“Action figures for girls is sign of gender-bending in toy industry”

Every single time that there’s an outrage over action figures and female characters I sit back and try to explain to people: This isn’t news and it’s not likely to change for a few more decades. It’s not that toymakers don’t want to make action figures for girls — in a perfect world, every child would buy the exact same set of toys and make the toymakers more profitable — but the reality is that the market isn’t quite there yet. Maybe in a few more decades, but for now the economic realities mean that boys and girls shop in separate aisles. There’s some overlap, sure, but the divisions that were there decades ago still exist today.

Here we see a 1992 Knight-Ridder Newspaper article by Neal Rubin where the “action figures for girls!” gets some press time. The story opens with Swans Crossing, and immediately the article loses credibility with me when it calls Playmates’ Swans Crossing toys “the first line of action figures for girls, and one of the first signs of gender-blending in the toy industry.”

No. No, no, no. To call the 1992 Swans Crossing toys “the first line of action figures for girls” completely ignores the existence of Mattel’s She-Ra action figures in 1985, Kenner’s Bionic Woman toys in 1976, and Hasbro’s Jem toys in 1985. Poor reporting at work in the article to completely disregard those earlier toys. And I’m betting I’m missing other action figures for girls (Strawberry Shortcake from Kenner, I still say, was an action figure line).

Anyway, here’s the article if you’re interested in reading it.

Related articles

• August, 1997 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance on Mattel and Hasbro (battlegrip.com)
• Kenner’s 1992 Batman Returns “Batcave” Commercial (battlegrip.com)
• “A Great Playtime” (battlegrip.com)