Comments on: Strength and Attractiveness in Female Role Models

By: Pia Guerrero

Pia Guerrero — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:44:02 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great if you had to have a computer science degree to do your hair?

By: Mary McGuire

Mary McGuire — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:05:51 +0000

You girls just don’t know how lucky you were. I would have loved the beauty salon but I’m not sure it was available in the UK. At least I don’t remember it although I do remember being envious of all the great things available in the U.S. at the time. Thank God for globalization that’s all I have to say. Oh and I’d better get back to work!

By: trishket

trishket — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:17:25 +0000

Wow! I think I had this toy as a little girl. I certainly had a Bionic Woman doll (and her car). This salon thingy was pretty awesome, as I remember. I’m not sure that I’m contributing anything to this discussion – I just had a nice flashback.

By: cgeye

cgeye — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:09:43 +0000

… not to mention that the only beauty salon prominent during the run of the show was a front for a sinister brainwashing operation, using drugs in the shampoo and programming tapes through the hair dryer bonnets. No, I’m not kidding.

By: Village Idiot

Village Idiot — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:29:10 +0000

I love the bionic hand crank that runs the top secret computer of the bionic woman’s beauty salon.

And remember, she was a secret agent and so she unfortunately had to adhere to the superficial standards of beauty in place at the time in order to do her job (and no, I didn’t write that sentence with a straight face). So, of course there would’ve been a bionic beauty salon for her and I hope it makes that weird noise they used in the TV show that always meant she or the bionic man were doing something ‘bionic.’

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:27:56 +0000

Not for nothing, but I would have *killed* for this when I was a kid.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:00:41 +0000

The interesting thing here is that this toy plainly speaks of corporate sabotage. Look at the toy–what “beauty salon” features electrodes, flashing computer lights, “bionic activator cards,” and a EKG readout? (I would have _killed_ for a toy EKG readout 30 years ago.) I mean, if I sat down for a pedicure and they wheeled out a contraption like that, I’d be grabbing my shoes and heading for the door.

The “beauty” features are the obviously stuck-on mirror and the brush, comb and “dryer” that are hastily jammed into slots above the electrical cables. I think the toy was pretty plainly designed as a high-tech electronics workstation, until some genius in a suit decided that it wasn’t “girly” enough, and ordered that it would by God include hairstyling functionality.

“But it’s a computer for the Bionic Woman,” the designers meekly protest.

“Then stick a god-damned Bionic Make-up Mirror on it,” says the idiot in the suit. “What do girls know about computers?”