Diversity dolls suggestions

[SirenFox]

Hi everyone. This is my first time making a post so I hope I'm doing it right and don't break any rules. With this time on my hands during lockdown I'm thinking of making some more diverse/inclusive dolls. As a child especially for young girls I think it's super important to see themselves represented. I know Mattel tried to make some diverse barbies but I was wondering if there are any bases that haven't been covered. Do you have special daughter who you wish could see herself represented in dolls? Help me out with some suggestions. Ideas already:

• Different races and cultures
• Varied sizes and weights
• Wheelchair
• Hearing aid
• Amputee and/or prosthetic limb(s)
• Cystic fibrosis (potentially oxygen tank and tubes)
• Bald and short hair
• 'Excess' body/facial hair

I didn't feel that the 'Toys and Games' section was right for this and I feel that diversity and inclusivity is a feminist issue close to my heart. Let me know if you have any other thoughts about this or something that hasn't occurred to me, as you guys and your kids are the target audience after all. I am trying to do something kind so hopefully nobody finds this offensive.

Thanks in advance.

dolls suitable for children with specific impairments - physical, sight etc ... A doll for a visually impaired child would (I guess) have to have good tactile qualities - no hard plastic - perhaps responsive to touch

I think Errol's is the best idea on this thread. I hadn't thought of it, and I don't think OP had. Infinitely more valuable than external details. I don't know if this sort of thing exists, and OP says s/he isn't returning. But I hope someone takes it up.

www.toylikeme.org/

check this out, OP

Lottie dolls already do this.

Yes Lottie dolls are great. There's a boy one as well.

IIRC there's also one with a cochlear implant.

I'm an 80s kids with both female and male older siblings - I played with all the toys.

Generally speaking, and I'm not aiming this at the OP (although I'm not sure if she's coming back) I think the idea of trying to introduce 'diversity' by itself doesn't really work - there's too much diversity in diversity!

And I get that it comes from well meaning people but surely by lumping lots of very different groups of people as one and calling it diversity it perpetuates the problem rather than solves it?

Errol has made some great points about how toys could be more accessible - but what does that have to do with people of 'different races and cultures' or people of 'varied sizes and weights'?

I dunno, I'm probably talking bollocks with my clumsy wording.

I suppose I feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that anything non-white, non-abled bodied, non-stereotypical can be all lumped together as diversity.

I agree with infinitesheldon. However..

My answer to the OP would've been that children's imaginations don't really need diversity in dolls. I think a pp has already mentioned a child's ability to use toy dogs which represented people. If I was asked to design a doll I think I'd make it as bland as possible. No way to tell its sex (can we still say androgynous?) no way to tell its ethnicity (make the skin pale blue or summat à la Simpsons) keep it all basic and allow the child's fantastic imagination to do the rest. It wouldn't be made of fucking plastic either.

Yep, a wooden spoon, HorseRadish, that's what they need!

In MY day we had gender neutral rocks, and we were glad of them.

My son has the doll in the picture, but a friend made some hearing aids that I glued on and it’s dressed in typically boyish outfits. My son has long hair, but the boy dolls all have very short hair, so I just bought that and changed the outfits.

It isn’t just actual dolls that are a bit crap, it’s the accessories that come with them, they’re virtually all pink. I got the ikea cot so I could paint it, but pushchairs, baths etc are mainly pink. My son likes pink, so he’s more than happy to have a pink pushchair etc. But lots of children don’t like pink and there are idiots who don’t let boys have pink toys.

But why all the pink?!

I like the idea. More minifigures though, ds played with these but wanted some in football kit.

These are the last of the ELC ones.

Calling them figures would help. Dolls is traditionally seen as for girls and the risk is that they would be pigeon holed for girls only.

Here

Price would be a consideration. Cheap dolls are pink clothed white skinned.

If I was asked to design a doll I think I'd make it as bland as possible. No way to tell its sex (can we still say androgynous?) no way to tell its ethnicity (make the skin pale blue or summat à la Simpsons) keep it all basic and allow the child's fantastic imagination to do the rest. It wouldn't be made of fucking plastic either.

The people who make good TV series (and their associated merchandise) for small kids have known this for decades - many use anthropomorphised animals, or invented entities such as the Teletubbies.

I am feeling grossly offended by AFAB and AMAB. Children develop as Male or female in the womb and this is observed at birth, if not before. If you want a range of dolls to reflect diversity then may be include a diversity of belief systems, including belief in material reality, rather than impose a single restrictive ideology. That is not diversity.

Yep, I feel the same, Aesop. It's an insult when I hear it. Assigned female my arse. Who is doing the 'assigning'?! Some mythical godly being?

I am female. Makes no difference what words anyone uses or labels one tries to apply. I'm still going to bleed every month, suffer scars of childbirth and live with a female skeleton and chromosomes til the day I die.

I’d suggest looking at L.O.L Dolls and the doing the opposite.

I also think the market is completely saturated at the moment.

It'll dry out.

The people in my life who actually know my kids and value them as individuals rather than as stereotypes, buy them similar neutral toys like duplo, play food, art supplies etc

Your attitude stinks. So all of a sudden neutral kids = value?

That is quite possibly the BEST example I've seen of twisting someone else's words to fit your agenda that I have seen in a good while! 🤣 well done.

I don’t think dolls like this work as intended to be honest. Many others have already expressed what I mean much better on here. Funny story though, my kid has a feeding tube, I cut one down and stuck it onto her baby doll thinking it would be cute to see a toy like her, nope, she freaked out and was crying until I removed the tube. I think some things don’t need to be a reminded to those with extra needs. My kid has so many scars from all her surgeries, she’s still very young so she couldn’t give a shit about them but I imagine when she is older they could become a problem for her. I don’t think a doll with scars would help at all, it would only highlight something about herself that she doesn’t like or doesn’t want reminded of.

Dolls with no hair is fine for those with Alopecia but giving the same doll to a child with cancer probably wouldn’t have the same effect, does that make sense? Also, things like dolls in wheelchairs, different body shapes and sizes which is the diversity type of doll that does work, are already out there in the world so I’m not sure what you could add to the market op.

A pp had a great idea which is that rather than trying to make a doll to fit every little possible human permutation perhaps it is better to make dolls more amorphous so that the child can project its imagination onto them.

I remember having some little wooden peg dolls when I was younger and they had all sorts of personalities and characteristics in my head. I turned sets of colouring pens into people too. Anything really. I think the more specific the doll the less you can do this.

I hate to tell you this, but that's pretty much what the Steiner lot say

Yes, I wasn't kidding about the wooden spoons.

American Girl do this to a certain extent. You can choose skin, eye and hair colour in one of their ranges. They sell wheelchairs, insulin pumps, hearing aids, epipens, glasses for the dolls amongst other things.

I am deeply offended by AFAB and AMAB. It is extremely insulting to doctors and midwives performing baby checks, who observe and record (and in unusual unclear cases investigate and establish) sex, but do not assign gender.

Love your enthusiasm to challenge stereotyping @SirenFox but if you casually adopt terms like AFAB you're effectively perpetuating the problem rather than solving it. Sex is what it is, there's no changing that, but expression, presentation and sociocultural expectations are absolutely all up for grabs - supporting freedom and diversity in that respect sounds like a grand idea to me. If little girls and little boys could see representations of males/females that don't follow narrow gender stereotypes that's a really positive thing. Mainstream culture is very hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine at the moment so challenging those forms of presentation as a 'norm' is important. All the best.

I hate to tell you this, but that's pretty much what the Steiner lot say

That's very interesting probably.

Lottie dolls are adding more hair/skin tone combinations to their range.

They have a selection of dolls including ballerina and scientist, and a couple of boy dolls. The body is based on that of a child, not an adult, so proportions are more realistic for a child than, say, Barbie dolls.