Another day, another faceless corporation attempting to capitalise on the drive for gender equality without doing anything meaningful at all. Today’s own goal comes from Mattel toys – its latest gimmick revolves around everyone’s favourite childhood instrument of patriarchy, Barbie.

The new range, in collaboration with National Geographic, sees Barbie get in touch with her scientific side: there is an astrophysicist Barbie, a polar marine biologist Barbie, and my particular favourite, wildlife conservationist Barbie (because nothing quite says “save the planet” like a bit of mass-produced plastic).

Entomologist Barbie is dressed in a pink gilet, clutching a magnifying glass, a blue butterfly daintily resting on her hand – just like Disney’s Snow White. There is not a bit of mud in sight. Because female entomologists collect butterflies – not cockroaches or weevils or fleas or giant beetles or spiders. Mattel’s attempt at wokeness is hollow; it says you can be anything you want to be, as long as you remain a white, skinny girl, with a full face of makeup and a forced smile. Mattel claims its intention was to stimulate young girls’ interest in Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths). But even a child’s imagination would struggle to see a future version of themselves in this unattainable Aryan body. Studies have shown that playing with a Barbie (the study used a Doctor Barbie and a Fashion Barbie) lowers a girl’s career expectations. Children do not live in a vacuum – they can read between the lines of what it is that makes Barbie so darn special, and it isn’t her job. Instead, they will learn they will never measure up: no one can, her dimensions would make her 7ft tall and probably unable to stand against the full weight of her breasts.

This isn’t the first time Barbie has come under fire for its shallow, tokenistic approach. There was the computer engineering Barbie book in which Barbie relied solely on men to solve her tech issues. Or last year’s “Sheroes” collection, inspired by real-life inspirational women (such as the Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first hijabi Barbie) and still managed to homogenise them into portrayals of unachievable, conventional standards of white beauty. Even the “bigger” Barbies are still thin in comparison to real women, and although some racial diversity has been achieved in the black Barbies, these dolls still mostly feature light skin, westernised faces and straightened hair. Insultingly, the Frida Kahlo Barbie (which her family sought an injunction against) did not don the artist’s iconic unibrow. A doll designed by a multinational corporation and touted to young girls across the globe behind eye-watering marketing budgets can never be anything but a triumph of white patriarchy and capitalism. History has shown us that whenever Barbie changes, it is always too feeble – and always too overdue.