I wasn’t the typical girl that liked to spend her afternoons playing dress-up with her dolls while I was growing up. Until one day, my mom decided that the perfect thing to spend $100 on was an American Girl Doll.
I thought Barbie was a dumb blonde and Bratz were too stuck up for my taste, but I ended up loving my American Girl Doll. Not only did she come with a book all about her life in the early 1900’s, but she didn’t get mad at me when I got toothpaste in her hair and eventually lost half her wardrobe.
The thing about American Girl Dolls is that for the past 31 years they’ve all been, well, girls (hence the name). But now American Girl is now introducing both genders into the mix because boys exist too. And now we have Logan Everett.
Logan is the first male doll the American Girl Doll company has ever created. He is 18 inches tall, has brown hair and wears graphic t-shirts and jeans. He’s also a drummer in a super cool band.
American Girl released a male doll because customers have been requesting one for decades, but despite that, the reviews about him are mixed. Some people think he’s a cute, a mini hipster. One twitter user claimed Logan “is 100% into craft beer and Mumford and Sons.”
Others weren’t shy to express their anger against the new toy.
A minister in Asheville, North Carolina believes that the new doll is “killing” the minds of boys. He even compared Logan to the devil and said, “There are those in this world who want to alter God’s creation of the male and female. The devil wants to kill, steal and destroy the minds of our children and grandchildren by perverting, distorting and twisting (the) truth of who God created them to be.”
I guess my problem with those against the doll is that for years, there have been other male dolls. Barbie has had her boyfriend Ken since 1961 and the Bratz dolls have introduced a collection of boys over the last 15 years. The fact that Logan is his own person instead of just a girl’s boy toy shouldn’t make it that different. We should be embracing equality, not gender stereotypes.
Besides, just look at him. He’s adorable.