Do girls really prefer to play with dolls?

My personal experience has been that most girls prefer to play with dolls, dollhouses, and gentle dance/ skipping games. Most boys prefer to play with mechanical toys eg lego/ mecchano and boisterous sports/ fighting games.
I'm xx female but was boyish in my preferences and grew up to be a manly woman. I was often lonely among girls whose interests didn't match mine. As a woman I've had women laugh in my face when I have suggested activities such as a bike ride. Conversely i wouldn't enjoy a "pamper" evening that many women seem to like.
Although all kids play with most toys, the state of being fully engaged and immersed in particular activities is what differs.
Loving wheels or dolls doesn't make you a boy or a girl. But I find it odd when people try to say it's learnt and not innate preferences.
To me it seems like internalised misogyny, to describe girlish interests as less important than boyish ones.

I worked as a TA for many years when my children were young, mainly with 3/4 year olds in a school nursery.

There was no difference in the toys the children liked to play with in any year group I worked with. The preferred activities for both groups was always any type of messy play.

I don't think Barbie and dolls are very interchangeable atall. Dolls typically are played with as if the child is a parent or caregiver. Barbies are "adults" and kids play at being adults with them.

FWIW I think girls are a little more likely to be interested in dolls than boys. and this should not be surprising as women are the ones who need to have a strong instinct towards doing things like breastfeeding. It would be very odd, scientifically, if this didn't follow in terms of behaviour. The idea that humans are totally and completely culturally determined with no instincts isn't a particularly prevalent idea among scientists whatever some feminists might say.

What fun I would have had playing with the child-version of some of the previous PPs! Meccano, trains, Action Man dolls - sorry, figures. A working baooka, nocoolnamesleft? Wow!
Most of my toys were 'boys' toys, but I had two dolls that I absolutely loved, and a teddy I couldn't live without.

Eye roll at ‘feminine’ choices being presented as lesser.
I think as far as toys and child's play is concerned, girly toys are lesser, in an important way, in comparison with boys' toys. I learnt to cuddle my teddy, and to dress up my dolls - indisputably both highly relevant skills for later life

But- the 'boys' toys' I had as a little girl included a working 'junior' woodworking tool kit, a meccano set and many many Airfix model planes. As a result, I developed dexterity in handling tools, how to handle them safely, and the functions of different kinds of tools; the ability to follow detailed written instructions; spatial awareness; the ability to concentrate deeply on minute tasks.
I was able to take up with great confidence a non-traditionally-female job that involved all those skills which I had acquired from play from the earliest age.

Not to mention the ability to cheerfully take on a tricky IKEA assembly job with a song in my heart

I didn't like baby dolls as a young child, I was into plush toy animals. And I played with Lego, little cars, planes, plastic animals and figures. It was only later on, when I started doing more grown up role play about teens, that I liked playing with Barbies. So I was still into Barbie aged 11!

I’m pretty sure the scientists involved weren’t expecting the macaques to enjoy playing with cars because of their cultural significance in human societies but because they are little platforms with round bits that turn when you push them along a surface. The mechanics of how the object moves is the interesting bit, not the cultural meaning of cars.
I got my son a baby doll and pushchair as a small toddler. He showed a passing interest in the doll but mostly would chuck it on the floor and push the pushchair around to watch how it moved….

@TheColourOutOfSpace - it could be that the car is mechanical. When I studied child development many years ago the research around the preferences for babies concluded that girl babies preferred human faces and boy babies preferred mechanical things. I caveat this by saying more recent studies may have reached other conclusions.

I don't think we have to ignore sex differences that may actually be there. If you think about chimps, maybe the females do play differently because they are the hardwired carers.

I think it's more important that differences aren't treated as unequal. Young girls may have a predisposition to playing with dolls. Of course that won't be the case for all of them. I bought both my DDs cars, trains and garages, trying to break the stereotype. They both preferred dolls 😁

I recently came across a photo of me and other children at playschool, so aged 4ish, and noted that I was not the only girl with short bobbed hair, resented not having had tartan trews like some of the others (both sexes), and remembered that I was whatever gender prefers to do jigsaw puzzles.

Which was disapproved of by the nice ladies, who wanted me to be more sociable.

I quite liked dolls and used them as characters in all sorts of acted-out adventures (yes, action man's posable limbs were great, pity I wasn't allowed one because he was militaristic) - never 'nurtured' them. But lego and my model village and fuzzy felt were also great because they could be used to play out all sorts of narratives.

I can't read the article as it's behind a paywall.

@Toasticles there's also an archive link of the article you can use.

I remember reading a study done with chimpanzees.
Toys were left around the forest and all babies played with the dolls but many more boys than girls played with the cars.

But that makes no sense as a scientific study because cars are not a thing in chimpanzee society. Unless the implication is that 'car' is genetically hardwired as a 'male toy' across species, which it isn't.
Cars are a modern human invention - what did human boys play with before then? Or did boys not exist until cars were invented? Lol

Was discussing this with DH the other day actually.

I think, that just like 'men are stronger' is an average, and some women will be stronger than some men, 'caring' is an average where generally women do more, building, men, etc.

But, that doesn't mean it you're further down a few of the scales than more of your sex, you become the other sex, or that there should be barriers based on any of it.

DH is an engineer and he despairs that so many of the women he trained with have ended up doing the 'people' side rather than the actual job. Also how many 'women in tech' YouTubers are... men.

Eye roll at ‘feminine’ choices being presented as lesser. Of course it’s limiting for girls only to be given dolls to play with. However, my 80s feminist mother presented me with cars, a train set, meccano… I mainly wanted to play with my stuffed animals (who were all female of course). My mum did succeed in giving me a lifelong aversion to all kinds of plastic dolls - Barbie or Action Man types - though, which DD also seems to share…

Forgot the castle and the marble runs 🤔

Oh and all my kids liked the early learning animals/dinosaurs and the play mats, they also liked the brio train sets and cars

as a child i had meccano and a dolls house and a bionic man and a train set 😀

I can't read the article as it's behind a paywall.

I had 3 sons. As toddlers, each had their favourite toys. Two of them had trains as their favourite. They loved setting up the tracks and running the trains around. Both are maths/science lads now they are young adults. My other son loved animals, he would set up a toy farm and put all the animals out. He is now a creative in the film industry.
They had a baby doll each. One of my sons carried his baby doll around and still has him under the bed. He is my gentlest boy. The other two had a passing interest but didn't live their babies as much. They had a dolls house, a castle, a buggy, toy cleaning stuff, a toy kitchen. They all got played with a bit but the toys above were clear favourites.

Then I had a daughter. She had access to the exact same toys as her elder brothers. She had trains and marble runs and construction toys modelled most strongly by her elder brothers. She was instead far more driven to copying me, much more actively interested in watching me cook etc, and her favorite toys by miles were Barbie type dolls and "princesses". She was not interested in the train set, and only a little interested in the farm animals. It was humans that interested her. She isn't grown up yet so I don't know what she will do, but she was different from a very early age, and it wasn't foisted upon her.

My dsis had a very similar experience. She was determined that girls only like dolls because they are forced to play that way. Her son was older and they didn't have any stereotypically girlie stuff. When they came to visit us, her daughter was just walking, and she found our baby dolls and walked around clutching one and loving it. My dsis was quite disappointed as she would have said her DD wasn't interested - well, it turned out she wasn't interested as she hadn't been given the chance. They bought her a doll when they went home and it became her favourite toy.

Dd liked her baby dolls when she was very little but to be fair she was bought a few baby dolls when she was born and ds1 played with them as well (he had a buggy and kitchen and t set already)

When she was about 5/6 she was more into these mini animal things that had hospitals etc and my little ponies than dolls (she didn’t really do the barbie thing)

I can only go by my micro study of having a boy and a girl. When DS was born we brought all of DD’s toys down from the loft (including dolls, tea set etc) for him to play with. DD likes a mix of things - she likes to wear dresses and jewellery but equally she enjoys dinosaurs and climbing/jumping type of activities. DS is only 1 but so far he’s been very drawn to cars (his first word), diggers, buses, dinosaurs. He hasn’t showed much interest in what would be called feminine toys although the choice is still on offer. I think it’s down to personality but girls are probably more likely to want to play with dolls and boys with trucks even if offered the other as well. However that doesn’t mean if you play with dolls you’re a girl etc

I was an absolute tomboy despite my mother's best attempts. I despised dolls, dresses, etc from being very young.

My daughter went to nursery at 11 months, she wanted pink everything because all the other girls did. She's still quite a bit more 'pink and sparkles' than I ever was. She has about twenty Barbie's and 5 baby dolls, all bought at her request.
She just getting into makeup, I wear it about twice a year.

Social expectations don't necessarily come from parents, just like no one ever teaches their children playground games, some things are passed on and influenced by slightly older / more opinionated children.

On the science: Surely we should be looking at whether male and female macaques play at different (macaque) roles rather than choosing cars and Barbie's?

My DC have the same toys

DD took the engines from the train set, gave them names, and put them to bed in the dolls house

DS took the dolls house, put it on the back of a toy truck and drove it off the table to see how it would land

Conclusion: my kids play on gender typical ways regardless of the materials offered. Luckily DD does want to be an engineer when she grows up but I suspect she will be very fussy about the colour of any wind turbines she designs.....

Probably some girls do prefer dolls, as do some boys.
There will be girls who love lego and cars best too.

I remember reading a study done with chimpanzees.
Toys were left around the forest and all babies played with the dolls but many more boys than girls played with the cars.

This type of research is very interesting. I really enjoy reading studies about child behaviour. Sticks were some of the first toys. I wonder what ancient boys and girls imagined and fashioned out of their sticks and other natural items?

I do think there's a strong influence from parents. I never liked dolls or babies, my dd didn't either, much prefers animals. I tend to notice that the more stereotypically feminine looking mums tend to have girls who lean more towards dolls and babies. Saying that, there's always exceptions. But my dd has seen my apply make up maybe twice in her life, I wear about three pairs of trainers in rotation. So obviously she was going to be less inclined to get a doll to try make up on or change their outfits.

If dolls or cars are considered gender less toys and it doesn’t matter if boys play with dolls or girls play with cars, why do we worry so much if girls do play with dolls? Is there something inferior about dolls that we should be embarrassed about, and something superior about boys toys that we should promote? It seems if a boy wants to play with a doll it’s genuine and should be encouraged, but if a girl wants to play with a doll she’s being forced into a stereotype and someone should get her a toy truck.

Some do, some don't. Same with boys ime.
The 'home corner' type role play at school and the dress up sections are used by both our girls and boys.

Dd went through a couple of stages where she played with dolls and mini figures a lot. She always preferred role play/imagination type,play than construction, etc.

She had friends who were similar as well as friends who really weren't interested in dolls, etc.

I preferred Action Man because he had fully articulated limbs and gripping hands so that he could be made to climb trees (twigs) or dangle from ropes. I wouldn't have said no to a girl doll with similar abilities, but we never seemed to find one.