Barbie has a forgotten history of changing in response to market pressures. Are her multiple new bodies ushering in an era of ethical body inclusiveness, or is Mattel just shifting deckchairs on the Titanic?
A lucrative business.
Radu Bercan / Shutterstock.com
The history of disability toys – that is, both toys designed for use by disabled children, and toys that depict disability – reflects the changing treatment of the disabled.
Makies, the #toyslikeme campaign and the broader focus on disability in digital spaces show we are in the midst of a significant shift towards an inclusive world view of disability.
Let’s bring out the dolls.
Toddlers playing via Daria Filimonova/Shutterstock
The equalities minister, Jo Swinson, has suggested that boys should be encouraged to play with dolls to make them more “nurturing and caring”. This is apparently in the hope that they will become more…
Just because Barbie has impossible proportions, does that mean playing with her will distort young girls’ body image?
Flickr/Freddycat1
Launched in 1959, named after the inventor’s daughter Barbara, and owned by 99% of 3-10 year old girls in the USA, Barbie has been a popular request on young girls’ Christmas wish lists for 55 years. So…
Where toys promote aggressiveness in boys and submissiveness in girls, they are definitely part of the problem.
EPA/Jason Szenes
Australia suffers “endemic” levels of men’s violence against women, so if the child is the father of the man, then it’s time we talked about boys’ toys. And what better time to start the conversation than…
Kids don’t always play with toys according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Charles Roark/Flick
On Tuesday Greens Spokesperson for women, Larissa Waters, lent her support to No Gender December – a campaign spearheaded by the group Play Unlimited that aims to highlight the gendered marketing of toys…
The No Gender December campaign suggests that the gender stereotyping of toys restricts children’s creativity and development.
Tracheotomy Bob
“I didn’t encourage my daughter to play with Barbie dolls and dress up in flouncy fairy costumes, but she just gravitated toward them.” When confronted with the idea that gendered marketing and stereotypes…
The Lego brick has now become a basic module of virtual “brickworlds”.
Andreas
“Danish design” usually conjures up images of mid-century modern furniture – functional yet sculptural – but Denmark’s most successful “design icon” is a humble plastic brick: Lego. In 2013, the Lego Group…
The LEGO Architecture range has been good for the company’s fortunes.
lilivanili
Virtually any kid who picks up a bucket of LEGO bricks will start by making a house, usually in mismatched, rainbow colours, maybe featuring a few of the little plastic minifig people. It seems almost…
You only have to walk down the aisle of a toy shop to see that young girls really love pink. This has some parents worried. They are concerned that pink is bad for their daughters. One engineer in the…
Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society & School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University