Why, like Barbie, I date Ken-like men who let ME be the main character
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He owned a chateau, globe-trotted around the planet in the same way you and I might pop to the supermarket and, of course, was tall, sporty and good-looking.
So when my boyfriend Charlie, a well-known author, proposed when I was in my mid-twenties, you might wonder why I didn’t hesitate to refuse him. Why had I not fallen at the feet of this man, like so many other women had? Well, I wasn’t like those other women.
Yes, I cared for him – but I wanted to live my life on my own terms, and pursue what was promising to be a successful writing career. I wanted to be the centre of my own universe, rather than trailing in the wake of some man.
Charlie had begun to demand too much; too much attention, too much emotion and far too much adoration. Why, I remember thinking, would I marry a man who thought he was the star, while any wife or girlfriend was no more than a supporting act? In fact, quite the opposite was true.
You see, much like Barbie, the iconic doll who’s inspired the new film by Greta Gerwig, I saw men as little more than peripheral characters in the story of my life.
UK-based Antonella Gambotto-Burke (pictured left, with a model) says, much like Barbie, the doll who’s inspired the new film by Greta Gerwig, she saw men as little more than peripheral characters in the story of her life
As the movie’s tagline goes: ‘She’s everything. He’s just Ken.’ After all, I had books on the bestseller lists, wrote front page stories for magazines and newspapers around the world, and regularly appeared on national radio and television.
Not only that but my work allowed me to mix with everyone from great artists to royals and Vogue cover girls. Why would I give any of that up?
Now in my fifties, I can see this is a pattern that has played out again and again in my romantic life.
Like many women of my generation, taught we can ‘have it all’, I have never been interested in becoming a self-important man’s subsidiary. Instead, I was drawn to the type of incidental man who never made boring demands, and very much played second fiddle to my own needs. In short, I only ever wanted a Ken.
It may sound facetious, deliberately reductive even (and the Barbie film has certainly come in for criticisms over its depiction of men). But I believe my desire is shared by more women than you might first think.
Despite what you may assume, my Kens have not all been mindless ‘himbos’ (sorry, Barbie). Some have been behemoths in the boardroom, with bank balances to match. After all, no one, least of all me, wants a helpless man-baby in their lives.
But despite their professional standing, what these men have had in common is that our relationships are conducted on the understanding that within our pairing, I would be my own main character, doing precisely what I wanted with my own life.
And if any of my Kens tried to become more than a gorgeous, joyful accessory? Put simply, I was off.
These Kens have come in many shapes and sizes. Sebastian, a sought-after bachelor, was an orphaned personal injury lawyer with a beautiful house on the water. Tom was an impoverished documentary maker who filmed insects. Giles was a barrister and filmmaker known for his rakish excesses. Tom was a sculptor obsessed with his mother. Luke was a bodybuilding commodities broker. Mark played rugby. Dieter was a German photographer.
A scene from the new Barbie movie, featuring Margot Robbie as Barbie (pictured right) and Ryan Gosling as Ken (pictured left)
Antonella (pictured left) admits: ‘Now in my fifties, I can see this is a pattern that has played out again and again in my romantic life’
Similarly, their personalities differed, too. Some were, like Winnie the Pooh, bears of very little brain. Others were eye-wateringly clever. Their levels of professional ambition varied. Almost all were funny and lovely, but it made no difference.
Even if it became clear they had deeply fallen for me, my regard for them would not eclipse my ambitions for myself. Sure, I loved the stolen kisses in moonlight, the spats, the making-up, the games of Scrabble in the park, the dramatic conclusions.
But it was all a side-show to my main project – living my life as I wanted, on my terms.
Like Barbie, men were never the main event. Even as a child, my fantasies never revolved around a house with a white picket fence.
Instead, I wanted adventure, challenges, excitement – preferably in Barbie-pink heels. I suppose my chequered love life thus far can in part be traced back to what Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, once said: ‘Through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.’
Indeed, when a neighbour gave me my first Barbie when I was six or so, it was love at first sight. I adored her outrageously frilly pink outfits, her doctor’s scrubs and the incredible sense of possibility that surrounded her. I soon had three dolls, before two muscular Kens followed, clad in white shorts and armed with plastic racquets.
Yet however hard I tried to involve them in the Barbies’ adventures, it all fell flat. In comparison to vibrant Barbie, I realised, the Kens were one-dimensional. Ken was the human equivalent of Barbie’s stethoscope.
Barbie’s focus, after all, was always on her career, a pattern established at the beginning of their relationship. In the first year of her existence alone, Barbie held down positions as a ballerina, flight attendant, registered nurse, and singer.
The writer (pictured left) added: ‘Like many women of my generation, taught we can ‘have it all’, I have never been interested in becoming a self-important man’s subsidiary’
On realising this, the young me stopped working to involve the Kens. Instead, they became The Audience, watching as Buzz Cut Barbie (we suffered a mishap with tongs) zip-lined her way across my bedroom or as Doctor Barbie performed heart surgery on my stuffed koala.
Throughout it all, the Kens sat on the edge of my desk and benignly smiled. Comic as this may sound now, to my young mind this arrangement was far more agreeable than the marriages I saw around me.
For the most part, the affluent families in our social circle were desperately unhappy.
As far as I could see, most of this unhappiness was the result of the fathers who, after being absent all day at work, suddenly appeared at night and began throwing their weight around.
There they were, the chief protagonists, with their cigarettes, their infidelities and, in some cases, their violence, while the women and children turned themselves inside out to cater to their needs.
My mother belonged to a generation of women who believed that a wife’s primary duties were to reproduce and look pretty. Men, on the other hand, were venerated as suburban gods.
If, on returning home from work, my father reclined on the sofa and lit a cigarette with no scrupulously clean crystal ashtray before him, he would just drop his ash on the floor. This was my mother’s cue to hurry in, sweep up, and return with an ashtray. No words were necessary. He was our own private Roman Emperor.
Barbie, I thought, provided a superior relationship model, one in which men were cordial and handsome and remained where they belonged: on the sidelines of her fabulous life.
This scenario lost none of its appeal as I grew older. While I have always had male intimates, they never seemed especially necessary to me – the opposite, in fact.
‘Instead, I was drawn to the type of incidental man who never made boring demands, and very much played second fiddle to my own needs. In short, I only ever wanted a Ken.’ insisted Antonella, pictured left
I found conventional relationships so time-consuming and emotionally demanding it was easier to avoid them. Just dating was easier; there was no sense of accountability, no disappointment and no tedium.
While dating, men are always on their best behaviour and, like Barbie, I revelled in the presentation opportunities that the act of dating provided: the gym sessions, facials, massages and heels.
Laughing, a male friend referred to my dates as ‘the harem’ – though in fact like Barbie I was a serial, albeit often short-lived, monogamist, if I slept with them at all, which I mostly didn’t.
But undeniably, insisting on only having Kens in my life has brought on the occasional fraught exchange.
Sebastian, for example, who bought a Jaguar to impress me when I told him I loved them, did not react well when I called it off. He had, I think, wanted to marry – lots of talk about babies, and comments about how I would make a wonderful mother. Introductions to all his friends. Mini-breaks.
Unsurprisingly, it all became too much for me, so I bolted. There were a few angry telephone calls, the last of which ended on a rueful note after he said he would miss me. I told him I would miss him, too. Which I did, if not for long.
Tom, I remember, took it very badly. I think he thought I was a bit of a beast, which I may well have been by the end of the relationship.
He was a whiner – being the sort who just gets on with things, I find whiners intolerable – so I ended the relationship by phone. There was no point in prolonging anything, and I didn’t like him enough to want his friendship.
‘Today, I have a wonderful man, Gavin, a 60-year-old award-winning music producer, who would laugh a great deal if anyone dared describe him as the Ken to my Barbie,’ said the writer (pictured)
In addition to turning down the jet-setting Charlie, I also rejected a number of other marriage proposals and walked out on a few engagements. When one fiancé’s mother took me out to try on wedding gowns, I had to take a minute in the changing rooms to catch my breath; I wanted that white dress as far away from my body as soon as possible. I didn’t want any of it, I realised: not the dress, not the mother-in-law, not the life.
For me, the idea of being so officially tied to a man was an intrinsic threat to my Barbie status. Soon afterwards, I ended the engagement and boarded a flight to a new life on a different continent.
I don’t agree that this makes me cold-blooded though; I was never disingenuous, and I never made false promises. While I loved romance, I just didn’t want anything to derail my focus on my career.
And when I did eventually accept a proposal, from my tall, funny, handsome ex-husband at the age of 39, my friends were startled.
‘The Ice Queen has melted!’ one marvelled. It wasn’t so much that I’d melted, really, but that I’d met a man I thought would never interfere with my work.
In the past, rebelling against their Ken designations, partners had torn up manuscripts and even become violent because my attention was not entirely focused on them.
I was like a tiger targeted by hunters; the independence that initially bewitched them had to be extinguished.
Despite my love for my husband, we divorced after a decade. The marriage fell apart, in essence, because I could no longer stand his mother – the less said about that, the better – and he left soon afterwards.
While I was sad, I was also relieved. As I told my friends: ‘Freedom!’ So, today, do I regret living my life on Barbie and Ken terms? Not in the least. I believe it’s my insistence on only having Kens in my life, and sticking to my firm boundaries about men making too many demands on me, which has led to me finding true emotional contentment in my fifties.
How many women my age, stuck in marriages where their husbands neither respect nor listen to them, can say that?
Today, I have a wonderful man, Gavin, a 60-year-old award-winning music producer, who would laugh a great deal if anyone dared describe him as the Ken to my Barbie.
Nevertheless, in the 15 months we have been together, he has never once attempted to extinguish my light, and he takes immeasurable, Ken-like pride in my achievements, celebrating my successes as whole-heartedly as he would his own.
Gavin cheers me to the heights, and for the first time, I do exactly the same in return. Why? Because he is magnificent to me in every way. Acutely bright and talented, you might think he’d expect to be the big noise in our relationship.
Yet he is the first man I’ve ever known to reciprocate in every sense – he goes out of his way to make me happy.
Even my most minor wins are celebrated with shockingly thoughtful gestures – Fortnum & Mason fudge, a surprise week in Capri – and an irreplaceable devotion. He feels no need to dominate me, never takes me for granted and is always respectful.
Now that’s a man I could stick around for.
*Some names have been changed. Follow Antonella on @gambottoburke and mamaftantonella.com
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