HO W TO
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W I T H A D O L L A N D E IGHT E E N Y E A R S
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o my sister and me, American Girl dolls were as good as real. We gave them tea parties, birthday parties, and pool parties in the makeshift pool we constructed out of the little pond behind our house. We stole the stretchy book covers from our brother’s textbooks to cut and sew together waterready bathing suits. On Christmas, my sister would wake me up at five a.m. so that we could commence the annual ritual of present-giving — handmade gifts for each and every doll, from each and every doll—before full-sized-human Christmas began. But the dolls were far more than playthings. Each doll, with her own historical background and lessons to teach, brought the past—sometimes ugly, sometimes inspiring—to life, born again from the chaotic, messy, and mostly wellintentioned well of childhood love. That was over a decade ago. Today, American Girl, once the maker of over a dozen dolls whose stories were rich, intricate and diverse, has chosen to blend into the crowd of mass appeal and unoriginal marketing. This development, which has been evolving ever since founder Pleasant Rowland sold American Girl in 1998 to Mattel (also the maker of Barbie dolls), has gained center stage these past few months, catalyzed by the introduction of American Girl’s first boy doll, a cookie cutter brown-haired, gray-eyed specimen that knows nothing of the struggles or complexity of Molly or Felicity. If the issue is given no more than a cursory glance, it may seem like the epitome of progression—which, incidentally, is probably exactly the angle Mattel is going for. Unfortunately, that’s just it: the release of a boy doll, just like every other major change in American Girl’s image over the past two decades, is all about the angle, and very little about the meaning behind it. It’s 2017; we shouldn’t expect our girls to wear pink and play house when we’re teaching and preaching that there are a thousand other opportunities to reach for in their futures. Most people, if not in agreement that toys should not be gendered in a world seeking so hard to un-gender, at least acknowledge that the issue exists and that people are working to fix it. It makes perfect sense that Mattel, a major toy manufacturer, is in tune with contemporary happenings and is seeking to please. The inherent issue with creating a boy doll simply for the sake of creating a boy doll is that the discussion then
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TEXT BY NICOLA PHILLIPS centers around that one product. The discussion becomes about who this boy doll is, what he does, what he represents, and why we care. Following the release of “Logan,” a New York Times Sunday review op-ed by Caity Weaver aptly summed this dilemma up, asking us all: “Are mediocre white men not prevalent enough in today’s society, so now their avatars must haunt even our tea parties?” I’d like to pose a different question: if we are trying to teach boys that playing with dolls is natural and OK, why are we working so hard to create a particular type of doll to achieve that goal? Isn’t it a bit counterintuitive to proclaim, “boys should play with dolls” and then “…but only if they look a certain way”? American Girl dolls were wondrous to my sister and me because, like so many of the best playthings, they opened our eyes to different worlds. American Girl, or the American Girl we knew, opened our eyes to real worlds of our own country’s history, managing to make those tales seem just as magical and fascinating as any Disney princess land. They made us care about history, made us empathetic toward others, and raised our awareness beyond the superficial divisions that do an impressive job of shaping the adult world. We need to provide all children with the opportunity to learn those lessons free from the stigmas that gravitate us toward those who look, dress, and act like we do. We need to stop catering ‘look-alikes’ to a demographic of people that needs more diversity, in its surroundings. My mother, a big proponent of American Girl dolls, was also the one who bought my older brother dolls and taught him how to sew. She was adamant that neither childhood toys nor life skills should be gender specific. She raised my brother not only to respect women, but also to understand that doing “girl” things did not emasculate him, but empowered him. Young boys everywhere would do well to learn those lessons. All children should have the chance to see that by exploring unchartered territory in playtime, they will learn history and empathy, and grow up to be better adults because of it. Children have an astounding depth of perception and compassion, but those things need to be harnessed effectively, fostered, and encouraged so that they have a fighting chance against stereotypes, biases, and hate. American Girl, and indeed dozens of other high-profile toy companies, has the ability to use its influence to do substantial good. A plethora of research