Dolls and feminism

Hmm...I guess I see it as being no different than asking a man to shave his beard. Also a sign of sexual maturity and a perfectly natural growth of hair, but many people don't like the way they look and find them unappealing. Now, demanding they do it under duress when they don't want to is something no one should tolerate from anyone. But if someone expresses a preference and the other partner is fine with it, then I don't see any harm done to anyone. It's not an act that is inherently damaging to the person doing it, and I don't think it's any different shaving any area of the body. If you are comfortable with it and want to do it, you're not diminishing yourself.

 

Islam requires both men and women to shave and pluck, but that's another can of worms.

Thank you for putting this so eloquently. As a parent, I completely agree-- it's impossible to shelter our children from everything (and probably not a good idea). It makes more sense to face these issues with them, and help them think through them.

 

(O hai please yes let's leave that for another day! Organized religion, that's another one near the top of the "Don't Git Me Stawted" pile....)

 

Maybe not in the sense of just looking, but I remember from school that a girl was reffered to as a "werewolf" and "gorilla" and even made such comments about herself because she had thick dark hair on her arms. She wasn't as hairy as either of course but, like most people I guess, she looked in the mirror and that's what she saw. It showed in her lack of confidence as well.

I know one single doll doesn't change people's point of views, but it would be nice to see a female werewolf not afraid to be hairy. =P

 

I have just caught up on this thread and am loving it! Do not stop the debate, it's wonderful, though I do have one point to make in the body hair department. Being completely shaved is a popular preference for partners who do a lot of... well, let's just say that you'd clear the brush from the cave if you're going to do a lot of spelunking as you don't want twigs in your teeth. XD So I guess it truly is in motivations where any problems might be.

As for body shape I have had a revelation. I met a friend (new acquaintance) who is 4ft nothing, 200lbs, DD breasts, and she is ADORABLE. I love her! and I've been trying to work with her on her confidence as she has gone through some abuse. But where are the dolls that look like her? Forget pear shaped, I want that body type to be available! XD Perhaps the reason I haven't bought any female dolls is their bodies just don't have character.

I mean I picked up my satyr and I new from his body that he'd be a woodland mystic, my tall skinny boy turned into a tall skinny glam rocker, and my balanced guy is a humble, kind, and sweet man. I bet if I got an uber-buff guy he'd be a testosterone filled party guy. I stereotype bodies! Yet every girl body I see is just clicking as "Oh, it's a standard female body, nothing remarkable here".

 

You do realize that the activity you speak of has been popular for milennia, right? To continue your analogy, a simple hedge clipper seemed to work quite well in the past, rather than, uh... napalm.

But the increase in shaving/waxing parallels the increase in the availability of pornography. I don't find it surprising that women are copying trends seen in porn, given how readily available it is.

 

Oh completely agreed, I was just pointing that there are varying motivations for almost any behavior and motivations must be taken into account.

 

I consider myself a feminist and I have no problems with BJDs. I feel like BJDs are targeted more toward adults, therefore have a different effect on women. It's fun to dress them up and play with them. I would say that the difference between these dolls is that you can find alternative things. For instance, when a Barbie with tattoos was released there was an uproar. I believe she was of the tokidoki variety. I feel like younger girls are the ones you have to worry about. Older women seem to grasp the idea that no one will ever look perfect.

 

As a little girl, I was too intimidated by Barbie's "adultness" to actually play with the ones I had. I played with Kelly and Friends instead, and then moved on to American Girl, and finally bjds. On the topic of body image, I know that mine is not the best, and while there is a lot out there that contributes to women's perception of themselves, I don't really see my dolls as being part of that. I pick dolls that represent what I think is beautiful of course, but facially, what I find beautiful in them is what I like about myself as well. Body wise, the bjd aesthetic makes sense to me because my dolls and I have similar builds: I am slender wiith suuuuuper long legs and a very short torso (and big boobies =_=) so I don't really see my dolls as looking particularly disproportionate in that regard. As for feminism, I struggle with that sometimes. I can only say that bjds allow me as a woman to assert my own creativity in a way that isn't based on the sanctions of society- that's about it. I don't feel like my dolls make me want to look like something else- actually, I feel like my dolls tell me it's okay to look like me! I love that about them, and because of that, I've started to love those things about myself too.

On the topic of er... hair: wow. Honestly, I wax everything I can get to, but I guess it's just because I feel somewhat ... *unformed* if I don't. Society says "this is how women show themselves as being well groomed" and I fall for it every time. Go figure. Doll-wise, I do feel awkward about mature dolls being, well, bald- but at the same time, most mature adults are also... bald these days... *shrug* I may stalk this debate though- it's definitely quite interesting.

 

The ONLY dolls I see in the bjd community that are even remotely similar to barbie and her other fashion friends in terms of oversexualization are Dollfie Dreams. They were quite clearly geared toward the male "otaku" audience in japan and it's hard not to say they weren't meant for men to have pretty 3d girls to look at and dress in less than modest clothing to emulate their favorite anime girl. But these were never really geared towards young girls, or I highly doubt it anyway, so this is not the same as a young girl growing up with a barbie.

As for the rest of the bjds available? I don't see this "sexualization" at all. And there certainly aren't many body sculpts out there that resemble barbie. I've seen all sorts of styles, and there are a few that DO have larger thighs as their major asset. See, it seems to me that bjds are much more meant for the age group that's already way passed the "impressionable" stage in life- meaning the majority of people I see with them are people who are college age and/or older. And an adult, in theory, should know better than to let an object such as a doll rule how they view themselves or their identity and let it effect their self-esteem. Personally I grew up playing with barbies. As a child I never cared that I didn't look like her. I knew that she was just a toy, in the same way that my dinosaurs and unicorns and dragons were also toys. As a child, all this poor image stuff never even began to cross my mind because I was to busy actively playing with them to care, really. When I got older? Still didn't care. And I don't now. I find that getting mad at something that projects an impossible idea, like a barbie, is about as silly as me getting angry at birds because I can't fly or getting angry at the Breyer Company because pegasuses don't exist. And since I've matured into a young adult, I just don't see bjds in that way either.

While yes the dolls are in the style of idealized beauty, it's much more so how the greeks or romans saw beauty and nowhere near the extent of the "americanized" Barbie beauty. Bjds are much more art than the standard mass produced fashion dolls sold in stores. And most of the female bodies I've seen have a much more reasonable realistic shape- meaning if I had the mind to, I could make myself look more like the average 50-60cm bjd and I don't think it'd be impossible for other people to do if they wanted to either. So not every possible human shape is available yet, that doesn't mean that what we have is projecting certain ideas to women (or men for that matter) that bjds have an ideal body we all must have. We have big amazon bodies, lanky kids, skinny with large boobs, skinny with small boobs, stocky kids, large butt bodies, muscles, no muscles, deliberately not proportioned bodies, tall, short, youthfull, mature... So many options. With bjds, yes they're pretty but I Just don't see the sexualization applied to them unless the owner of that doll deliberately put it on that doll themselves. Bjds don't come sexualized, it's what the owner does with them that might make them that.

On hair. Personally, I trim. However I will shave if my SO asks me to. He likes it because it's new and different- as it doesn't happen very often. It has little to do with wanting me to look "immature". And in regards to an older woman (not myself as I'm still in my early twenties and appear younger than I am), I seriously can't see how an obviously mature woman would be seen as immature or even surrogate for an adolescent simply because they wish to shave their hair down there to amuse their lover. I've heard it makes one appear younger but not to the extent of mimicing attraction to a child. In my opinion anyway. In relation to dolls, I would actually paint hair onto one, if the doll and mold was suited for it. Currently none of my dolls have it because one is young-ish, one is a mythical being and doesn't need it, one isn't human at all, and the last is a Dollfie Dream whose body compsition makes it tricky to paint. Not that she needs it anyway.

So yeah. With bjds there's many dolls that fit many ideas, as opposed to one doll to fit all ideas. And if we see a doll that doesn't exactly fit our idea we can and are encouraged to make it fit, rather than change our idea to fit the doll.

 

dolls are a girls best friend :O
i think they shjould be the ultimate buddy!

but i do thi k girls copy their idol and if that idol is barbie well...
1+1=2

 

I don't have a problem with female abjd bodies -- even though they tend to be more idealized, there is still some variety and little quirks here and there. They don't affect how I view myself -- they are dolls, and I am a person. They don't have to contend with genetics, eating and exercise habits, medication issues (some medicines will make people gain weight) etc etc etc. They are also geared towards adult collectors, which I think makes a difference too. I would hope that by the time we are all adults we won't be all that influenced by what a doll looks like or what it is pictured doing. For myself, my views on body image, grooming etc were already formed before I ever knew abjds existed.

I think it is also natural to idealize to an extent when it comes to art -- not all artists would choose to do this, but it has it's place. What bothers me more, is all the touched up magazine ads, because you are looking at something that is being put forth as a real person -- something one could compare themselves to rather than a doll that isn't human.

Some of the posts about body hair are cracking me up. I don't have a problem if people want to wax, shave do whatever. I do take issue with the fact that it has become the societal norm and there is very definite perceived pressure to be groomed a certain way. This personally bothers me far more than my body shape. No matter how hard I try, I will never look that well groomed. Nor do I relish the idea of yanking out hair by the roots, dripping hot wax on myself or getting said hot wax or sharp things any where near certain areas of my body. I have sensitive skin anyway and enough trouble just shaving my legs. Ugh. Whatever floats a persons boat, but I wish their wouldn't be such an expectation that all women have to follow suit.

 

Long before I got into BJDs, I was a Barbie collector, since childhood. FYI, I will be 47 this year and I am a chubby, short woman. Anyway, when I was a child, I don't recall - ever - looking at my Barbies and thinking, "I must look like her when I grow up, at all costs." As the years passed, it's not a message that ever sank in subconsciously. It just didn't. This was in the 70s, and even with the growing emphasis on the feminist movement and the backlash against Barbie's "assets", as it were, I don't recall any adult ever questioning Barbie as anything other than a toy.

I think the criticism of Barbie, and by extension, Bratz dolls and their ilk, is not aimed so much at the potential damage they do to little girls, but towards adults who don't have the proper level of guilt because they enjoyed their dolls without reading anything more into it than Barbie being what she is - a fashion doll. If you (the general you) don't want your little girls to play with Barbie, then don't buy her one, but don't deflect the blame onto the doll itself for being what she is. It's your issue, not Barbie's and not Mattel's.

Body hair! I have to laugh because I would give anything to have a thicker bush! I am naturally almost hairless on my body. That's fine as far as hairless legs and pits go, but it would be nice to not have straggly haired genitalia. I could pluck what little I have in under five minutes if I was so inclined. You ladies with a nice...ahem...thatch should be proud

 

I suppose anything in society can make girls and boys feel like they are less of themselves. I saw a great pic on the web where a boy was holding up a piece of paper to the camera and it said, "It's just as hard be Ken as it is to be Barbie." Dolls, movies, ads, what people talk about, what is socially accepted at school or work... it is all part of us. Whether we like it or not, it does have an impact and does shape us.

It is like some of my friends make comments about how they never wear makeup because they feel they want people to know them in their natural state. Whereas I wear makeup all the time but I don't feel any less of a woman or powerful because I do. In fact I love wearing makeup and feel even more powerful in my femininity. Is this a social construct and I have been led to believe makeup makes me feel powerful? Was it all those ads? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not.

I just don't see why I can't be glam-ed up and be a tomboy and be pro-woman and all of it. I think it is more of an issue of self-image and self-esteem. If you know yourself and feel good in your own skin then dolls of any kind won't make you feel less or smaller. We all have our self-doubts but overall if you are happy with yourself... I think you just see BJDs as beautiful objects and a fun hobby.

 

On the hair issue. I don't think the current real world fascism toward perfectly natural (and perfectly hygenic if you bother to wash!) pubic hair has anything to do with dolls. In fact I was quite amused and encouraged by a popular thread last year on the best ways to add pubic hair to our bjds. Maybe a worldwide baldy backlash will begin on DOA liberating the naturally hirsute from the relentless tyranny of waxing and shaving! And incidentally, stem the current rise of vaginal cysts caused by trauma to the delicate hair folicles down there.

I think back to the seventies when one of my school friends smuggled a book from his parents library. It was called The Joy of Sex and featured excruciatingly precise line drawings of the world's two hairiest people having sex in a myriad of unlikely positions. I'm surprised it didn't put us off for life. I also remember in the eighties seeing a glimpse of a nudie calendar on a garage wall where a young woman was proudly spreading her thighs and presenting what looked like an unkempt yak to the world. Back then it was all about hair!!!

I am pretty sure the current preoccupation with enriching the owners of waxing salons is more to do with the wide availability of porn. Those performers are bald so that the camera can get the money shot and nothing is left to the imagination these days, hence the sudden acceptability in some non-porn star circles of an*l bleaching and the fake gem encrusted vagazle. The gullible think what they see in porn is the norm. Nothing to do with poor naturally smooth BJDs.

As for me, I am as nature intended, give or take tidying a few unruly strays that occasionally venture beyond the knicker line. I lie back like sleeping beauty and if my prince can't find his way through the thicket then he simply isn't man enough to bed me in the first place

 

Vonbonbon: "Unkempt Yak"! XD XD XD I seriously laughed for 10 minutes! Curiously though, it did make me think. I was born in the 90s, but obviously there was (a very recent) time when people weren't that obsessed with removing body hair... I definitely think porn had something to do with it...

In any case, while I do aim for realism with my bjds, I don't think it's a bad thing that they're bald. It's one less awkward question to answer.

 

Harlequin-Elle:"Think, for example, of Myra Hindley. Together she and Ian Brady murdered several children in a horrible crime that shook the world. The idea to carry out the crime was Brady's. And yet it is her mugshot that is so iconic it was shown in the Beijing Olympics, she who is called "the most evil woman in Britain" and she who is the subject of countless films, documentaries, songs, books and poems. She is considered complex, enigmatic and horrifyingly fascinating, whereas Brady is simply "a psycopath".

It is because she is female that the world is obsessed with her; instead of nurturing, loving, giving birth to children, as females are supposed to do, she murdered them. She broke the feminine rules in the most perverse and harrowing way possible. The world is terrified of her and what she symbolizes. There are plenty of men who kill children, lots of whom raped them first. In comparison to them, Hindley's crimes are minor. But still she remains one of the most feared and reviled people living in Britain today, because she symbolizes something uniquely terrible: a woman that kills."

Apologies for going off topic, but I've been dipping in and out of this entertaining thread so forgive me if someone has already pointed this out, but Myra Hindley died in 2002. Brady is still alive, just about, as he has been on hunger strike for many years and is being forcibly fed to be kept alive. He has made a number of legal challenges to be allowed to die, all of which have failed so far.

Brady has always maintained that Hindley was much more involved in the murders than her "He made me do it" defence and in 1987 she confessed that she had in fact played a much bigger role than just luring the children to their deaths. I think the reason for the enduring public animosity toward her is not simply a misogynistic knee jerk but more because she had such a high profile and kept appealing for parole whereas Brady has always accepted his punishment. She and her supporters kept her face in the papers throughout her sentence and that made the public really hate her, she was asking for pity when she showed none for their child victims.

Another reason for the enduring revulsion at the Moors Murders is down to the fact that the jury and families of the victims had to listen to a tape recording of the murder of Lesley Anne Downey. It was the first time anything like that had been done and shocked the whole Nation. The fact that one of the victim's body has never been found and his families unending distress also keep the whole thing like a raw wound.

I think it's not so much that society is shocked by women that kill, there have been many, many female killers down the ages after all, but the whole folie a deux, of 2 individuals who come together and bond through murder. It doesn't matter who actually carries out the killing because the crimes would not happen without the two of them egging each other on. Bonnie and Clyde come to mind as well, those cases are always more shocking somehow.