I. Joe Goes Shopping"
''The New York Times'', December 31, 1993. "I'm studying to be a doctor",Susan A. Nolan and Thomas Heinzen, ''Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences'', 2nd ed., New York: Worth, 2012,
p. 196
"Wanna have a pizza party?", "Want to go shopping?", "Okay, meet me at the mall", "Wouldn't you love to be a lifeguard?", "Let's have a campfire", and "Math class is tough."Catherine Driscoll
"We Girls Can Do Anything, Can't We Barbie?"
in ''Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia'', ed. Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Volume 1, Westport, Connecticut / London: Greenwood, 2008, , pp. 41–42, p. 41.

Controversy

Educators including the

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds an ...

objected to the "Math class is tough" phrase as detrimental to the effort to encourage girls to study math and science, and particularly in association with the phrases about shopping; the American Association of University Women criticized it in a report about girls receiving a relatively poor education in math and science. Mattel initially offered to exchange dolls for nonspeaking ones on request, and later apologized to the American Association of University Women, withdrew the math class phrase from those to be used in future dolls, and offered an exchange to purchasers who had a doll with that phrase. The criticism gave rise to the 1994 "

Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy" is the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 95th episode overall. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 17, 1994. Li ...

" episode of ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...

'', in which

Lisa Simpson Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. She is the middle child and most accomplished of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa was born as a character in '' The Tracey Ullman ...

objects to sexist utterances by a "Malibu Stacy" doll such as "Thinking too much gives you wrinkles." , the collector's price for one of the estimated 3,500 Teen Talk Barbies including the phrase "Math class is tough" was around $500.

Voice box exchange with G.I. Joe

In 1993, to draw attention to what they regarded as outdated gender stereotypes exemplified by the dolls, a group of East Village

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

s calling themselves the

Barbie Liberation Organization The Barbie Liberation Organization or BLO, sponsored by RTMark, were a group of artists and activists involved in culture jamming. They gained notoriety in 1993 after switching voice boxes in talking G.I. Joes and Barbie dolls. The BLO performed " ...

orchestrated an exchange of voice boxes between 300 Teen Talk Barbies and Hasbro Talking Duke G.I. Joe action figures, which were replaced on store shelves. Affected Teen Talk Barbies spoke phrases such as "Eat lead, Cobra!", "Attack!", and "Vengeance is mine!"McClary, p. 35. They were found in stores in New York and California.

References

{{Barbie 1990s toys Barbie 1992 controversies Toy controversies