Last week we talked, and I blogged, about Barbie. The American Girl dolls can easily be seen as the Barbie of this generation. I don’t have a problem with girls playing with dolls, I have a problem with the idea that only girls play with dolls. Although we can argue that society has made strides towards blurring the divide between toys for boys and toys for girls, I believe this change has been made largely in one direction and not the other. No one has a problem if a little girl wants to join the boys while they play with cars, but a boy can’t play with dolls because “dolls are for girls”. What happens when a boy asks for a doll for his birthday?
For his birthday, a 6 year old Miles asked his mother for an American boy doll. Miles mom, Gina, had no issues with this request but there was a small problem, American boy dolls don’t exist. American Girl is a very popular brand and has just come out with a new line of ‘Truly Me’ dolls, dolls that are meant to closely resemble their owner. There are no boy dolls though and even though Gina’s son miles desperately wanted a doll that looked like him, Gina wasn’t able to buy him one. So she made one! By doing only a couple alterations to a blonde American girl doll she found online, Gina was able to create a doll that was the spitting image of her 6 year old. Her son was over the moon about his doll and now plays with his sister and her American girl doll all the time. This is an example of a parent who refused to let societies gender norms influence her sons life. Her son wanted a doll and she made him a doll.
My cousin’s son, Max, came up to him after kindergarten one day and asked “can I dress like a girl so I can play Monster High dolls at school?” to which my cousin asked why he needed to dress as a girl to do that. Max responded “because only girls play with dolls”. “You don’t have to be a girl to play with dolls” my cousin said, and immediately went out and bought his son not 1 but 2 Monster High dolls.
Why can’t it be that simple? Why do people get so concerned when their sons exhibit a desire to do something that is deemed “feminine”?
Its parents like Gina and my cousin that give me hope.
Gina’s doll transformation
Max with his Monster High doll.
(Photo is quite blurry but look how happy he is!)
Gina’s Blog explaining how she made her son’s doll
http://ginadwagner.com/how-i-created-an-american-boy-doll-for-my-son/
