A mother, who had always prevented her daughter from owning a Barbie Doll on the grounds that it was demeaning to women was recently persuaded to capitulate to her daughter's demands. “A friend pointed out that if I denied her what she wanted, then what was I saying about her desire?” the mother recounted. I have no qualifications to comment on the morality of owning a Barbie. My experience of dolls thus far has been that of stealing them from my sister and using them as target practice for my air gun. I can, however, comment on the mother's judgment of human desire. The problem with such an optimistic view of human desire is that they very often compete with someone else's desire. In this case, whose desire should we say is better: the mother's or the child's? Apparently the mother chose the child's desire over her own, but could just as well chosen otherwise. In which case, she could have quipped to her friend, “If I buy my daughter a Barbie, what does that sa...