Birmingham —- C-section Barbie or Pro-choice Barbie will not be available in toy stores this year, but they will be featured in the upcoming Liberating Barbie Auction.

For decades, Barbie —- with her unrealistically proportioned body, pretty face and long blond hair —- has represented femininity to young girls across the world. A women's studies class from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and local artists are coming together for a show today to liberate the iconic doll.

Lovers of Barbie's fresh-from-the-factory beauty might want to skip this one.

UAB associate professor Michele Wilson encourages students taking her class on Barbie to modify the doll, freeing it from the constraints of female stereotypes and ideals that have touched the students' lives.

For the past five years, Wilson has featured those modified Barbies in an art show and auction, raising money for women's studies at UAB. This year the show will feature local artists' interpretations of Barbie to display along with the students' dolls.

When Wilson started inquiring among the city's artistic community about whether people would be interested in participating, the response was immediate, she said. She started getting phone calls from people she had not even contacted.

Positive or negative, women have a connection with Barbie, she said.

Several artists have padded the doll's hips or stomach and modified the breasts to be more realistic.

One doll has a broken arm and leg, a black eye and a covered mouth. "Not all relationships turn out well," Wilson said. "She is indicating she has been silenced, abused."

Pro-choice Barbie has several dead babies in the bottom of the box, the artist's interpretation of how some people view those who support abortion rights as baby killers.

At least one student in every class cuts off the head and places it on the chest, representing a desire by women for people to look them in the eyes, not at their breasts, Wilson said. One of her favorite dolls was created by a pretty sorority girl who put Barbie in a wedding dress and attached clinging babies. It represented expectations that she would just start having babies once she was married.

Kate Tully, a UAB junior, took the Barbie class last year. She transformed her Barbie into a robot to represent a former job where a male co-worker broke her spirit, Tully said.

During one staff meeting, the co-worker, who was not her supervisor, accused her of not taking direction. She became emotional and left the room. The next day her male boss said she shut the door too hard, in an unladylike manner.

Her metallic silver Barbie, with metal wire hair, represents how she felt when she was no longer allowed to express emotion or be heard.

"I just had to work and smile. Be a lady. Brush it off. Work and smile. No matter what anyone said to me or about me," Tully said.

She said the class was therapeutic for her.

"I don't think I ever really let myself get angry for how I was treated," Tully said. "I'm not a doormat anymore. And I'm definitely not Barbie —- thank heavens."

The stories behind the modified Barbies often provoke tears in Wilson's class as students talk about abuse, discrimination and the lack of acceptance, sometimes in their own families, Wilson said. They also talk about body types and Barbie standards that most women will never achieve.

Beth Borden, a Birmingham artist known for her kudzu sculptures, created the modified C-section Barbie, which is positioned in a yoga pose to show a Caesarean section scar and stretch marks. A Barbie lover as a child, Borden said she has wanted to participate in one of Wilson's shows since she saw the first opening a few years ago.

"I struggled with a negative body image and mild case of bulimia during college and I do not want that for my daughter," Borden said. "I think society, and I include Barbie in our society, fosters this negative body image from the time we are little girls and boys.

"I think a show like this is an excellent way to encourage all of us to stop trying to fit into an impossible mold and liberate ourselves to be the individuals we were created to become."