American Girl Exploits Adolescent Awkwardness To Suggest Being A Girl Isn’t Good Enough
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American Girl dolls and books are peak female millennial nostalgia.
As a little girl, I remember pining for my own Kirsten doll, complete with her signature looped Swedish braids, but at $80 a pop, I had to settle for playing with a friend’s. At the time, the dolls were outside my parent’s budget, and now, at more than $100 a piece, they are outside my budget as a mom. But such was the hold these dolls had upon me and my friends that it was no surprise to me when the American Girl company re-released the since-discontinued dolls a few years ago and that millennial women (moms or not) flocked to buy them. I watched with amusement and a bit of desire to buy my daughters the same dolls I wanted as a little girl.
But that was then, and this is now. The beloved brand from my youth is no longer the feminine-affirming, wholesome company I once held in my nostalgic millennial heart. With the company’s latest book release, “A Smart Girl’s Guide: Body Image,” American Girl has proven it is no longer dedicated to celebrating the innocence and beauty of girlhood but is yet another force in our culture hell-bent on destroying it.
How It Started: Lively Depictions of Girlhood
Even if the American Girl dolls were out of reach for me as a little girl, the books were not. Like many other girls my age, I devoured those staples of book fairs and elementary school libraries of the ’90s and early aughts. From Kirsten to Addy, to Felicity, Samantha, and Molly, I relished the stories of these girls — all of whom came from different time periods and cultural backgrounds, but each of whom was undeniably, emphatically two wonderful things: American and a girl.
As I grew older, American Girl grew with me. When I outgrew the historical stories and moved on to middle school, their popular guide to puberty, “The Care and Keeping of You,” became another staple on my and my friends’ bookshelves. It was a wholesome, age-appropriate account of the ways my body would change as it blossomed into womanhood and hygienic tips for how to care for it.
My sister likewise remembers it affirming how wonderfully made we are. Like the other American Girl products of that era, it affirmed the goodness of being a girl, while honestly portraying its unique challenges. It would have been anathema to the brand at the time to suggest that being a girl was anything but a natural, beautiful thing to be celebrated, and it was because of this well-deserved reputation that the company was beloved by girls and their parents alike (and why so many were willing to shell out a pretty penny for those dang dolls).
Now: Maybe Being a Girl Isn’t Good Enough
Today’s American Girl series of “Smart Girl Guides,” which includes guides on “Race & Inclusion” (complete with discussions on white privilege and systemic racism) and “Crushes” (complete with
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