Feminist Toys

Abstract

This chapter examines how the toy industry responded to feminist calls for change through the production of new types of toys and newly imagined toy consumers. While most industry leaders remained unconvinced that consumers were dissatisfied with their products, an influential minority of toymakers capitalized on feminist rhetoric by manufacturing new products: Barbie-inspired dolls with feminist sensibilities, and anatomically correct dolls reflecting the era’s liberal attitudes toward the body. Among these efforts to reach feminist consumers was a remarkable collaboration between one of the industry’s most recognized brands, Milton Bradley Company, and one of the industry’s strongest critics, Barbara Sprung of the Women’s Action Alliance. In the series of nonsexist, multiracial toys they created, the radical toy imagination not only came to life in objects; it also found a home in the industry itself.