September 21, 2016 - 15:54
As a young child I loved to play with dolls, I even started to collect them. But one thing that I realize now is that I hadn't before is that none of my dolls actually looked like me. They were tall, blonde, busty, and blue eyed; everything that I was not and am not right now. But I remember growing up thinking that they were so beautiful and that I was waiting to look like my dolls when I grew older. As I grew older I didn't magically start to look like my dolls, which caused me to feel uncomfortable in my skin. Playing with dolls that didn't look like me effected the way I saw myself and had put myself down unintentionally. At the age of 9 I believe I got my first American Girl doll that was supposed to be a doll that looked like you, but none of the hundreds of dolls I had to choose from looked like me. They didn't even have curly hair. As a young girl I had dirty blonde hair so I had to settle for the doll with straight dirty blonde hair and green eyes. It seemed as a young girl I could see that society viewed me as inferior because there were no dolls that looked like me.