Dolls and feminism

A doll has never made me think I need to be like them in any way, shape, or form and I had barbie as a little kid and I loved her. The way she looked never crossed my mind. She was simply just a play toy to me but that was 10-12 years ago I believe kids are a bit different now. As for bjd's its the same thing. Their looks don't affect me. Sure it has crossed my mind but to me they are art pieces they are meant to be beautiful and artistic. Some bjd's are not as pretty but they are still a form of art.
I don't care much for the really slender and big breasted bjd's. There's nothing wrong with them I'm just not attracted to them. I prefer the cute small decently proportioned look. I personally think its not dolls that make girls think this way.. its the real people and the media.

 

Awww! That's right, she would've hit your generation square-on. I didn't know anybody who had her (I was 10 years past it at that point). The term "political correctness" was invented in the 90s, to cover just this sort of radical thought experiment-- i.e. "What if we decided that it was not OK to treat women like it's 1956 or call each other poisonous names anymore?"

Apparently not in the toy world, but bless them for trying. Mass reaction was swift and violent; detractors' objections ran to the effect of "don't force your commie pinko P.C. sisterhood crap on a classic American institution, you feminazis!" and "why would we want our kids to aspire to be fat, short-legged and manless?" Errmm, yeah. Their perceptions had been so distorted over the years that they thought Happy To Be Me looked dumpy next to Barbie. Even though she had a figure that most earthly women already aspire to get. (Ms. Happy had a "...wider waist, larger feet, shorter neck and shorter legs. Assuming a bust measurement of 36 inches, Barbie's proportions would be 36-18-33, while the Happy to Be Me doll would be content with 36-27-38.")

So, the notion of "why not make role models look like ourselves?" was firmly scotched at about that time, and a couple years later, we had the Spice Girls. *~The End!~*

 

I also wonder how much this has to do with the uncanny valley. Barbie is so.....stylized and not very humanly proportioned where as Happy to be Me Doll kind of is.

 

I doubt that was the reason. I just looked for photos (found one here) and they look to be 100% doll from what I can see - I don't think anything with that simple of a face hits uncanny valley territory.

 

I was also of the age, and an avid doll collector, for when those dolls came out to possibly get one. I honestly didn't want one because I thought she was ugly. It had nothing to do with her body shape, but I didn't like the face and hair offered. She also didn't have a lot of clothing available and couldn't share with Barbie so... she just wasn't as appealing.

 

I don't remember those dolls (the BODIES are nice, the faces look, well, like a Barbie knockoff...) but I do remember the Get Real Girls - THEY were fantastic, did all sorts of cool things, came w/passports & stuff. My daughters were just too old (15 & 17) when I found them, but my Goddess daughter loved them. Made Barbies look like fake little wimps.

 

Yeah, that fixed grin really isn't going to spook anybody for being too realistic. That girl is so happy to be herself, there's no way she ain't medicated.

But I see what Cloudedmind means; maybe her body-shape made people scratch their heads, for not being distorted (i.e. doll-like) enough.

Or, maybe it was just pure reactionary knee-jerking, like people do when you try to change something that's been around 50-odd years. After all, it was only the early 90s, which was barely done being the 80s, which were basically the 50s with legwarmers.

A doomed venture overall, but I still think a worthy one.

Yeah, poor girl had no market-share. Nobody was gonna make a lot of clothes for her. She must've been so jealous of Barbie's wardrobe selections for home/office/stage/adventure/glamour/cosplay/international intrigue/etc. "That Bitch Has Everything!"

 

Yes, her face is very barbie/doll like but her body isn't. Considering the kinds of reactions many people have with BJD's being/looking to realistic and the fact that they have genetalia I can image that a doll looking even remotely more..human more "like me" can be off putting to some. Bratz dolls look even less human, with big heads and eyes and lips, and are smaller proportionally then barbie thus more doll like more alien, and became a big hit pretty fast. I'm not saying there aren't other factors but I just thought it was an interesting thought to throw out there. I think Jenny also hit it when she said that people have also just gotten used to a certain look when it comes to dolls like barbie.

 

It did have an effect, though.

The Barbie measurements you quoted were for dolls released pre-1997. But Barbie was then given quite a bit of plastic surgery, such that her post-1997 measurements are 36-23.5-31.4. Still very slim for a 5 foot 9 inch woman, but edging toward realism.

The Happy to Be Me doll wasn't the first mass market doll to try out more realistic proportions, either. When I was a kid (I'll talk about walking uphill in the snow both ways to school in just a moment) there were two dolls that tried it-- the bionic woman doll and an athletic doll named Dusty who could swing a golf club or tennis racket. Bionic woman doll was cool as she had vinyl "sleeves" that rolled up to show her bionic implants, but both she and Dusty had big old feet (that is, feet that were proportional and without a resemblance to bound feet of last century China) and weren't "pretty" enough for most girls, including me. I hated them.

At the same time, Barbie irked me, for the stupid feet that she couldn't stand on, but also for the stupid car she was to big to fit into, the penthouse with ceilings she hit her head on and the molded plastic bed that she was too tall for, etc. Most of my Barbie fun was making her props that fit her size.

Edit:

Interesting article here about anti-barbies and why they have not succeeded commercially.

 

I actually had a bionic woman doll (and saw the original commercials) and I'm certain it was marketed to girls. It did come out after the bionic man doll but you could buy fashion outfits for it just as you can for Barbie. Was not happy to get her as a Christmas present, however. She was too "real" looking for me, which is amusing given my taste in bjds.

edit: original commercials for bionic woman and fembot dolls (note the girls!)

Also, you are forgetting the new Idealian72 woman. She has quite muscular thighs. Not as muscular as the special order nobility girl, but more muscular than the average bjd.

 

Our art teacher told us that the very thin flat boyish look became popular in the 60's (with Twiggy and other similar models) because there were not a lot of women photographers - most were male and quite a lot of them were gay and liked the androgenous look on women.
That's just me requrgitating what my art teacher said lol - but I can see where it is coming from
I think Bjds are just like any other dolls (barbie etc) and airbrushed pictures on models...an ideal. I dont have a problem with it opersonally

 

If you want a surprising twist in BJD bodies, the Volks SD16 girl has some great slabs of leg-muscle, and she's got broad sturdy shoulders.... she who is first/foremost accused of Barbiedom. Of course she is totally missing a rib or two, so imho the accusation still sticks. Well-made doll, though.

When my sisters & I were kids in the 1970s, we had a whole procession of Bionic Man & Maskatron dolls, but we never had the Bionic Woman doll. It was her face. We all loved Lindsay Wagner, and that doll did not look like Lindsay Wagner. ;;^^ She does have a thick brawny neck, that doll, but her face always seemed to us like someone took a male face & smoothed it down. Later in life, we recognized this as the basic default female-action-figure facial style.... but at the time, all we saw was Not Lindsay.

Sure, I'll grant that-- that is to say, she's "edging towards realism" in the same way that Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house. Happy to be Me came out in 1991, 6 years before that, so she was up against the original Mondo Distorto version. Brave little flatfooted chica.

I still think it was a bold venture, and you're right, it didn't sink into history without leaving a trace. Someday perhaps the general doll world will be ready for her concept.

 

Hmm, I guess we could calculate the rate of change...

Barbie's waist grew from 18 to 23 inches since people began complaining about her figure (I'm using the Women's Strike for Equality in 1970 where placards read "I am not a Barbie doll" for this data point) So 5 inches in 27 years works out to .19 inches a year.

Crystal Renn, a plus size model is 5 foot 9 and 150 lbs (which is what insurance charts put as a "average" weight for that height). Measurements are 33.5- 28.5- 38. (Actually very close to Happy to Be Me, although less busty!)

So given Barbie's rate of change it will take her another 15 years for Barbie to get an "average" figure for her height. 2027?

Just out of curiosity, I calculated the proportional measurements for the curviest, most realistic (IMO) bjds out there:

Iplehouse EID girls (again assuming they are 5 foot 9): 34(31)- 22- 34
IDealian72 girls: 31-21-32

Both have more than a 10 inch gap between waist and hip, which is actually curvier than the 1997 Barbie's measurements. A 22 inch waist typically fits a size 2 or 4.

 

You also have to correct for career-choice..... Barbie will encounter the Middle-Aged Spread much faster than .19 inch/year in her Dotcom-Millionaire, Telemarketer, or Housewife incarnations than she will in her Step-Aerobics Instructor persona. For those more sedentary lines of work, I predict that doll will be wearing caftans before 2020.



Wow-- so, if you're 5'9", is 150 lbs "average" or "plus"? It's no wonder women are so neurotic about their bodies; we have no idea how big we actually are.

 

Didn't account for that!

Healthy range (according to insurance companies) is 130 to 170lbs, depending on a person's frame. So 150 would be healthy for a woman with an average size frame, like Crystal Renn. But she is considered plus size in the fashion industry. She wears a size 10.

 

Double wow for that fashion-industry. I weigh 135 at 5'9" and the tags in many of my clothes also say "10". But depending on what store they come from, some of them say "4" and some say "8" and some say "12", and some say "M" and some say "XL". This is no help. I imagine a 60cm BJD girl must have the same frustrations when she tries to shop at various online outlets, and everything says "SD size", but none of it fits... Gaah! Neurosis!!

So, wait-- is that how The Man keeps women down? "Hey, if they don't know how big they're supposed to be, we can keep 'em believing they're fat, no matter how much they weigh-- they're just easier to control when they're too busy worrying about the size of their thighs. Release the Malibu Stacie with a new hat!"
OK, OK, that's me being silly, but you never know.

 

I'm thinking negative sizing is next. Considering that due to vanity sizing clothes are now down to size 0 and 00, it's the logical next step. "She's so tiny! Negative 56!"

What does it say about our society that clothing sizes are continually getting smaller? Do women really want to disappear?