Dolls

I remember reading Tomorrow When The War Began, not for the first time, but reading this bit where Ellie (protagonist) muses about how she and her best friend used to play with their dolls and how what they were really doing, though they didn't know it at the time, was mimicking adult life. Rituals and relationships etc.

I don't know about most little girls, how much tea parties and all that other crap people do with their dolls is stereotypical, but let me tell you what my main plot lines with my dolls were. I had Kelly dolls, the little sister of Barbie. I had about 30 probably. Plus my dolls house, blankets, pillows, food, clothes, hair ties, props, books etc.

I gave up dolls when I was 12 or 13, (which isn't that weird/old, gimme a break. I was never ashamed of them, I showed them to my friends in Year 7 when they came round, if they judged, they did it quietly and they still hang around so there). Especially as I love to write, dolls were just a way of acting out these intense story lines, like a soap opera. Heaps of characters and relationships and dramatic things happening. All my dolls had names (usually after books I'd read or friends). I can't acually remember them all now, which makes me a little sad... I remember the first 3 I had were called Kate, Beth and Joanna, Kate because I always liked the name, Beth from Little Women, and Jo... also from Little Women, now that I think about it. Kate and Beth were 'twins' because they looked exactly the same with blonde plaits and blue eyes, just different clothes, and Joanna (Jo) was black. Beth was one of my favourites. Eventually, she got 'sick' when all her hair started to fall out and one of her arms snapped off. I think both of Kate's did in the end. I would have had them for 7 or 8 years, and those were the only two that lost limbs.Years later I remember getting the same set of 3 again and deciding they were cousins of the originals. There was also Mimi (my absolute favourite due to her double jointed arms and legs, which I never saw on any other Kelly doll ever), who was named for my best friend. I had 4 that were themed on the seasons, and dressed and named accordingly, Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring. Sometimes I was original, sometimes not. I had Tomorrow when the War Begins names too, Ellie, Corrie, Robyn... and because I'm racist, my Chinese doll was named Cho. I'm just going through my favourite books now, scanning for girls names I stole.

The general story of my dolls was that they were on a deserted island of some kind, trapped there somehow. New dolls would generally 'wash up' and be confused and had to adjust and learn and make friends. It was a tough life, lots of volcanoes and natural disasters, diseases and harsh cold winters. Note the way that's what I like to read now. I'd also include very totalitarian governments, strict rules and girls scheming to overthrow the powerful. Also my favourite type of story. I'd always whump my favourites, they'd get a majority of the pain and suffering and comfort afterwards.

Seriously, I could even predict my kinks from some of the things I acted out with my dolls. I'd go into it but I'd rather keep my kink list off my blog in general haha. But just like the apocalypse genre, I am so damn specific that it is soooo hard to find things that are right. Thank God for fanfiction. Though it does weird me out to realise that my dolls predicted the weird mind fuck things that I love now, when it comes to turn ons, the best thing to do is just not lie to yourself and search the things you want. As long as it's not kids or animals, because that freaks me out due to the harmful nature of perpetuating those things. Other than that, I don't kink shame. Like, on kink memes where every third comment is 'I'm going to hell for this...' (maybe just the stuff I look up haha), people should just embrace the stuff they find hot.

...Back to dolls though.

I just read a really good post with great commentary on this image.

Now, this is something that I find to be still a sexist commentary, even though it's commenting on sexism, because it is completely undervaluing the nature of girl's toys. When people try to make 'gender neutral' toys (which all toys should be, reasonably), they always are inclined towards boys toys. Lego etc. It's something that is a problem in all areas when it comes to gender roles. Traditional male roles/emotions/activities/jobs, they are seen as better. There is no shame in girls wanting to be more like men, not really. Because masculinity is celebrated. It's femininity that is still shamed. Dolls are seen as passive, useless, a doll is just... a doll. And dolls represent how women's roles are seen in society overall. Dolls are used to encourage girls into they stereotypes for later life, mothers and housewives, and when this is looked down upon, it is undervalued.

I believe that while girls toys such as dolls, are incredibly different to traditional boys toys, they still serve a useful purpose and should also be encouraged by parents and caregivers for children. Boys toys promote physical skills. The complexities of the toys are physical in nature. It's building and constructing things, creating. That's fine, it's good to learn and have fun with.

But a doll is not just a doll, the way this comic implies. A doll is socially complex. Dolls are about imagination. Because this play is largely invisible, it can't be measured or seen as a completed tower of blocks or a lego construction can be, it is seen as not complex and pointless. Which it is not.

People think that women are just better at communication and socialising as a result of genetics. Of our gender. That we relate and empathise and have a greater understanding of social situations than men because of it. It's true that in general we do- but it is not genetic and it is not born. This is a learned skill. This is my perspective as a nuture over nature feminist but there are studies that show that when adults think that a baby is a girl (ie wearing a dress/pink hat/ ribbons), they engage with the child with words, more language, singing etc, more touching, whereas when the same child is presumed to be male, the same people treat the child much more physically active way, engage with toys and play that way. In young kids, the brother might be greeted, 'Hey Tom, the boys are out in the yard kicking around a ball, go join them.' which the sister is greeted 'Hello darling, you look beautiful in that dress, how's school, come join me in the kitchen, you can help me serve these...." Maybe I overexaggerate a little but not much. People expect girls to talk more, are a lot more physically comfortable hugging/touching and girls are expected to be a lot more communicative. I'm not saying there isn't a genetic factor, but social counts for a lot.

Dolls are another way that girls are raised to be socially adept. My dolls had separate personalities, all of them, they fought and resolved conflict, they had emotions and cliques and roles in a group. They were a society. Sure, to look at it was just a messy bunch of little plastic dolls with great hair and identical features wearing cute dresses and shoes that I'd pick up and either murmur or silently move around, but no, to quote Harry Potter, just because it's all happening inside your head Harry, does not mean that it is not real.

I value dolls. When I have kids, I'll buy them dolls. And cars. Because both genders can like cars. And legos. And whatever crap is out in 10 years that parents buy for kids.

To conclude, dolls aren't useless and it's a sexist rhetoric to continue to say that they are. It undervalues the skills that it encourages. And while it may be true that some personality traits and preferences do tend to manifest more obviously in one gender or the other, society has a lot to answer for and we need to reduce the level of influence it has on how children form their personalities because society is sexist and just sucks in general.

Also, because I'm having fun, I looked up Kelly dolls on Google to see if I could find some of the ones I had. I found a whole bunch.

I loved this set. It came with a bed with a tooth on a spinning thing which if you turned a switch became a coin (it was under the pillow). It also had a pull out shelf under the bed with a sleeping bag in it so it slept two.

I had almost all of those sets above. See, the seasons ones? I loved Winter the most, though I eventually cut up her dress into a sleeveless summer dress. Summer's hair always annoyed me, and never came out of those curls, even when I took the elastic out.... Autumn was just always ugly, and my cousin introduced me to the term 'boobtube' with her dress, with the see through straps. And that set of sleepover ones, I had all of those, and they were great because they all came with pillows, blankets and pajamas. As well as cups, food, board games including Uno, DVD's with actual DVD's inside them. Only bad thing was their shoes, never stayed on well. And in that top photo, I had the top left, ballet dancer, I loved her, named her Katie. She was one of the babies of the group. I had the pink circus one, though I remember when I was a bit older, I used to have the girls wear her clothes as a punishment because they were 'babyish' and embarrassing. She eventually got tough though I think, that doll. Her name was Jenny. I also had the princess one, with the pink dress and the cone shaped hat called Lisa (I think). All of them had individual arcs and different relationships with each other that I always kept straight in my head and they grew and changed and evolved. Playing with dolls is serious business :)

Edit: I went down to storage to get my dolls out. I kept a lot of them, whether for my daughter one day or just memories but I got them all out and smiled. I remembered a lot more names. I named them so unoriginally, after the book series 'The Gymnasts', I had a Cindi, Lauren and a Jodi. I had a Lilo for the one with a grass skirt, I had a Elizabeth and Jessica (twins) Wakefield, after Sweet Valley High. Sara after a friend of mine named Sarah.

Here's a picture of all the dolls I still have. I don't know why I chucked the rest out, but this is most of them.