Despite the ways that dolls have historically always been marketed more toward young girls, while action figures (which are just dolls by another name) were marketed to boys, everyone knows that pretty much all kids, regardless of their gender, love playing with what we’d consider a traditional “doll” of the Mattel variety. Even if you’re cutting off their hair, you’re still playing with them.
With that in mind, Mattel’s just released a new line of gender-neutral dolls as part of its Creatable World series that encourage kids to use their imaginations to remix and restyle their dolls as much as they want.
Unlike Mattel’s Barbie and Ken dolls, which have exaggerated physical features coding them as male and female, the Creatable World dolls were designed not to telegraph any obvious gender, and each doll comes with a variety of accessories including a wig so that kids can create the doll’s identity for themselves as they see fit.
Take a look at the video the company put together:
Mattel’s Creatable World dolls hit stores in the U.S. today, but an Australian release has not yet been confirmed.