It’s possible that dolls were a feminist issue even in Seventies India, but if there was intense discussion among the mothers of the day about the perils of gender stereotyping, we didn’t hear about it.
Dolls came in two distinctly pre-Barbie varieties: desi and phoren. The desi ones ranged from wooden puppets to squishy plastic blondes. The phoren dolls came in beautiful packing, wore wedding gowns or Ascot outfits, and were promptly locked up in a display cabinet, to be shown off to visitors.
Today, the doll market is a lot more complex. For many youngsters, even in India, play is what you do in front of a computer, and games come in all varieties: some are interactive, some role-playing, some suitably knowledge-based, some teach social engineering and some, of course, are the blood-and-gore games of stereotype.
Doll manufacturers have to compete against this. Some, like Fisher-Price, Hasbro and Playmates, are trying to create more interactive dolls that will “remember” a child’s name and favourite foods. These microchip-enhanced variants will get more sophisticated, but it’s unclear whether parents will pay the fairly high premium involved.
Barbie is emerging in strange avatars. The New York Times reports on the doll that’s replaced Barbie in Middle Eastern markets ? Fulla, who’s been dubbed “Barbie-in-a-burkha”. Fulla has Barbie’s proportions, but is darker, and while she has Barbie’s endless (and expensive, as parents know) wardrobe, what she’s usually seen in is her modest “outdoors fashion” garments ? either the burkha or the abaya.
As for the original Barbie, Mattel has remained silent on the Czech innovators who have introduced a way to modify your doll so that she becomes a “Menstruating Barbie” (drill a hole in the plastic lady, fill up with Campari, and there you are). Nor have they responded to the suggestion that they introduce a Waxing Barbie, who has hair growing on her legs and arms that can be removed or encouraged to flourish at will.
Elsewhere, the doll market is targeting adults.
Voodoo dolls did very well in Europe and are now something of a craze in parts of Asia; in the US, roughly crafted dolls with a “handmade” look are being sold as Valentine’s novelties; and the vogue for the Lalu Prasad doll in India seems to have abated, but we can always hope that a Shah Rukh doll (with a bathtub accessory) is in the pipeline.
But my favourite doll at present is Tsunamika. The Tsunamika dolls, which might be hairclips, bookmarks or just dolls, are made of scraps of fabric and waste paper by fisherwomen from seven villages who were affected by the tsunami. They are given freely to whoever wants them; you’re welcome to donate what you like.
The project, which began in Auroville, sees Tsunamika as more than a doll or an object; she’s a symbol of empowerment, a message of hope for women who are rebuilding their lives and acquiring self-respect in the process. Unlike Fulla or the microchip dolls, or even Barbie herself, Tsunamika isn’t made for a “target market”: she’s everyone’s doll.
