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Off The Fence - Today’s popular fashion dolls are not appropriate for young girls
Susan Thompson
for Smoky River Express
As I’m sure my columns make pretty clear, I consider myself a progressive person. I’m not generally threatened or bothered by sexuality, for example.
But my youngest daughter’s turning eight, and I feel downright prim, proper and Victorian when faced with choosing toys for her.
Why? Well, pretty much the most popular dolls around these days are Bratz dolls. If you attend a birthday party for a girl it’s almost certain she’ll receive at least one. In 2007, the company announced they were the most popular fashion doll in Canada.
Problem is, the things look, quite frankly, like prostitutes.
The dolls are dressed in leopard print, mini-skirts, lingerie, fishnet stockings, heels and midriff-baring outfits. The immediate impression is one of cheap sexuality.
Think about that. Millions of little girls are playing with them. Little boys are seeing them too. That means our kids are forming some of their first impressions of how it’s appropriate for women to dress and behave from dolls that are ultra-sexual.
The former queen of children’s dolls, Barbie, has certainly been criticized for giving young girls unrealistic expectations about their own bodies due to her thin and top heavy proportions.
But at least Barbie has a job. You can dress her up as a doctor and pretend she’s a career woman.
Bratz dolls, on the other hand, just look sexy and shop. Their slogan, a “passion for fashion,” says all that needs to be said about their apparent priorities.
Product designer, American Paula Treantafelles, has been quoted widely as saying, “At this age, they’re very different to four-to-six year olds”. Bratz “are about self-expression, self-identity. When Barbie was in her prime, girls were taught to be career women, to be men’s equals. Today, yes, career and education matter, but it’s also ‘express yourself, have your own identity, girl power’.”
By self-expression, though, Treantafelles is talking about an identity which embraces “hooker chic.”
As a parent of two young girls, I find that pretty shocking. By what stretch of the imagination is that OK?
It’s not even appropriate for adult women to dress like that. Imagine trying to show up for work, or for a PTA meeting, in purple sequins and fishnets. Yet by allowing our young girls to play with these dolls, aren’t we letting them believe it IS actually OK, and appropriate?
And aren’t we also pushing them into becoming more adult at a younger age? I don’t want to teach my kids to become precocious little Lolitas. I want them to keep climbing trees and playing tag for a while, not worrying about whether they’re “hot.” That’ll come soon enough, and still too soon, anyway.
The identity being sold by Bratz also means consumption, because the dolls are promoting the idea of building an identity through clothing and shopping. Marketers know this, and they talk openly about finding ways to encourage kids to pester their parents into buying them things (since young girls and pre-teens don’t have money of their own). To marketers it’s a way to increase profits. Let’s not fool ourselves for a second that a company like Bratz really cares if young girls are damaged by their products, so long as those products keep selling in record numbers.
For that, of course, it’s really us as parents who are to blame. We buy things because they’re popular, or our kids beg. But we control the purse strings, and a company like Bratz will pay attention if we stop buying.
We can also talk to our own kids. My daughters know why I don’t like Bratz, and understand why I won’t buy them.
A Bratz doll is one birthday present my daughter won’t be getting this year, at least from me.
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