Episode 38 - Breaking Gender Stereotypes: How One Sports Doll Sparked a Movement for Girls’ Empowerment
By Jessica Garrison
We have such a unique story to share this week with Jodi Bondi Norgaard. Jodi is an advocate, good listener, and a believer in equality, traits that become very clear as you listen to her share her journey.
Jodi says that she has always known she was right about gender equality, but she had an “aha!” moment in the toy store. Products are specifically marketed towards boys and girls. For example, toys for boys are trucks, Legos, and even fake guns. Toys for girls are baby dolls, tea sets, and play kitchens. They reinforce gender stereotypes, teaching children from a young age that there are certain things for certain genders, filing them into the categories society wants them to be in. In Jodi’s case, she saw dolls upon dolls that encouraged girls to wear makeup and skimpy clothes, but Jodi wanted to create a doll that would positively impact girls. With 75 lines of fashion dolls but not a single sports doll, Jodi decided to create one. She even measured her daughter’s friends so she could make a doll that had accurate proportions for a child, rather than the impossible ones we see today. This wasn’t just something Jodi slapped together, but rather a doll that she put her mind and heart into.
Her dolls were even sold at the U.S. Open. They bought 500 dolls from Jodie and sold every single one in less than a week. This just goes to show how much of a demand there is for this type of doll, solidifying for Jodi that this was the right choice for her. She had an idea fueled by passion and turned it into reality. And it wasn’t about making the girls pick the sports doll or pick the fashion doll, but rather about allowing them to have the choice of what they want, rather than stifling them by putting them into a box.
Jodi says she’s surrounded by smart, strong women who have no idea of their true power. They have low self-esteem, with strengths that women have as children becoming weaknesses as we become adults. It starts at a young age that girls begin to doubt themselves, thinking they’re not as good as boys or they aren’t as pretty as the other girls. However, Jodi is supporting women in living unapologetically by uplifting them with her words and her actions. Creating the sports doll was just the beginning of her journey, showing her a world of possibilities in the world of advocacy. She created her book, More Than a Doll, detailing “how creating a sports doll turned into a fight to end gender stereotypes” because her story is so much more than a doll.
Fighting the good fight can be exhausting, especially when you take hit after hit. But there’s one last thing I want to leave from Jodi to remember when you’re feeling this way, and that is “it’s okay to rest—it’s not okay to give up.” Rest and refuel, but never forget the reason why you started fighting in the first place.
Ways to Engage: When you’re out shopping, take notice of products that are specifically marketed towards men or women. What about them perpetuates stereotypes for the targeted gender? Keep mental notes of this so you are conscious of marketing strategies or stereotypes that businesses work to keep. The more aware of it we are, the better decisions we can make.