Forever Barbie_ The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll - Lord [41]
Perhaps because of this bitter legacy, "feminist" seems to be an obscene word at Mattel. "If you asked me to give you fifty words that describe me, it wouldn't be on the list," said Rita Rao, executive vice president of marketing on the Barbie line. Yet when Rao discusses her career, she recounts experiences that might have made another woman join NOW, like her 1964 job interview at Levi Strauss where she was told, "We don't hire women"; and in 1969, her applications to various stock brokerage firms that, except for one to Dean Witter, were turned down for the same reason.
First hired in 1966, Rao left Mattel in 1970, returned in 1973, left again in 1979 to start her own company, and returned in 1987 as a vice president. Mattel must be a good place for a woman to work, she jokes, because she keeps coming back. "I know Ruth Handler absolutely doesn't think of herself as a feminist," Rao explains. "She's antifeminist, if anything. [But] when there's a woman at the top, it's illogical to say that a woman can't be capable. So even though she didn't really promote women or move them forward, her very being there made a statement."
Ruth Handler is almost too original for modifiers like "feminist" and "antifeminist" or even "good" and "evil." "Swashbuckling," "intrepid," "one-of-a-kind"—these are adjectives for Ruth. Conventional propriety has never seemed to weigh heavily upon her. It isn't so much that she sees herself outside the law, but that she is a law unto herself. This no doubt helped her to cope with breast cancer; unashamed, she diagnosed the shortcomings of existing mastectomy prostheses and founded a company to make better ones. But it may also have contributed to her being found guilty of white-collar crimes that, in the words of the judge who sentenced her, were "exploitative, parasitic, and . . . disgraceful to anything decent in this society."
Barbie's fate in the early seventies was very closely linked with Ruth's. Barbie's values were Ruth's values, and the risk Ruth took by introducing Barbie had paid off handsomely. But in 1970, Ruth's luck changed. "I had a mastectomy and the world started to fall apart," she said.
Back at work two weeks after the operation, Ruth had her hands full. While Elliot handled Mattel's creative side, Ruth attended to its business and financial aspects, which, ten years after the company went public, had expanded well beyond toys. In 1969, Mattel acquired Metaframe Corporation, a manufacturer of hamster cages, aquariums, and other pet supplies. Not satisfied with small animals, in 1970 it moved to larger ones—lions, tigers, and bears—by acquiring the Ringling Bros, and Bamum & Bailey Circus. It bought Audio Magnetics Corporation, a manufacturer of audiotape, and Turco Manufacturing, a maker of playground equipment, and it formed Optigon Corporation, a distributor of keyboard musical instruments.
It even got into the movie business, forming Radnitz/Mattel Productions, Inc., which produced the Academy Award-winning Sounder.
Mattel's goal in diversifying was to retain some sort of equilibrium. Toys are a volatile, seasonal business; by acquiring stable companies with stable sales, Mattel hoped to offset the capriciousness of the toy market. It also began accounting practices that would even out its earnings vacillations, such as "annualization," the deferring of some of its expenses until late in the year when most of its sales took place. Before beginning its diversification, it brought in two key outsiders: Arthur Spear, an MIT engineering graduate who had headed manufacturing operations