Remember Kenya Dolls?

I had to go to my friend google because I was beginning to think I made this up.  Does anyone remember Kenya dolls?  I was little when they were out but from what I remember they came in a few different skin tones and hair textures.  I want to say that some (or all?) of them came with a perm.  I was young but I remember thinking the dolls were ridiculous because the perm.

But were these dolls a good thing?  I mean at least they tried to represent little black girls.

All of this was brought up because I was reading through naturallycurly.com and they had an article about a line of black barbie dolls.  I feel pretty neutral about Barbies anyway.  I'm not going to encourage my daughter to have one but the day will probably come when she wants and gets one.

I'm not going to stress about it though.  I will just be consciously doing my best to raise my children to respect and honor their individuality because the world around them may not.

I noticed right away that toys are created with messages about gender roles wrapped all around them.  Starting from toddler age, toys targeted to girls are clearly about being pretty, fashionable, and domestic.  For little girls of color the issue of what is pretty goes a little deeper, especially if the image of beauty never reflects what you look like.


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