Dolls and feminism

Gah! Sizing I sew, thank GODDESS
both for the dolls & me
I have a lovely friend (men drool - she's a bartender etc etc) who took one of those bodyfat indicator tests - she's got a very delicate frame at 5'4" & 130 lbs - bodyfat tests made her out as obese....I should be so obese
There actually is a doll sculpt she looks like - possibly a Supia Rosy - delicate but rounded.

 

Oh here it is, I found it... There MUST be some Illuminati boardroom somewhere, with dark wood panelling, where a gaggle of old white men control the sizing of the fashion industry, deliberately to keep women confused & easy to control. And then gloat in song. Just like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpOjj4YD8c
(And of course they'd finish with a toast of "Gentlemen-- to Evil!" Sorry, I'm still being silly, but there really is a Simpsons reference for everything. XDD)

That was always my question! And the question of many others throughout feminist history. Margaret Atwood has done some marvellous meditations on it. I bet the first olden-tymes woman to speak out against the corset (whoever she was) had the same question. Women are desperate to take up as little space as possible-- actual disappearance would be the final frontier. Even as a youngster I objected to the notion that I "should" take up less space, make less noise, take smaller steps, have less presence. (i.e., be more of a doll.)

So I think that's why I enjoy those EID girls; porn-star measurements notwithstanding, they don't look like they're going to melt or blow away in the next strong wind. Those chicas take up some SPACE, and they stand on terra firma like they mean it.

 

Actually, I do know that at least in North America, clothing sizes are getting BIGGER. Eg., what used to be a medium years ago is now edging closer to a small (or an 8 to a 6), and each new set of clothes is sewn larger and larger but labeled with the same tag (for a variety of reasons presented in the articles below). The negative sizes are sort of picking up the sizes that got squeezed out when the sizes get bumped. It's called "Vanity Sizing".

http://news.discovery.com/human/alley-gunn-sizing-110928.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_sizing

When I went down to the US I wore a small (eventually went up to medium in shirts when the top part decided to grow some more) or a size 2-5 in most stores here in Canada, in Vancouver which has a larger population of Asian women and therefore tend to carry many more smaller sizes (My prom dress was a size 4, purchased from an Asian design boutique). I had to shop in the children's section to fit anything down in Florida, I kid you not. I think I found ONE XXXS cocktail dress that fit me in the women's section, the rest of the clothes and bathing suits I bought there were labeled "children's". (Granted, I may have just been a bit underweight at the time, but in no part due to insecurity or dieting. I just liked to exercise a lot, but didn't like to eat because my mother cooked the same lemon salmon week, after week, after week)

As far as dolls are concerned, I actually REMEMBER some busy-body woman trying to convince my five-year-old self, who was so excited to have her own Barbie, about how she'd have a half a kidney and no ribs if she was real. I was just like "Pfft, and? Barbie isn't real, lady? People seriously believe they need to look like Barbie and her torpedo boobs and conical ribcage? What adult silliness is this? Come on, Barbie, I set up a wicked zipline for you, you can go rescue your beautiful prince from your evil mother (who apparently also likes him too) again! And then you guys can be pirates forever!". I didn't actually remember this until I read some of the posts in this thread, but now I can distinctly recall both how happy I was to have Barbie and how utterly stupid I found the idea of wanting to actually look like her. I mean, Barbie was my friend for a long time, I loved making her dresses and giving her a grand career of both brave female knights, witches, rincesses and evil rulers of the universe (once I got 7 of them, someone had to be the bad guy). But I never ONCE even considered the thought that she was somehow a presentation of what you had to be when you grew up. I mean, I had eyes, I could see that Barbie =/= mommy or mommy's female friends, even the pretty ones. This really kind of makes me wonder how much Barbie and friends actually contribute to body issues in children, and how much of that supposed effect is actually projected by older women onto a toy meant for children to do what they like to do best - play out "grown-up" situations. (I do know that APA filed a complaint with Bratz over concerns of presenting the concept of sexualization of women as a glamorous thing, and I do take the APA seriously, so I'm sure they have some grounds for that).

And yes, I still don't want to have the body of a doll. Granted, I've been given a pretty nice body shape if I may say so myself (now if only I could break this nasty habit of eating delicious but fattening fast food, and actually get a regular exercising routine for my own benefit so I could get rid of the extra 10 pounds I put on over the past year). So I never really had serious insecurity issues about my body.

I don't see a problem with only presenting the ideal in doll bodies (whatever that ideal is, according to the creator). I mean, most of my characters, female and male, are attractive, in one way or another (though there's different kinds of attractive and beauty standards and all that, and most of them don't have a corresponding doll type yet, unfortunately). I made them that way because I like being able to enjoy the view and the story, so to speak, though I'm very lax on what I consider "visually attractive". I've got girls and guys of different ages and different sizes - for example, my main female character and the one I want to dollify next (hopefully) is tiny and pretty much flat-chested. She wears 32AA bras, but she's also like, under 5 feet tall and an ex-ballerina who's put on just a tiny bit more muscle since she's become a superhero now. I find that body size to be very feminine in it's own right, because it's so dainty and graceful. That's just one aspect of femininity, of course, and others will be covered in other body sizes. I don't see ideal body type choices as inherently sexist, I think what really matters more is the purpose of said body type, and the character that is embodied in the body. I also don't see anything inherently sexist in presenting only the ideal body types, as long as they're more or less within reason given the stylization and the purposes, and especially if the other gender gets the same treatment as well (which, yeah... I'd say the male BJD's are even more idealized that the female one. I mean, there's no male Sharmista, or Mikhaila, or Fat Fairy right?). Basically, I don't consider idealized female bodies an affront to women, or to body issues, as long as they're reasonable. Once we start creeping into the impossible (or very unhealthy) hentai territory I sort of start to question the reason behind the existence of that doll, but... I still don't see it as anywhere near to the issue of presenting real women in a manner that is actually physically impossible to achieve.

 

Slim bodies on BJDs are mostly because of A. The high cost of resin B. Posing issues. That said, I would like to see some more curvier girls out there, thicker thighs and such. I'm trying to sculpt a hippy, thick thighed body now, but... gah. Jointing and symmetry are hard! Though point C. would probably have to be that in most people's minds, skinny= beautiful. Thank goodness for the EID girls, and the Feeple 65 girls (as well as others, I'm sure). They branch out from the norm. They have curves!

I find most BJDs more realistic looking than fashion dolls. Which was one of the reasons I like them so much, and they show that there are many different kinds of beauty. I admit that they're still idealized beauty, but it's done in a more realistic way. Usually in the standard doll market, you get inhumanly proportioned fashion dolls, and milk-and-cookie-fed baby dolls. Without much in between.

I didn't have barbie dolls when I was little. They just seemed so fake and inhuman, and my mother didn't want me getting the idea that to be beautiful, you had to look like barbie. I had a Prince and Princess Lovely Locks (though I always found it a bit odd that they both had the same body ). A Maxi doll (Ashley, from a little research), who I liked better. I always felt that she was more normally proportioned- but so hard to find clothes for. I also had a Stacy doll that I loved to pieces (or at least until the cat chewed her hands and feet off )

 

Lelite: You are spot on about the vanity sizing issue, we have it here in the UK too. The amount of cloth it takes to make a size 14 (average British woman's size apparently) is considerably more than what it would have taken 50 years ago. If you ever try using dress patterns from the 50's and 60's, you need to go up at least one size from what is printed on the pattern and usually 2 just to be safe because we no longer wear corsets so have naturally thicker waists than those women did back then. A survey recently found that the average UK woman now has a thicker waist and larger boobs than 20 years ago and is generally bigger all round.

I doubt that will ever be reflected in the doll industry, and why should it really. Little girls play with dolls as part of their elaborate fantasy landscape and do little girls really want to imagine themselves as a dumpy adults with thick ankles or as a beautiful slim princesses in that land of make-believe? I do think BJDs, intended for us adults after all, could use a reality check, but simply to offer a wider range of choice. I can't see a 'fat' BJD ever taking off and who could afford all that extra resin anyway?

 

That may be my favorite post in this thread. Contemporary Western society is just too hung-up on self-worth based in beauty. If we think less about the way we look--neither hating nor loving--we free up all that energy to make something of ourselves.

Not to mention a little insecurity is probably inevitable and even healthy. It drives us to improve ourselves in ways that matter. Not everyone can be a beauty queen, but everyone can develop talents and improve their mind.

Whether they grow up with dolls or not, every young woman is going to battle insecurities about appearance, though American culture perhaps makes that battle even harder than it has to be. I struggled with feeling ugly as a child, and I didn't watch a lot of TV or play with Barbie dolls. I preferred running around outside, playing soccer with the boys, and building tree forts.

Do BJD's still play into a fantasy of being beautiful? Somewhere deep down, I think so. But I also think there's a difference between sometimes indulging in an uplifting fantasy and allowing it to make you feel miserable about the way things really are.

 

This makes me think of Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. He had a dream where he knew he was a giant, even though he was the same size as everyone else, because he was wearing "size million pants".

Regarding disappearing: There was a Bowflex (exercise equipment) commercial several years ago that showed a woman finishing her workout, folding up her Bowflex, and gradually fading away. The voice-over was "Soon you will both be taking up less space." The message was pretty disturbing!

Thinness equating with beauty: Actually thinness equates with youth. Excess weight is aging (visually and medically). Even socieities that traditionally revered the aged have become youth-mad. I think that's what's driving the thinness craze.

 

About the vanity sizing: we could also remember that today, people of the industrial society are not only generally bigger, but also on average taller than they were just six or seven decades ago. This makes them "bigger" automatically, too. The sizing has to be changed, according to the average size.

But there are still a lot of small size 0 or similar (here in Germany, often size 32/34) clothing made, expecially in the "fancy" stores. There are many popular stores which carry specifically fashion for young women that don't even serve people from a certain size upwards... and this certain size is actually average. More than a half of the girls who would want to shop there would find themselves "too fat" to fit that clothing - even though they would actually be healthy, and of normal weight.

And now to the "provocative" part:
Who says that we have to spend our hard-earned money (of which we earn less than men do for the same work in the fírst place) to buy more and more ill-fitting, because too small, uncomfortable, because only designed to be looked upon, not worn, revealing, so that we can be confronted with our insecurities even more, leading to more compensatory shopping, and badly made, since only expected to be worn for one season due to the fast pace of the fashion world, clothing all the time? ...Let's better put these clothes, if we want to look at them, on our dolls. Barbie and BJDs are both perfect for that!


EDIT: also, thinness = youth is only what society wants us to believe. The actual equations go like that:
More fat under skin = less wrinkles = youth. More fat = higher chance to survive in many cases of serious disease = youth. More fat = often more estrogen, meaning more fertility = youth. And "plus-sized" (as in models) = actually average sized.

 

I don't really think that dolls can be blamed as the cause for sexism. To be completely honest, young girls and women of all ages are flooded daily with images of conventionally attractive female bodies, and while dolls (including BJD's) may contribute to that slightly, I don't think they do so overwhelmingly more than many other things. In fact, I think that photoshopped models and sexual advertisements do much more to harm girls than playthings.

That being said, I've never really ever had an interest in female BJD's and I doubt I ever will. I am male, and I am mainly attracted to men, and most of the characters that I create for various things are male, so when I'm thinking of dolls I ignore the female sculpts and go straight for the male ones, because they will more likely fit the characters I have or want to create.

... Then again now that I think of it I'd probably want to get at least one female doll at some point... Just for making pretty dresses for, because I can certainly appreciate that.

 

fiddlerscribbler I would like to add to your comment, that it's not just "Contemporary Western" society is focused on beauty, when these idealized forms of beauty themselves come out of Asia. It may be a global thing. I find it quite sad that I fit in a size 3-5 depending on the store, yet I still feel that my stomach could still use some work. The media is cruel. However I don't think that dolls contribute at all to this feeling. My Soom Amber has a very beautiful body and I'm not offended, upset or anything of the sort when I look at her. I don't choose dolls based on their body type. I only look at the face because it is the main indication of their personality.

 

Personally, I'm not at all bothered if dolls tend toward the ideal. And it's not just a current trend perpetuated by the media. I agree with the people who say they are more of an artistic expression of idealism (like the Renaissance paintings) than anything else. I use these dolls as models and as embodiments of fictional characters, so a more ideal proportion and better poseability appeals to me. The only thing I'd like to see more is male dolls with larger builds.

And let's not forget that the current wave of BJDs originated in Asia, where the average person is indeed thinner than the (growing) Western average. (In fact, I'm more irritated by skinny women not being considered "real" than anything else, as I have several friends who are model proportions and eat like there's no tomorrow.) As far as fashion dolls go, that's part of the appeal of dolls in general. They allow us to dress them as different characters, in clothes we would never wear, and it's just plain fun. : D Let's stop trying to over-analyze the hobby or let feminism define what's acceptable and what isn't.

 

rileylaurent, I also feel sad when thinner women are dismissed from being 'real women' because 'real women have curves'. Real women are all sorts of different shapes and sizes. What makes a woman a 'real woman' is that she exists. That's all the proof you need of being 'real', surely?

I think that as a society we all need to lose our hang-ups about appearance. Your outer packaging is really not important as long as you're healthy. If you are unhealthily small or unhealthily large, that's not good for your well-being, but instead of thinking about it in health terms it's always in terms of attractiveness. Smaller women are described as being 'painfully thin' and larger woman are described as 'unattractively fat.' There is no happy medium any more, people are either urged to be smaller or encouraged to put some meat on their bones.

A 70-year-old woman I work with is constantly talking about how much weight she needs to lose (and how much she can't resist chocolate) but she's a UK size 12, a 14 at the absolute most! She really shouldn't be worrying about her weight and at her age, perhaps she should really be just enjoying herself?

I don't think this has much to do with dolls at all. I had Barbies growing up, but I didn't want to look like one. As a small child and teenager I actually wanted to look like my mixed-race cousins! I'm pale with wispy blonde hair and they have lovely dark honey skin and big bouncy dark curls. I didn't feel inferior to them, but I definitely thought it would be nicer to be black or part-black. Barbie had nothing to do with crafting my self-image! It's only as I've got older and felt more secure in who I am that I'm finally okay with my white identity, but occasionally I still find myself looking at women with darker skin and wishing

 

I agree with Jessica, surely feminism set out to free all women to be themselves and have equal rights. That means ALL women, skinny, average, big and all sizes in between. I loved Barbie and all the fashion dolls as a child and I love BJDs now because no matter what idealised version of the human figure they celebrate... they are celebrating the beauty of the female form. That's what art does too, from the voluptuous nymphs of Ruebens to the first supermodels of the sixties like Twiggy and Penelope Tree. Tiny Keira Knightly is as beautiful as curvy Marilyn Monroe, they just have very different physiques. Whatever your size or colour if you are a nice warm human being I guarantee you that anyone who matters thinks you are beautiful! No exceptions.

Beauty always deserves to be celebrated but I think it's up to us as individuals not to bow to the pressure we all feel to fit some rigid ideal of beauty. I'm not even sure where that pressure comes from but we ALLOW ourselves to be dictated to. It really upsets me when I see people here describing themselves as ugly (I have seen that in either this thread or another recently) because I don't even think there is such a thing as physical ugliness. It's a big fat lie that we have all been duped into believing in. I have met people with ugly personalities, people who perpetuate ugly ideas, and the nastiness that dwells inside them is written on their faces once you know what they are about. If someone calls you ugly I would suggest they are seeing their own bitter, dissatisfied reflection in your eyes perhaps.

 

I don't really think it's a lie that we're all being brainwashed about in regards to ugliness. Some features are simply not attractive to look at, much the same way some noises are not pleasant to hear or some colours are not attractive in combination with certain other colours. Everyone has their own different thresholds for what they do find beautiful or ugly, though there is science behind certain aspects having a consistent appeal across demographics. There's been a lot of research into the idea behind people finding architecture and faces that align along the golden ratio to be more universally appealing and beautiful.

If I was to see my face on another person, I would not be attracted to them and would probably feel sorry for them for a moment before moving on. My features are not aesthetically pleasing to me. And that's fine. I am more than my face, and I rather like me as a whole.

 

Kim: Thank you for that post, it expressed just what I was thinking. As a specie we do have ideals, shifting ideals surely but they are still there.

Biologically it behooves us as a specie to not have an attraction to things that may indicate frailty, damage, or disease, and research into this is very extensive with a good amount of findings. That isn't to say that everything isn't beautiful in it's own way, but it's more up to the viewer than the subject to analyze why they react to things the way they do and to consciously try to appreciate things in different ways. I know I've seen dolls that I've hated instantly but then I've thought about the lines and features until they don't seem so bad, but merely different from my preferences. On the other hand my instinctual reaction to something revolting, say a health class photo of a rash, can be analyzed but not overcome. I just really REALLY don't enjoy looking at it. It's built into my brain that rashes are bad. XD

 

About the clothing size issue: Vanity sizing definitely happens a lot. On top of that, some brands will tend to run either on the small side for an 8, or a 10 or whatever or run big. A lot of the more expensive brands run a little bigger, because they're willing to use more fabric. Then you have boutique type places and specialty clothing that very well may choose it's specific audience by only carrying smaller or larger sizes. I find women's sizing very confusing for the above reasons -- I wish sizes where made off of standard measurements that everyone would use. It would make buying comfortable jeans that fit so much easier : P I could be missing something, but it seems like men's clothing is sized in a way that makes a lot more sense. I don't want my ego stroked by people using smaller numbers on the tags -- I just want to find clothes that fit, and by fitting properly actually look flattering.

Definitely! I'm really happy to see people bringing this up. It often feels like there is a body type battle that has become about two ends of the spectrum but ignores the great number of women who fall somewhere in between, and that really bugs me.

 

Ok, I've been reading this thread with great interest and have been holding off commenting for the sake of better judgement but as a long-term sufferer of skin conditions (acne and eczema) as well as a recovered anorexic and bulimic (suffered in my mid to late teens) naturally body image and the social concept of "femininity" are something I hold close to my heart. Perhaps it was the comment on "revolting rashes" that spurred it on ...having suffered many a nasty cruel comment or unexpected reaction, and yes, many years of trying to rationalise other's reactions to my skin conditions from a psychological perspective (ie. no matter how much make-up I wear it's just that my physical appearance instils these reactions in certain people who are strongly effected when confronted with the image of human mortality and illness ...blablabla). For me, this is why I in particular have a great love and admiration for the well executed face-ups by some of the talented artists both on this forum and by certain art-doll artists which beautifully and respectfully portray some of the "less-perfect" natural aspects of varied human complexions including freckles, unusual pigmentation, pock-marks and age spots in all their glory.
In this way, this forum and this hobby is what you make of it by the customisable nature of ball-jointed dolls. Yes, there are plenty of examples of big-busted, small-waited, stylised, exaggerative & idealistically beautiful faces ...etc etc... but there are also plenty of dolls ...both in sculpt and via owner customisation who are very far from as much. Much of what you see in shapes in sizes, as others have said, come down to the limitations of resin casting, structural balancing of the finished doll and the fact that people like that there are certain dolls that are much easier to clothe as they fit into pre-existing shape and size categories....therefore for those who aren't big sewers they are relatively easy to clothe.
And talking about clothing... there's always the option of shaping your doll via exaggerative wearable art props (eg. nylon fat-suits with extra belly and butt padding).
If you see female ball jointed dolls as anti-feminist / simply perpetuating ridiculous un-obtainable stereotypes of feminine beauty then I suggest you possibly haven't seen enough examples of what is truly possible for these dolls.

 

My apologies Jenkat, I was trying to think of an analogy that wouldn't involve me dredging up the memory of those STD slide photos from high school health class. I had no intent to offend anyone with rashes (I'm a long term sufferer of pimples myself), and was just trying to think of a subject that would belay a minor illness rather than just an aesthetic difference.

 

Sorry, Duskkodesh... no offence taken. Sorry if it had come across that way. If anything it was just if anything it had been the trigger that had spurred me to feel I should say my 2 cents on the matter. I whole-heartedly understand what you mean... I can understand what you mean by that there are simply some traits when we as humans naturally react to as "unhealthy", & generally "unpleasant". What I enjoy in seeing both in Ball Jointed Dolls and in art dolls is where these lines are sometimes blurred and inverted where the a-typically "imperfect" can be, instead, made hauntingly beautiful. It reminds me of similarly haunting artistic protrait photography of less-than-idealistically-perfect people, or Davinci's amazingly beautiful detailed sketches of "ugly" people. The fact that, wherever you see any portrayal of the human form it will either make reference to ideals of human "beauty", or make commentary on the less-than-perfect nature of the human condition. I, for one, like both aspects as they can be seen in this hobby. After all, I own a Feeple65 Chloe... one of several stylistically ideal female dolls who's exaggerated curves which, to quote Big Bang Theory's Amy Farrah Fowler, include "breasts that could be used as flotation devices" common among both stylised female characters found in Manga, Western Comic book art, Sci-Fi & Fantasy art etc etc... so I'm not adverse these ridiculously stylized examples of pop-culture feminine stereotypes either. They all too play a part in understanding the fascinating concept of human "beauty" as it's played out throughout the ages.

 

OK, maybe I am in the minority but I have rarely seen anyone who I would call ugly. It's such a harsh word and in my mind has nothing to do with disease or rashes or not being the perfect breeding stock. I don't understand why we always have to connect beauty with perfection, the two things are not the same. A stunted tree growing near a cliff edge, pushed to grow in a twisted and contorted fashion by the wind howling in off the sea... is it ugly because it doesn't grow straight and symmetrical? No, quite the reverse in many people's eyes. Symmetry is perfection but Asymmetry has it's own beauty too.

I spent my youth earning extra cash by sitting in a holiday resort drawing people's portraits. The people who came to the resort were not exactly Holywood perfect, and maybe Kim would dismiss great swathes of them as "ugly", but when the person is sat in front of me and their face lost it's tension, you find beauty. Always. The only sitters I had to work harder at to find their beauty were teenage girls who wore way too much make-up, I had to try and see through it to find their features and uniqueness. I also wore way too much make-up as a teenage girl trying to hide my acne ravaged skin!

Anyway, what I was trying to convey is that everyone has beauty in their face, even if it's hidden under pimples or rashes for a while. Even if you have a nose to rival Virginia Wolf (like mine) and a wonky eye and imperfect teeth. This lesson was taught to me by someone who had to go through extensive plastic surgery and skin grafts, look hard enough and you see beyond it. The imperfection we see at first shouldn't stop us finding the beauty.

Kim, I'm sure plenty of people find you attractive, are you sure you're just not photogenic? That doesn't mean you are ugly, just that you don't often take a great photograph. Not the same thing at all, the camera just loves some people and others not so much. You can see this with dolls too. I have a couple of BJD who look beautiful in reality but the camera just can't capture it, it celebrates a certain kind of beauty and has it's limitations (especially in my hands!). So they don't get photographed as much as the others but I still find them beautiful to look at and live with. I look at the faces of my BJD's they are perfect, symmetrical, beautiful, but that isn't the only type of beauty in the world.