Barbie play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children's toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors. During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she
Daniel Handler an incident in which Handler had made inappropriate jokes directed at her, such as "Are you a virgin, too?!" and "These children's book events always turn into orgies!" This led to many other women accusing Handler of verbal sexual harassment at book conferences; among the public accusations are stories of Handler telling a woman he had just met to kiss a random stranger, making crass comments to a teenage girl and walking off without apology when confronted, referring to a stranger as a "hot blonde" and making a "uni-ball" double entendre in front of young children. The incident is part