Victoria Naudi has only been blogging as Victoriananana since February and she’s been nominated for a BiB and reached the shortlist too. Here she sticks up for plastic Barbie and says let children enjoy playing with ALL toys.
When I was a child, I was not particularly girly and not particularly tomboy-ish. I was (dare I say it) average. I played with Barbies and I played with cars. I had tea parties with teddies and I made mud pies with worms. Playing with my pink spotty tea set did not ruin my love of playing in the mud, and playing football with the boys on my street did not mean I threw Barbie in the bin.
In fact – I adored Barbie. I had eight? Ten? Loads anyway. (My favourite was Peaches and Cream Barbie, who came with a beautiful sparkly tulle ballgown.) I’m not sure what happened to them; I guess I got too big to play with them anymore so they were passed on to my sister or put in the attic. They were certainly not disposed of by my mother in a feminist ball of rage at what a vile role model she was to young children. Yet … this ball of rage is sort of what happens to me now when I think of my daughter playing with my formerly beloved Barbie dolls.
I’ve always been careful not to push my daughter in any direction with her toys. Most baby toys are fairly genderless anyway and as she grows, she seems to like her play kitchen, her Duplo and her go-cart equally. So, why exactly am I so strongly against her having a Barbie doll, or a Disney Princess dress?
In my efforts to make sure my daughter has all the options available to her, in both her toys and in life in general, am I actually making things worse by refusing to buy her the toys that bought me hours of fun? As an adult I not madly keen on Barbie’s rather unrealistic figure and I don’t really like the ‘feeble heroine’ theme of many Disney films, but really, my problem is not with the toys themselves, but with the way in which they are marketed and sold.
Who has the right to decide that dolls are for girls and cars are for boys? Not me, not toy manufacturers and certainly not Boots, Tesco’s or Mothercare. It’s taken me two years to admit it, but if my little girl wants to dress head to toe in pink sparkles every day whilst playing with Barbie and Cinderella then I really don’t care. And if she wants to wear jeans and dinosaur t-shirts and play with so-called ‘boys toys’ then I don’t care about that either as – shock horror – it’s about playtime being fun, whatever that means for her.
Now I think about it, I feel a bit sorry for Barbie as well. It isn’t her fault that she’s being marketed to within an inch of her tiny plastic life as a tottering, shopaholic stereotype of womanhood! Strip away her inappropriately short dresses and OTT accessories, and she’s just another doll. Albeit one with massive jubblies.
Victoria Naudi has only been blogging as Victoriananana since February but has had dodgy Live Journal accounts and scribbly paper diaries for years before! She is married with one little girl – an awesome and, ah, spirited two year old. As well as writing about how much fun/how incredibly exhausting parenting can be, she occasionally remembers that she is also a person in her own right who likes things like cooking, drinking wine, books, theatre and Hugh Jackman.
As her mum doesn’t know she has a blog, Victoria is even more astonished to have been nominated for the Fresh Voice award amongst some of her favourite bloggers, and wants to say a massive thank you to whoever nominated her! If you still think she’s great, then Victoria would love your vote to help her through to the next stage as well!
As well as spending time waffling away on her blog, you can also find Victoria on Twitter and Instagram as @victorianaudi.
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In defence of pink. | victoriananana
Tuesday 23rd of July 2013
[...] already written about gender and toys on Britmums, and then an extension of that post on here, but apparently, my initial foray into that minefield [...]
pink or blue or pink or blue or pink or aargh…. | victoriananana
Monday 20th of May 2013
[...] to say on the matter. I managed to trim it down to a less ramble-y/ranty size and it’s over here if you would like to read it. Even after it was edited and published though, I still [...]
Helen
Friday 10th of May 2013
Yay! I love this blog! Thank goodness it's in the shortlist - vastly well deserved. And yet another good post. I had all the right-on attitudes when I had my first child, and they were quickly swept aside by reality - and rightly so. I was a Sindy fanatic (showing my age) but I've never been a woman keen to market her body and hair to get where she wants - I worked for it, bloody hard, and I still do. Oh, and I played with my brother's cars too!
Victoria
Friday 10th of May 2013
Aw, thank you. you're very sweet! I loved Sindy too - I had Rock Star Sindy complete with gold lame suit and glittery hair - I wanted to be her so much!
Hones Mum
Friday 10th of May 2013
What a fabulous post-equality for all dolls. Feminist that I am, I adored Barbie as much as sylvanian families & my mum bought me array of varied ethnic origin dolls too. Congrats on well deserved nomination. Great to have found you recently x
victoriananana
Wednesday 15th of May 2013
Oh thank you! Sorry for tardy reply, I only just saw this comment (thought I had set up notifications but I'm not the techy best!).
Thanks again and very glad to have found you too :)