When Dr Bella d’Abrera from The Institute Of Public Affairs sat down for a Sky News panel this week, none of us could have imagined she’d drop such a non-major bombshell that completely misses the point about the toys our kids are probably not even playing with.
Mrs Potato Head – yes, the spud with a smile for miles – is apparently the new left-feminist role model for all the young girls out there.
The honour was apparently bestowed upon Mrs Potato Head for the simple fact that according to Dr. d’Abrera, she’s “not Barbie, she’s not slim and gorgeous”.
.@TheIPA's Dr Bella d'Abrera: Mrs Potato Head is the new role model for girls under five because she's not Barbie. A vegetable is now preferable to a human.
MORE: https://t.co/ykweMevBOK #outsiders pic.twitter.com/biKq8CQXMf
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) June 25, 2018
Over the years we’ve had more conversations about Barbie’s place in the lives of young girls than most of us can remember, but Mrs Potato Head is a new one.
Sure, she holds a place in our Toy Story obsessed hearts, but role model? Really? I mean, it doesn’t even make sense, unless you actually think feminists just hate all hot blondes.
Sigh.
According to the Toys City Australian website (which sells a number of items from the Potato Head line) the new Mrs Potato Head has “more holes than she used to and more facial features.”
She also embodies a “slimmer, sassier look”.
I guess that original potato body was just too chunky. Not Barbie-like enough, maybe?
Besides her rounded physique, Mrs Potato Head also comes with parts.
So. Many. Parts.
We’ve got eyes, we’ve got a nose, mouth, purse, hairdo, tongue, two arms, two ears, and one pair of legs with shoes.
Yes, she has indeed sprouted actual legs.
Mrs Potato Head only has one tangible item that isn’t an body part. Yes, her purse. Not a backpack or a shoulder bag – a purse.
Maybe Hasbro should throw in a teeny tiny white hanky that she can tearfully wave at Mr Potato Head when she farewells him every morning as he goes to work and she’s left at home to clean and cook?
And if Mrs Potato Head was really a role model and feminist hero – wouldn’t she be Ms Potato Head?
In a separate article on the subject written by Dr. d’Abrera earlier this month, she dives further into the findings drawn from a 2016 study by The Australian National University, which centred on a review of the development of gender roles, bias and stereotypes in kids under the age of five.
This is the same study that caused Sunrise to completely invent a “school library gender ban” because it suggested rigid gender categorisation wasn’t actually the healthiest thing for young kids.
This study revealed a number of insights, including the bit d’Abrera seemed pretty fixated on:
The girls who played with Barbie apparently thought that there were fewer career options open to them than those who played with Mrs Potato Head. A tall, leggy blonde versus a middle-aged, heavy-set vegetable with protruding ears and entirely devoid of a lower half except for a pair of oversized red feet? This is hardly a fair contest.
Is this because Mrs Potato Head is what she thinks feminism looks like, or what she assumes feminists idolise? A dumpy, middle-aged woman?
Maybe she sees Barbie as a symbol for the way all those ugly feminists totally hate conventionally attractive women?
Mrs Potato Head is clearly not the right “role model” for girls under the age of five – they deserve more than a potato whose biggest achievement in the last 30 years was growing a pair of legs.
While Barbie has her issues, at least Mattel have been doing their best to make the dolls more inclusive and diverse when it comes to size and race.
But this insane idea that the only two options for girls’ toys are an anthropomorphised root vegetable or a hyper-feminised doll is something that exists in the weird brains of Sky News panellists.
It’s the same freakout that happens whenever anyone suggest that maybe kids’ toys and books and activities don’t need to be separated into gendered categories in the first place. Nobody’s banning Barbies or Thomas The Tank Engine, or the very concept of gender – they’re just saying that maybe we should give kids room to imagine more for themselves when they’re playing.
But hey, it’s much easier to manufacture outrage at the Mean Fun-Hating Feminist Agenda if you lump women into two categories: the ones who are hot and chill, and the ones who are bitter, dumpy and want to take away your toys.