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Midi Drew's avatar

I knew there must be a reason why I (a tomboy who rarely played with Barbie dolls) never felt the need to see Oppenheimer, but have now watched Barbie at least three times, once in the theater and twice at home.

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Richard Careaga's avatar

The role of women in the Manhattan Project was almost entirely devoted to their work as computers. That was their actual job title. The performed most of the millions of calculations needed to make the work of the men possible. A nod in that direction would not have been too much to expect.

Barbie wasn’t so much anti-male as a portrait, reduced to its essence, of how unreflective patriarchal attitudes in men work. To complain the movie is anti-male is a self-own. I’m an older Boomer, and always thought of myself as pretty enlightened on feminism. I’ve begun to see that as a sort of less malign patriarchal half measure. Reply of my life with that in mind has been somewhat upsetting.

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