Of Boys and Toys
by Leonard Sax, IFS:
The New York Times recently published an article titled “Dolls That Nurture Boys’ Empathy.” The article described a new line of dolls that combine the features of an action figure and a stuffed animal: The head, arms, and legs are rigid vinyl, but the body is soft and “huggable.” This novel characteristic, along with matching masks for toy and boy, will, according to Laurel Wider—the entrepreneur behind the new toys—nurture boys’ empathy. One might reasonably expect that the author of the NY Times piece would provide some shred of evidence that such dolls do, in fact, nurture boys’ empathy: that boys who play with such toys actually become more empathetic. But no such evidence is provided—because no such evidence exists.
It’s not for lack of trying. The notion that giving dolls to boys will nurture their empathy is at least as old as “William’s Doll,” the song made famous by Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas on their 1972 album Free to Be You and Me. In the song, we are told about five-year-old William, who is an accomplished baseball player (at five years of age!), but who nevertheless tells his father that: “I’d give my bat and ball and glove / to have a doll that I could love . . . / A doll to give a bottle to / and put to bed when day is through.” For nearly 50 years, the mainstream secular Zeitgeist has taught that the tendency of many boys to eschew dolls is a regrettable atavism that enlightened parents must combat tirelessly.
The underlying assumption is that most boys choose to play with lightsabers and trucks rather than with dolls merely because parents, or other social and cultural factors, push them to do so. The Guardians assure us that if our consciousness were sufficiently raised, and the culture sufficiently enlightened, we could do away with these cultural relics and have sons who truly want “A doll to give a bottle to / and put to bed when day is through.”
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