Plaything: Women and their Dolls

Plaything: Women and their Dolls attempts to show the various ways in which women manipulate the idea of a doll and its purposes. Dolls have been an engrained portion of females' upbringing for millenniums, with the earliest known doll dating back to 3000 BC. Dolls have been used for many different purposes over the years, from serving as a fertility charm to modelling high fashion, however the one commonality between them is their application as a surrogate to the owner. Always displaying the feminine ideal through highlighting the importance of devoted motherhood (as seen with baby dolls) or physical perfection (as seen with fashion dolls), dolls allow one to experience being the 'immaculate woman' through fantasy. Not only do they install a sense of what a woman “should be” at an early age, they also depict females as literal objects with no duties outside of raising children and looking good. Plaything: Women and their Dolls is a collective view of the use of dolls throughout art and culture, shedding light on the importance of, and problems with, every girl's favourite toy.