Barbie maker Mattel is coming under growing pressure to mass produce a bald barbie doll for girls who suffer from hair loss, Digital Journal reports.
Last year, Mattel created a one-of-a-kind bald Barbie doll for a 4-year-old suffering from cancer who lost her hair during chemotherapy treatment, according to CBS New York.
Now, some want Mattel to make bald Barbies available to all their customers.
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.
On their Facebook page, campaign organizers wrote the following explanation of their goals and the reasons behind the movement:
We would like to see a Beautiful and Bald Barbie made to help young girls who suffer from hair loss due to cancer treatments, Alopecia or Trichotillomania . Also, for young girls who are having trouble coping with their mother's hair loss from chemo. Many children have some difficulty accepting their mother, sister, aunt, grandparent or friend going from a long haired to a bald.
According to the Amarillo Globe-News, the movement is also asking Mattel to create headscarves and hats for the bald dolls.
A petition has also been started on Change.org lobbying for the manufacture of the hairless dolls. As of Wednesday, Jan. 11, the petition had garnered 817 signatures.
Tracey Kidd, whose daughter is suffering from cancer, told the Sunday Mail that she agreed with the campaign.
"There's so much emphasis, especially on little girls, on their hair and how they (cancer kids) look," Kidd told the paper. "It's important for them to feel good, especially in hospital."
Still, not everyone agrees with the idea of a mass-produced bald Barbie.
One Chicago blogger who writes under the name Mary Tyler Mom, argues that focusing on something like toys fails to address the real needs of cancer sufferers.
Girls with cancer need a bald doll about as much as women with breast cancer need a pink Kitchen Aid mixer...You know what girls with cancer need? They need money. They need lots and lots and oodles and oodles of dollars for the researchers working on their behalf.
If Mattel agrees to make the bald Barbie, campaigners have said they hope the company will donate at least some of the proceeds to Saint Jude's Children's Hospital, a nonprofit pediatric cancer research center in Memphis, Tennessee.