{"id":7926,"date":"2015-03-13T14:53:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T19:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=7926"},"modified":"2015-03-13T16:47:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:47:29","slug":"new-dolls-inspired-by-boys-break-gender-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2015\/03\/13\/new-dolls-inspired-by-boys-break-gender-barriers\/","title":{"rendered":"New Dolls Inspired by Boys Break Gender Barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Girl w\/ Pen is excited to present this guest post from Laurel Wider, a psychotherapist with a speciality in gender, relationships and identity.\u00a0 She’s also a mom and Founder of Wonder Crew, a new line of toys that brings connection and kindness into boys’ play. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

Play is how children learn, which means toys have the power to create change.\u00a0<\/strong>As I began to pay more attention to toys marketed to boys, it occurred to me that so many of them emphasized muscles and aggression and NONE offered a play experience that encouraged connection or even friendship.\u00a0 Thrilled by the surge of toys that encourage \u00a0STEM<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0positive body images\u00a0<\/a>for girls, I want to help expand the way boys see themselves and the world around them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a mom, psychotherapist and now founder of Wonder Crew, a line of dolls that bring connection and feelings into boys\u2019 play.\u00a0 In my therapy practice, I\u2019ve worked with several boys and men who have painfully grappled with impossible stereotypes of masculinity. Boys are raised to prioritize toughness and self-reliance \u2013 in my work with clients I\u2019ve seen this lead to isolation, depression and sometimes aggression.<\/p>\n

And then about a year ago, my son came home from preschool with the idea that \u201cboys aren\u2019t supposed to cry.\u201d\u00a0 I was floored that my own son had gotten a hold of this message. These stereotypes impact and harm everyone.\u00a0 This is how I ended up a toy inventor.<\/p>\n

\"questionphoto\"<\/a>Change is generally something that happens gradually. With this in mind, I thought long and hard about how to create a \u201chybrid\u201d toy, one that still resembled familiar play scenarios for boys, but also offered the opportunity to connect and nurture.\u00a0 So I came up with action figure meets favorite stuffed animal.\u00a0 This morphed into Wonder Crew:\u00a0 a line of Crewmates (aka dolls) that come with a matching piece of adventure gear (dress-up) plus mini open-ended comic book.\u00a0 The formula:\u00a0 Child + Crewmate = Wonder Crew.<\/p>\n

Right now we have one Crewmate, his name is Will and he comes in three adventures with a fourth in the \"4_crewmates<\/a>pipeline:\u00a0 Superhero, Rockstar, Builder and Chef.\u00a0 These adventures were based on interviews with over 150 parents, educators and kids that spoke to me about play that they\u2019ve observed\/ kids\u2019 favorite play scenarios.<\/p>\n

At first I thought that these adventures were too stereotypical, but I\u2019ve come to realize that it\u2019s important to show that nurturing fits in with all kinds of play, even the kind that\u2019s stereotypically masculine.\u00a0 And really the big picture idea is that\u00a0anyone<\/i>\u00a0can be a connected, empathetic, nurturing person.<\/p>\n

\"group2bestfavorites_webready-43\"<\/a>Wonder Crew is all about friendship and adventure and clearly this is not just a boy thing!\u00a0 I plan to incorporate a girl Crewmate, while keeping with the same adventures. This would have been my preferred doll growing up.<\/p>\n

While inspired by boys, Wonder Crew will be an interest-based brand, not gender based.\u00a0 And the plan is for Crewmates to represent all kids (race, gender, ability).<\/p>\n

Wonder Crew\u2019s\u00a0Kickstarter\u00a0<\/a>launched last week. We\u2019re already over 40% funded, but we\u2019ve got a ways to go. \"IMG_5037\"<\/a>Please check it out and help spread the word!\u00a0 It\u2019s our goal to not only fund first production, but also to show public interest.\u00a0 A large toy company told me that dolls for boys will never work;<\/a>\u00a0help Wonder Crew enlighten them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Girl w\/ Pen is excited to present this guest post from Laurel Wider, a psychotherapist with a speciality in gender, relationships and identity.\u00a0 She’s also a mom and Founder of Wonder Crew, a new line of toys that brings connection and kindness into boys’ play. \u00a0\u00a0 Play is how children learn, which means toys have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21121],"tags":[2397,35,8959,1976,4374,19525,305,31119,100],"class_list":["post-7926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-ink","tag-boys","tag-children","tag-families","tag-masculinity","tag-parenting","tag-stem","tag-toys","tag-wonder-crew","tag-youth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7932,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7926\/revisions\/7932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}