Bye Bye Barbie: Girls Ditch Dolls For Technology
Posted by Amber Robinson at 1:21 PM on April 15, 2009
Did you know it’s not cool to play with dolls anymore?
A new survey of 2500 Australians has found that while the mothers of today’s children stopped playing with dolls between the ages of 10 and 11, their daughters were discarding dolls at an average age of six or seven.
Researcher Mark McCrindle told the SMH,
“These kids are ‘up-ageing’, they’re moving into a technological world much earlier and it’s partly coming from their peers … but it’s also partly coming from parents who are pushing their children towards more structured educational toys.”
Even more ’sophisticated’ (some would say slutty) dolls like Bratz have failed to stop younger girls from ditching the dolls by age 7.
So how do we interpret this?
Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, a conservative commentator, said the up-ageing syndrome, fuelled by the premature sexualisation of children, has resulted in a generation of young girls deeply dissatisfied with their age, no matter how old they are.
“You take your average six- or seven-year-old girl and they’re into High School Musical – they want to be 10 or 12. The 12-year-olds are trying to be 16 and the 16-year-olds think they are 21. There’s not many girls out there who are happy with their age any more. There’s widespread dissatisfaction at being a child.”
But maybe there is also an element of girls rejected typical gendered toys in favour of unisex toys like gaming consoles and outdoor play equipment. As Jeanne’s post on toyboys this morning illustrated, girls don’t need to be labelled as tomboys anymore as they are just doing what they want, without being conscious of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ play.
Perhaps the end of the doll era is not such a bad thing after all?
Have to beg to differ on some points even if survey results. Sure girls are doing what they want and into technology but we are getting ever increasing emails and feedback from girls who are in the older age group 8-12 and even 13 and loving dolls again. There is a movement happening, in case you hadn’t noticed, of parents, who want and are encouraging their daughters to be kids when they are kids. At last parents are rebelling against popular culture, and blatant sexualised marketing. Girls are loving having the freedom to have dolls when they are older (some boys too). The style of doll could be impacting as well. They are certainly big in the US for the 8-12 age group. As well we are hearing about what seems like a subculture of people who have imported into Australia age appropriate dolls through the internet for years.