Dolls

nice dolls.

I do not give too much of my time to thinking about dolls. However the subject came up in a conversation - specifically, Barbie dolls. Mum taught me from a young age that Barbie dolls were not good. Not that I wanted to play with them as a young boy, but we saw them in other people's homes, and on shelves down at the mall. My sister never had a Barbie doll - save one given her by her aunty - and hastily dispatched of soon after Aunty's visit.

The Barbie Dolls range was one of the first to introduce to little girls, the concept of playing with, and dressing up grown-up women. Without getting too specific, it is obvious at a first glance that certain features, or dare I say it, dimensions of these Barbie dolls are provocative and unrealistic. I find it hard to believe that parents allow their children to play with these coquettish dolls. Isn't society bad enough as it is without handing our young girls little "supermodel-dolls" to play with?

Then you've got Ken of course, and a whole wardrobe of clothes for your little girls to dress the well-toned body of a grown-up male doll. It's really not a very pretty picture. Just as bad, in my mind, is the all too frequent occasions that one sees an abandoned Barbie doll, lying on the lounge-room floor - all it's clothes gone, and toussled, matted hair.

A blog post written by Doug Philips of Vision Forum in September 2007 comes to mind. I will include a couple of excerpts from his well-written article, below...

"One of the most iconic symbols of childhood play is the doll. Dolls have always served an important role in culture, primarily in preparing daughters to be mothers. At the heart of doll play are two important concepts: identification and imagination. For example, the baby doll in the hands of a girl is a tool that helps her to identify with motherhood. The dress-up doll at her bedroom tea party allows her to imagine her own future role building a culture of hospitality for her family. With the historical doll a young lady both imagines and identifies with the adventures of girlhood past. The point is this: dolls have traditionally played an important role in the social and intellectual development of young ladies.

Dolls as a Tool of Cultural Revolution

Humanists, including feminists of various stripes, recognize the power of play in shaping cultural identity and gender norms. Because doll play has historically been so closely associated with a distinctively Christian understanding of the roles of men and women, the feminist tactic usually takes one of two forms: The first approach is based on the notion that sex-specific play, education, and role modeling are inherently oppressive. This approach seeks to discourage role distinctions by encouraging both parents and manufacturers to accept more of an androgynous and gender-bending approach to the toys. Under this model, parents should not assume that dolls are for girls, or that toy soldiers are for boys—and neither should manufacturers or their advertising agencies.

If I am fortunate to have any children, there's no way they'll be allowed Barbie dolls, or anything even remotely like them.

"cheap and nasty"