Even though there is no scientific evidence to prove that this is the case, there will be customers who say that even exposing their children to a gender-nonbinary doll through commercials or in a play group would threaten to change their child’s identity. This debate will spin out into sociopolitical questions about whether the types of toys children play with affect their sense of identity and gender. On a basic level, the doll falls far short of actually embodying or even representing a nonbinary identity. “Gender-neutral,” the term Mattel uses in its marketing of the doll, is not, in fact, a term that many—any?—people use to describe themselves. They use “gender-fluid,” or genderqueer, or nonbinary, or nonconforming. These dolls reinforce the idea that gender is “playful” and easy to switch around, accusations often leveled at trans youths. [10] See also [ edit ] Perhaps it’s surprising, then, that nobody has beaten Mattel to creating a gender-neutral doll. A deep Google search for such a toy turns up baby dolls or strange-looking plush creatures that don’t resemble any human who ever walked this earth. Nothing comes close to the Creatable World doll that Mattel has conjured up over the past two years. If I could sum up the vision of Creatable World in one statement, it would be these words from Chella Man: “If I exist in this world, then I deserve to be represented.” Never heard of this line before, but I really appreciate its existence as a nonbinary and genderfluid person myself. Toys can be so obsessively gendered, and this has always bothered me even as a kid. I would have loved to grow up with several dolls like this. Not to mention, the fashions that come with the dolls are fun and colorful, which is great to see when a lot of clothes today that are branded as "gender-neutral" are just plain brown or beige. I also think the potential for play is really great here, because kids can make many characters out of one doll to fit a variety of stories, regardless of gender. It's such a shame that the wigs do not fit right and are just plain bad in some cases, because I really like the idea of having dolls with rooted hair under wigs so that you can choose whether to give the dolls bangs or not, and you don't have bald dolls lying around like you mentioned about the Liv dolls. Still, these dolls will now have a special place in my heart, as I wish I could have grown up with a toy that treated gender-neutrality with such normalcy as these dolls do, if only the wigs were better lol.

a b Asmelash, Leah. "Mattel just launched a gender-inclusive doll line". CNN . Retrieved 4 October 2019. I do wonder whether these dolls would make okay siblings for the Ever After High line...? After seeing your comparison photo for the eye paint, I definitely think their facial screening would work for that, but I wonder if Creatable World's more realistic proportions would be prohibitive... Schulz, Madeline. "Why on earth is Mattel making gender-neutral dolls?". Washington Examiner . Retrieved 13 May 2022.A 2017 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that approximately 76% of Americans supported girls pursuing interests perceived as masculine and approximately 64% of Americans supported boys pursuing interests perceived as feminine. There were differences based in responses from different political affiliations: approximately 84% of Democrats supported girls pursuing masculine interests compared to approximately 66% of Republicans. Responses also varied by gender: approximately 58% of Republican women supported boys pursuing feminine interests, in contrast to approximately 38% of Republican men. [6] A 2019 consumer survey of approximately 700 adult shoppers indicated that 25% expressed a positive view of gender-neutral toys and that 5% were interested in purchasing dolls from the Creatable World line as a holiday gift. [7] Imaginative language and motifs – stereotyped symbols and language are often used to target toys by gender, but the boxes steer clear of both. Being creative requires a focus on your end goal, which in my case, would be the outcome of a project. In a world where ideas are a hot commodity, what is equally (if not more) important is the execution of that idea. If your idea is amazing but the execution is poor, then its intended audience will reject your idea. Staying true to yourself also means being open to adapting and evolving your vision to make the best and biggest impact. Personally, I don't think they look that bad next to a Barbie. They're definitely not quite in scale, but Lena's head looks to be a bit on the smaller side, so they might look better with a larger-headed Barbie, or one of the Disney dolls perhaps. Plus, as a kid, I had a variety of dolls this size that definitely didn't all match stylistically, and it never bothered me. There's something really endearing about that picture of Riley and Lena. I can see a definite family resemblance, and that combined with their natural, affectionate pose really makes them look like siblings.

After the session, Dreger analyzed the parental response. “Adults get so tied up in the descriptions and definitions,” she said. “They jump to this idea of sexuality. They make themselves more anxious about it. For kids it’s much more intuitive.”Toy giant Mattel is launching a new range of dolls designed and marketed to appeal to boys and girls alike. Let Toys Be Toys campaigner Megan Perryman and her children take a look – has a major manufacturer really dared to rewrite the toy marketing script?

During my last year of high school, I embraced that a creative career was my calling, so I seriously and actively pursued a way to go to art & design school. I am forever grateful to Lee Akamichi, my studio art teacher who helped me put together my portfolio so I could apply to an art & design school. Through creating art for my portfolio, I realized I enjoyed creating things with purpose. They eventually supported me going to art school when they saw how passionate and serious I was about becoming a designer. The journey in the research, design, development, and launch of Creatable World took about two years. A child opens a box. He starts jumping and screaming with joy—not an unusual sound in the halls of Mattel’s headquarters where researchers test new toys. But this particular toy is a doll, and it’s rare for parents to bring boys into these research groups to play with dolls. It’s rarer still for a boy to immediately attach himself to one the way Shi’a just did. Mattel has taken risks before. Most recently, in 2016, it added three new body types to the Barbie doll: tall, petite and, most radically, curvy. It was the first time the company had made a major change to one of the most recognizable brands—and bodies—in the world in the doll’s almost-60-year history. The change helped propel Barbie from a retrograde doll lambasted by feminists for her impossible shape to a modern toy. She is now on the rise. Her sales have been up for the past eight quarters, and she saw a 14% sales bump in the past year alone, according to Mattel. At Let Toys Be Toys we know that boys and girls are more alike than they are different, but it takes an inclusively-marketed toy like this to make that really apparent. Gender and the toy industryThere were two waves of Creatable World dolls, and the second wave had a lot of repeats from the first wave. The dolls are sold in kits, and 6 different kits are currently part of the doll line. The kits offer several customization options, including different hairstyles, clothes and accessories that are intended to offer a variety of both feminine- and masculine-presenting play options. [5] The dolls are designed to be versatile: with wigs to change hairstyles, and a variety of clothing options. [2] According to Kim Culmone, the senior-vice president of Mattel Doll Design, Creatable World is "an opportunity for us to open up that dialogue around what dolls are for and who dolls are for". [5] Michelle Condoni, a spokeswoman for Mattel, has stated that "we see this is as something that's all about play and not about politics". [3] Reception [ edit ] Other than my mom, I was not surrounded by many artists during my upbringing. A majority of my peers and their parents were involved with science, engineering, mathematics, or physics. My dad is an engineer, so this is where I get my practical & analytical side from. My mom is very creative and very clever, she always had ingenious solutions to enhancing a product to better suit her needs. She forever inspires me and encourages me to think critically and creatively. Representation – The dolls themselves aren’t identified as boys or girls and come in a range of skin tones and hair types. There are no images of children on the boxes. (We hope that other marketing material will feature both boys and girls.)

Mattel is at the forefront of evolution. In the past five years, Mattel has committed to a journey of racial, gender, and non-ableist inclusion. There are Mattel dolls with different body types, heights, skin tones, and dolls with wheelchairs and prosthetics. But the evolution within Mattel is obvious once visitors make their way past the entryway and into the designers’ cubicles. Inspiration boards are covered with pictures of boys in skirts and girls in athletic gear. The most striking images are mashups of popular teen stars: the features of Camila Mendes and Cole Sprouse, who play Veronica and Jughead on Riverdale, combine to create one androgynous face, and Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard, who play the main characters on Stranger Things, blend into a single floppy-haired, genderless person with sharp cheekbones. As a parent that ambivalence continued. My daughter received a cluster of Barbies for her fourth birthday which she adored with all her heart. I felt torn. I didn’t want to be the parent to deny my child a toy they clearly got so much enjoyment from, but equally the highly made-up, scantily clad, anatomically-impossible dolls could not have been further from my scruffy four year-old in grubby playclothes. My son said “I like how you can make it a boy or a girl. Well, it could be a boy or a girl either way actually.” He’s recently learned about the dancer Eric Underwood at school and his doll was soon posing in ballet moves whilst he told me all about him. The set comes with a doll, clothing, accessories and a wig. These can be combined to create over 100 different character styles. Start with a Blank CanvasPicchi, Aimee. "Mattel's gender-neutral dolls are ready for the holidays, but shoppers may not be so sure". USA Today. My biggest hurdle working on Creatable World was trying to open existing perceptions of feminine and masculine styles. Deep-ingrained societal gender signifiers such as color and hairstyle were particularly challenging. For too long a time, the color pink has been associated with girls, and blue for boys. Society has dictated that long hair signifies “feminine.” Even clothing isn’t sold by categories such as “pants” or “shirts,” but by gender. As a society, we are still at the early stages of breaking gender social constructs.