As a kid, one of my favorite toys I played in my living room with was my Barbie. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was dressed in a hot pink cocktail dress. I would make Barbie hang out with other Barbies, have sleepovers, and sometimes she even traveled all the way to the kitchen to visit my American Girl Doll. While I’m sure many girls had Barbies while growing up, what about boys? What did they play with? Toy cars? Transformer Action Figures? Whatever boys had, it probably wasn’t a Barbie.
Gender and Parenting
Gendered toys are evident today, specifically made for either boys or girls and the gender stereotyping of toys heavily influenced by parents. According to the West Zimmerman article, “Doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys…Once the differences have been constructed, they are used to reinforce the ‘essentialness’ of gender” (137). Therefore, it can be argued that when parents raise their children, they are reinforcing and imposing the aspects of traditional gender the way they were probably raised, construing this phenomenon. In the article Men Who Love Bukowski: Hegemonic Masculinity, Online dating, and the Aversion toward the Feminine by Sarah Vitale, she notes how “Parents expressed less tolerance for their sons to play with …’icons of femininity*’” and these icons include frilly pink toys, dress up, makeup etc. It is likely that parents across difference socioeconomic classes, races, and ethnicities have enforced hegemonic masculinity in their sons through having them detach themselves from feminine activities to commit to societal norms since boys playing with Barbies do not fit the hegemonic masculinity norm.
Barbie Controversies
While much loved and wanted by children, Barbie also faces several controversial issues dealing with skin tone and body size. When Barbie first came out in 1959, there was only one type: fair-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed, red-lipped, and it portrayed the typical white woman. This led to backlash among the public and has raised questions as how girls think about their own body image and comparing it with what they view as ideal. And we see that clearly these dolls are not reflective of real bodies and the different body types that people may have. According to Psychiatric Times, about 82% of women in a study believe Barbie portrays unrealistic body expectations to girls and women, particularly comparing against waist, legs, hair, chest, and face**. Additionally, skin tone is another issue, where it instills the fact in girls that only white dolls get to be dressed up in cute outfits and styled. The exclusion of other skins is obvious and it reinforces the concept that perfect girls are only a certain type of appearance. While Mattel is now producing more inclusive body types and a variety of skin tones (with a skin tone match chart too, which is interesting), I’m sure most people still picture the blonde thin Barbie, which demonstrates how much stigma these dolls have brought and will continue to bring future generations.
(Original Barbie in 1959 vs Barbie now)
Toys for Girls vs Boys
Yet, girls still yearn for these traditional toys and parents still buy them. When parents encourage their kids to play with Barbies, they are encouraging girls to take on the duties of caring and cleaning, but not to explore or invent or build as we’ve probably seen with many gendered toys for boys.
(Child playing with Legos, but also basically me in 5th grade)
A perfect example of this are Legos. As a kid, I loved to play with Legos, probably more than Barbies honestly. I remember very clearly, at the end of the day, when the school bell rang to and kids were let out, I would sprint to the cafeteria where my after-school program was held to get to the Lego box before any of the other boys took all the building blocks and people. It was my friend and I versus two other guys and usually we got what we wanted. But this idea that Legos are typically marketed towards boys to build actions figures to fight with is very off-putting because when marketing towards girls, Lego brings out the bright pink bricks and slightly bigger figures, which gives the message that girls only play with pink and aren’t as good as controlling smaller things or don’t have as fine motor skills, which is absolutely false. There are some girls and women who also like to build and construct novel objects and the way that Lego defines its target audience is preventing girls from completely exploring new activities and restricts the gender stereotype that girls can’t be associated with innovation or violent toy fighting and such.
(Notice the pink and purple colors of the bricks and bigger human figure size. This is from Lego’s Heartlake City set, marketed for girls)
Similar to how Lego has a certain toy type for girls, Mattel has a toy type for boys too and that toy is called Ken.
Who is Ken?
Ken is an interesting figure and a quite confusing one too compared to Barbie. Ken is the companion of Barbie. He is her date when she goes out, he is her only male friend when Barbie and her friends go to the beach and (plus his job is beach), so he is practically the side character to Barbie. However this brings up the question, was Ken was made to cater to boys or to girls? In my perspective, boys would not be playing with Barbie on their own in the first place and if they were it would probably be with their sister (confirmed by a guy friend). But what about when girls are playing with Barbie? Is it because they’ve gotten tired of only playing with only female dolls and want to add in something new? To them, is Ken just a prop? In Naked barbies, Warrior Joes, & Other Forms of Visible Gender***, author Jeannie Thomas notes in the Barbie/Ken pairing, Barbie is the one who has the more defined identity and Ken is merely her “accessory.” This brings to mind the Barbie movie where we gain more insight into what Ken’s job is (besides beach).
(SPOILERS FOR BARBIE MOVIE IM SORRY)
In the movie, Ken’s confusing role is clearly seen where he always assists Barbie with everything she needs in the beginning and sticks by her side no matter what. That is until night falls and Barbie is preparing her girl’s night and Ken is not invited.
Feeling hurt and pushed aside, Ken travels to the real world to discover what he can truly be as demonstrated through the popular Ryan Gosling song and lyric “I’m just Ken, anywhere else I’d be a ten,” which implies how he feels overshadowed by Barbie and if he lived under different situations, Ken would feel more independent and noticed. Though in the real world, what he unfortunately finds is Mojo Dojo Casa House and patriarchy.
Mojo Dojo Casa House Ken provides a more traditional look at what patriarchy thinks boys and men should be, which reinforces very masculine traits and hobbies, such as watching football, horses and cowboys, and beer parties while often excluding girls. This not only shapes boys’ understanding of what masculinity should be but also perpetuates the gender stereotype for girls. Ken’s influence extends beyond his companionship with Barbie as he is just a man that wants to be seen, heard, and respected. This parallel can be compared to kids who wish to play with various toys without gender-based expectations and constraints. It is vital for parents to recognize and support the diversity in play as well, with the hope that it will contribute to positive changes in social norms.
With all this, Barbie remains a much beloved and iconic toy, constantly being improved and significant to pop culture, which will be passed down for generations to come.
(Allan appreciation)
*https://cfshrc.org/article/men-who-love-bukowski/
**https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/think-pink-barbie-unrealistic-body-expectations-in-2023
***https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A159182573&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=3105066c
As a child, my sister and I were allowed to play with both “girl” and “boy” toys, and we would combine these toys in our play. For instance, we had our Barbies ride a huge robot dinosaur and exist alongside Transformers. Still, I always felt a sense of shame whenever I mentioned to my peers that I played with “girl” toys, even though those toys were marketed toward girls. This shows how girls are simultaneously taught, via gendered toys, that they are supposed to conform to what is “appropriate” for their gender, but that things that are female coded are somehow inferior to those that are male coded.
I think that the points you made about ‘boy’ toys and ‘girl’ toys being made by companies to sort of enforce certain ideas of gender were really interesting. The discussion of Legos reminded me of my own childhood when I’d often have to fight with male peers who felt entitled to take Legos away from me because they weren’t ‘girl toys.’ I think in this way, both the companies and the children themselves are sort of pushing gender expectations, as the companies make these toys with a certain gender of child in mind and then children feel entitled to those toys because they were ‘made for them.’
This blog post was really well written, engaging, and informative! I got to make a deeper connection and understanding to the class readings. I agree with the points made in this blog post about gender being performative and enforced. The enforcing of gender through children’s toys is a real thing because most of these toys are super gendered. I remember growing up receiving toys that resembled kitchens, cooking supplies, and baby dolls. All things associated with being a ‘traditional’ woman. Kens role in the barbie universe is super interesting to me as well because it is never really established. He is kind of there as Barbies accessory and he does not really have much of a back story to him.