Something non-political. Or maybe just less political. (Or possibly political in an abstracted way, or stealth political.) Whatever. We’ll see what evolves.
Way back in my youth, in a galaxy far far away.
Gender roles supposedly used to be rigid. Boys were boys, girls were girls, and the only time that got mixed up was in ways we weren’t supposed to know about until we were married (or at least of marriageable age, but that’s another matter). I grew up knowing nothing about Drag or gays or any of that, despite what we may have been exposed to in movies (Some Like It Hot, Flip Wilson, what have you). To make sure we all knew who we were supposed to be, playtime was controlled. What we played with and how was a matter of serious tradition. Little boys were cowboys or soldiers, little girls were nurses, teachers, or home makers. I think. The lines were sufficiently established that we (boys) didn’t really know, unless it became the subject of teasing and jokes.
Fairly early on, I remember being annoyed with what the girls were given to do. In movies and tv mainly, but occasionally it came up in real life. Nothing revolutionary, just…discomfort. Why couldn’t the girls be soldiers or cowboys or engineers or doctors or whatever? I didn’t push it much. I pretty much accepted what I was told. But I was never quite satisfied and I found over time that I really liked movies where the girls were put in positions where they had to be More. I think this was due to my identification with the underdog more than any kind of gender awareness.
Anyway, what happened in 4th grade became a teachable moment, even though the lesson didn’t “take” for years. It still makes me smile. It makes my mother smile.
The big toy around then was G.I. Joe. The commercials on Saturday morning were overwhelmed with him. It was so cool!
Now, I had been playing with toy soldiers for years. Mostly, these were the one-or-two inch tall green plastic figures you could get in a bag. There was the prone rifleman, the bazooka guy, the advancing infantryman, Others, I don’t specifically recall now. I must have had about three hundred of these at one time. For a couple of years you could get Germans, which were gray, and Japanese, which were light brown. I recall there were other types—other eras— as well, but I was wholly enamored of World War II, so that’s what I had. I’d lay out my lines on the living room floor, fight my battles, and nary a word was said by mom or dad. Things were as they should be.
Then I wanted a G.I. Joe. And the controversy began.
“Absolutely not,” dad said. “It’s a doll.”
“Huh? It’s a soldier! Look, the uniform, the rifle, the utility belt!”
“It’s a doll.”
I didn’t get it. At least three of my schoolmates had them, and then there was my friend Steve who lived at the end of my block who not only had Joe but the footlocker with almost all the accessories (and there were a lot of them; in retrospect his parents must have spent a small fortune on them). It was a hardship to be without.
Mom apparently talked to dad and he caved. But he had rules. Just the action figure, no accessories, ever, especially no other uniforms. I don’t know if this is still a thing, but G.I. Joe could become a sailor, a marine, an air force pilot, all the varieties of those, by a mere change of uniform. There were field packs, a field radio, a variety of weapons. A whole buffet of soldierly add-ons. For a kid at that time who was into this kind of thing, it was the grail of military toys. (I know, I know, but that was the culture then. The horror of Vietnam was just beginning and we were enamored of John Wayne and the marines and all that storming the beach stuff.) I was bereft. I must tell you, that I was not That Kid who pined away for the latest whatever. I generally just accepted what I got and managed to be content. This was one of the very few times I lobbied for a toy. And I had to be careful, because dad could decide I was being too excited and contrarily refuse because he hated me following trends. (Had I liked the Beatles when they were fresh on the scene, I don’t know what he would have done. But I didn’t, so it was never an issue.)
I didn’t realize how hard the restriction would be. Joe came with a basic fatigue uniform and a campaign hat, not even a helmet, and an M-I Garrand rifle and a plain utility belt with a canteen attached. That was it. My friend Steve eventually gave me a field radio, but all the possibilities available were denied me.
At some point I lost patience. What I began to do….
Mom had taught me how to sew when I joined the Boy Scouts. I wasn’t particularly good at it but good enough. I started raiding her samples box for material and began making clothes for my G.I. Joe.
I recall one evening dad walked into my room and saw me doing that. The look on his face was unreadable. He stared. I waited. The tension in the room was electric.
He said nothing. He left my room and never brought it up. After that he never said a thing about G.I. Joe and dolls or anything related to that. He left it alone. I have no idea what went through his mind, but he realized that anything he might say or do was fraught with the possibility of disaster. He also never denied me accessories for G.I. Joe.
I never acquired a lot of them. They were expensive. And after a couple of years puberty began to set in and Joe was abandoned. I’m not sure how that affected me going forward, but I lost any kind of gender rigidity. Playing with a doll apparently had no real impact on my basic personality. It wouldn’t have been the doll but a poor reaction from my parents that would have had a bad result. But I did abandon any notion that girls should be kept out of any game they wanted to play.
So maybe this story does have some politics in it. Going forward from then I never understood the rigidity certain people insist on in defining boys and girls. And today, with all the debate and discourse going on around “roles” I find myself lacking any patience with those who can’t accept the dissolution of arbitrary boundaries. Especially boundaries that seem “natural” but keep being revealed as arbitrary and remain in play only because we haven’t yet done away with them.
Today, it wouldn’t be the idea of me playing with a doll that would bother me as much as all the war toys that wall-papered my life at the time.
I doubt Mattel intended it as such, but I think G.I. Joe was a subversive toy, one that attacked the rigidity of the boundaries. Despite my protestations at the time, it was a doll, and I could easily see him and Barbie getting together.
Oh my. What’s the world coming to!