Culture

Move Over, Barbie: Mattel Launches Gender-Inclusive Doll Line

Each figure comes in a kit that includes different hairstyles, clothes and accessories.

Move Over, Barbie: Mattel Launches Gender-Inclusive Doll Line
Mattel
SMS

We aren't all Barbie girls living in a Barbie world. And the doll maker knows it. 

Mattel is now offering a line of gender-inclusive dolls called "Creatable World." 

The whole point is for kids to be able to customize their doll. Each figure comes in a kit that includes different hair styles, clothes and accessories. Some options lean more feminine, while others are more masculine. 

The doll kits come in a variety of skin tones, and each costs about $30. In an effort to "create a doll line free of labels," Mattel said it worked directly with doctors, parents and kids to create the gender-inclusive products. 

Barbie first debuted on store shelves in 1959. And over the decades, the blond-haired, blue-eyed doll with an anatomically impossible shape has been accused of promoting unrealistic beauty standards and gender stereotypes.

Mattel's made significant strides in diversifying its doll lineup over the last several years by releasing Barbie dolls with different body types, skin tones and face shapes. It also gave Barbie's longtime boyfriend Ken a makeover, and created a doll with a prosthetic leg and another in a wheelchair