Are Dolls OK for Boys?

[AnnetheCatDetective]

I grew up in a pretty liberal household when it came to that kind of thing, and my brother, sister, and I all played with pretty much the same stuff, from dolls to action figures to plushes to cars. Our personal preferences varied some, but we all enjoyed all of it.

[SillyLilPuppet]

My house, we more or less picked out our toys for ourselves. I did prefer dolls (and was spoiled with them by my doll collecting grandma) but I also remember having a rather large sturdy Tonka dump truck that my Barbies would ride around in, some odd super hero figures that miiiiiight have been rescued from my little brothers, and a lot of fairly gender neutral toys shared between all us kids like farm and zoo animals, a toy kitchen, some dress up clothes, etc. Plus we played with each other's toys pretty often so me playing with Mighty Max or my little brothers playing with my Littlest Pet Shop things wasn't too odd.

There was a few instances of my youngest brother begging for something traditionally very girly though which he vehemently denies now, like his small collection of MLP or a few male Cabbage Patch and Sesame Street baby dolls. He swears they were my ponies to this day.

[Stormlight]

I played with Transformers and Go Bots (the predecessor of Transformers?), and Micro Machines, and my brothers had Ken dolls, and two of them had a male Cabbage Patch Kid. I know at least one brother had a My Buddy doll. No, wait ... two of them did. lol They also had He-man figures, while I stuck with She-ra, and the neighborhood kids also had tons of He-man and She-ra figures. We'd get together and have epic battles that would last for days and days (with breaks in between for going home for supper and, like, sleeping and stuff ).

They were kind of like those never-ending Dragon Ball Z battles, only not nearly as mind-numbingly repetitive.

[SpiralPrince]

I think the gender stereotyping is what kept me from getting a Monster high doll or even admitting I liked them for months and months after I saw the first doll that I just loved. (TT-TT Unfourtunately she's impossible to find for a decent price anymore.) I've always tried to stay away from the girlie girlie crap I was expected to do when I was a kid. I preferred to play the prince when my cousin and I played princess, I treated my dolls like actors (and even then I usually ended up killing them off in some way), and I preferred just to read or write rather than play dolls or dress up. (Though I did have a hamtaro playset I played with a lot.) Now I've just decided to throw that whole "What if they think I'm a wimp or a girlie girlie" to wind and say. "Hell yeah I collect dolls, stuffed animals and ponies, but you know what, all my dolls are male, and of those seven only two can really be characterized at femme so think whatever you want, I'm gonna work on my stories and figure out how to make fake blood that won't stain."

[OkamiKodomo]

slight diversion, SpiralPrince, which MH doll was it you're looking for? I can keep an eye out, and pick her up for you if I spot her. Paying retail price is always easier than attempting to play bid wars on ebay and hoping for the best. My local wal-mart is not often frequented by scalpers, so their selection is usually good. I myself have been trying to find a Basic Abbey, but every time I do, I don't have the money for it! XD

[SpiralPrince]

slight diversion, SpiralPrince, which MH doll was it you're looking for? I can keep an eye out, and pick her up for you if I spot her. Paying retail price is always easier than attempting to play bid wars on ebay and hoping for the best. My local wal-mart is not often frequented by scalpers, so their selection is usually good. I myself have been trying to find a Basic Abbey, but every time I do, I don't have the money for it! XD

C.A. Cupid. Last time I looked she was sold out everywhere except for amazon and there she was like 50$.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Going beyond dolls, there's a campaign going on in the UK at the moment to try to persuade retailers to stop labelling toys as being for girls or for boys, and instead categorise them by what they are. Tescos is coming in for a fair amount of heat at the moment for labelling a science kit as for boys and a kitchen set as for girls.

The campaign is Let Toys be Toys - the link is to their website, which is actually just a few links to the petition, a survey done of stores, their twitter and facebook.

Personally, I think it's wrong to even think about imposing rigid gender roles on children the way so much toy packaging and displays do, and the way too many people's attitudes do. Letting people be themselves - letting them play with what they want and not put values on the hobbies they have based on the gender they are... that might make for a better world, a least by a tiny bit.

[OkamiKodomo]

slight diversion, SpiralPrince, which MH doll was it you're looking for? I can keep an eye out, and pick her up for you if I spot her. Paying retail price is always easier than attempting to play bid wars on ebay and hoping for the best. My local wal-mart is not often frequented by scalpers, so their selection is usually good. I myself have been trying to find a Basic Abbey, but every time I do, I don't have the money for it! XD

C.A. Cupid. Last time I looked she was sold out everywhere except for amazon and there she was like 50$.

Yup I've seen her there recently, so I'll check again next time I go.

[SpiralPrince]

Yup I've seen her there recently, so I'll check again next time I go.

Awesome, Thank you so much!

[Trethowan]

LOL, found this online.