Barbie Rival

Poor Barbie, who turned 55 yesterday, has faced a lot of hatred. The anti-Barbie backlash is so strong that it has led one man to come up with an alternative: Lammily, the average Barbie.

She has, wait for it, an average body shape. Her proportions are typical for a 19-year-old woman, which means she is shorter, stockier and a whole lot wider than Barbie.

Lammily creator Nickolay Lamm said: "Right now there is no affordable fashion doll on the market that is made according to typical human body proportions and that girls would want to play with."

But why on earth does a 25-year-old man care about making Barbies more realistic?

"I've experienced my own feelings on inadequacy, just like pretty much every person. I thought to myself, if I can experience something like this, I can't begin to imagine what women have to go through because they are subject to much higher beauty standards. My projects are made with this in mind. I want to show that you are beautiful just the way you are."

Lamm explained that the name Lammily - clearly inspired by his family name - is "just a brand name".

"The dolls will come with passports so girls can name their doll anything they want."

He is now hoping to secure $95000 (R1-million) in donations to make Lammily a reality. He is only about $5000 off from his target, and has received support from 2794 backers worldwide.

Lammily, whose strapline is "average is beautiful", shows that girls don't have to be tall, skinny and blonde to be beautiful. They can be brunettes (hooray) and they don't have to wear obscene amounts of make up.

Lammily is nothing like Barbie and her rivals. She doesn't have the scarily big eyes and long, fake lashes of Bratz dolls, nor does she dress like an extra from Pretty Woman.

She wears jeans, trainers and bikini bottoms that cover her bum.

Unlike original Barbie - whose arms were always frozen in that annoying position with their elbows jutting out - Lammily can move. She has "articulated elbows, knees and feet" and she is "fit and strong", Lamm said.

But Lammily is not for young girls because most of them don't distinguish one plastic doll in a dress from another. She is for their anxious parents, hoping a doll will stop their darling daughter from being influenced by Facebook and Rihanna. She is there for those girls when they grow up and start to question what it means to be a woman.

Even if this generation of young girls can't tell the difference between Lammily and a Bratz doll, it doesn't matter. One day they can look back on their childhood years and be thankful that not every plastic doll looked like a sleazy man's fantasy of his dream woman.