Feminists in the Nursery

October 19, 2005

Not since James Dobson fingered Sponge Bob Squarepants for promoting the "homosexual agenda" to preschoolers has there been such a sneak attack of liberal depravity in the nursery. Recently the Reverend Donald Wildmon called for a boycott of American Girl dolls, telling conservatives who buy the historical dolls (widely admired as an educational and wholesome alternative to Barbie) that they are inadvertently supporting abortion and lesbianism.

Katie bar the door!

Unlike the Teletubbies, whose subtle demonic agenda could supposedly be detected in the purple, purse-carrying person of Tinkie Winkie, according to some evangelicals, the American Girl dolls are themselves inoffensive. (There's no lesbian abortionist doll.) It's the programs that help real girls that have the rightwingers riled.

It turns out the American Girl company donates money to a group called Girls Inc., and, more specifically, a campaign called "I Can," which helps build girls' skills in math and science, develops leadership, and encourages athletics. Girls Inc. is more than 140 years old, and has served millions of mostly low-income girls, giving out $1.8 million in college scholarships and teaching life skills to girls through a variety of programs in centers around the country. The group has a web site ---www.girlsinc.org--that lists advocacy positions in favor of Title IX, Roe v. Wade, access to birth control, and a respectful, supportive environment for girls sorting out their feelings about their sexual orientation.

That's the problem, according to Wildmon's group, the American Family Association, as well as the Pro-life Action League, which is threatening to picket American Girl stores in New York and Chicago.

"Parents need to know that this effort to promote self-esteem among girls is not as innocent as it seems," Pro-Life Action League's executive director, Ann Scheidler, told The New York Times.

But actually the conservatives who promote boycotts of products like American Girl dolls and venerable organizations like Girls Inc (formerly Girls Clubs of America) do themselves a disservice. It is not commercialism or violence or even raciness they are against, but rather the growing consensus in our culture that girls ought to be free of the repressive view of themselves as pretty objects, and ought to see themselves as strong, healthy, smart, autonomous people. It's not just American Girl the Wildmons of the world don't like. It's American girls in general.