What’s wrong with pink and princesses, you ask us? Well nothing, really. But what does bother us here at Her Campus is that nothing much else is offered. Subject to mass gender stereotyping, it doesn’t take much to walk into a toy shop or clothes shop and see that, when it comes to girls, pink and sparkles are all that’s important.
But that hasn’t stopped Marina Bychkova from deciding that her dolls are in fact, just the right platform from which to discuss social injustice. With sensual lips and soulful eyes, Bychkova makes dolls that represent different social issues affecting women’s rights. Ranging from issues such as domestic abuse, pregnancy, stockholm syndrome and many more, Bychkova uses her dolls to introduce her audience to taboo-confronting topics. Called her “enchanted dolls,” Bychkova explains that her dolls are used to juxtapose the “ugly realities of life.”
(Photo Credit: www.beautifulbizarre.net)
But that’s the problem, These dolls still have sensual lips and soulful eyes. They’re still promoting an incredibly narrow view of beauty, when they’re supposed to be representing the “uglier” side of life. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that the concept behind these dolls is faultless. We live in a world where 1 in 4 women are affected by domestic abuse. That means it could be that girl sitting next to you in class, in the library, crossing you in the street, and potentially your own daughter. So it seems vital that we’re discussing these issues in any way we can. Education is key after all.
But these enchanted dolls are normally done in nudes with slender legs, tiny waists with big, emotional eyes. Reading some of the facebook comments about these dolls just shows that they’re causing controversy. With women demanding to know where the “fat” dolls are, or why most of the dolls are white or passing white, it shows that we’re still caught in a world that has a very particular type of pretty.
(Photo Credit: www.beautifulbizarre.net)
And it’s not just that. Watching the video about these “enchanted dolls,” I actually became uncomfortable. Can we really only discuss these issues so long as the girl in question is stunning? Can we only sympathise with Bychkova’s dolls so long as they’re beautiful in their tragedy, only communicating their anguish through their bodies?
It comes down to that age old question that has been plaguing women for hundreds of years. Why are women eroticised in their grief? If you look through literature, art and history it’s not hard to find evidence of this. From Shakespeare’s Ophelia to 40s starlet’s swooning and pining, it’s not something that we haven’t seen before.
So is Bychkova eroticising inequality with her dolls? I am unable to answer this question and I do not want to detract away from the fact that it is so important that these issues are given the platform they need. But I can’t help thinking, with each doll taking over 500 hours to make, surely that time could be spent helping out at women’s shelters?