Back in March, Stacy Cordery  made a comment that stuck with me:

“As a classroom professor and a woman’s biographer, it had been clear to me for years that female entrepreneurs are largely missing from history. Most of us can name at least a handful of Gilded Age or Progressive Era captains of industry (or robber barons; take your pick). But few of us teach our students about women of vision and grit who overcame the odds in the overwhelmingly masculine world of business.”

I’ve been thinking about women entrepreneurs and how their stories are told ever since.

I decided to start with Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her by Robin Gerber, which at 250 pages was a little less daunting than Cordery’s own biography of Elizabeth Arden.*

Barbie and Ruth is definitely the story of a woman who was a successful entrepreneur, but the title is too small for its subject. Ruth Handler (1916-2002) didn’t just create Barbie, she created Mattel, which became the largest toy company in the world under her leadership. She introduced revolutionary changes in how toys (and ultimately other consumer goods) are sold. (She was also indicted by a federal grand jury, along with several other Mattel executives , on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, and giving the Securities and Exchange commission false financial statements. She pleaded no contest. And left the company. )Several years after leaving Mattel, inspired by her experience of breast cancer, Handler founded a second successful company that created lifelike protheses for breast cancer survivors marketed as Nearly Me. She was fond of saying “I’ve lived my life from breast to breast.”

I have mixed feelings about both the book and Handler. In Gerber’s hands, Handler is a charming steamroller—which I suspect is an accurate depiction. I was bothered by the time Gerber spent on Handler’s failings as a mother—which I have no doubt is accurate. But I wonder whether a biographer of say, Walt Disney (1916-1966), would spend the same amount of time assessing Disney’s success or failure as a parent.**

At some level, the book felt more like a leadership case study than a biography. Perhaps it’s time for someone to write a Big Fat Biography of Ruth Handler. (Not me, though.)

*Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to dive into a Big Fat Biography on an interesting subject, but my reading commitments have gotten a little overwhelming in recent months. I did it to myself by taking on the challenge of reading my way through the various history and heritage months on top of reading wildly and widely in pursuit of my possible book topics. I have no regrets, but occasionally I have to acknowledge limitations of time and energy. (Some of you who know me in real life are gasping to hear me admit this.)

**It would be easy enough to answer the question. But I’m not prepared to drop everything and read a biography of Disney—the best of which qualify as Big Fat Biographies. At least not right now.