Pregnant Midge

Once upon a time in the early 2000s, the great doll company Mattel, invented a doll who was pregnant. She was a long time friend of Barbie's named Midge.
For those of you who might be in the dark, it's not unusual for doll designers (think Mel Odom, Robert Tonner and others) to design a doll, get a prototype made, and then begin to market this doll to collectors.
Part of the marketing/sales pitch is to invent the doll's character. Give her a name, give her a job, say where she's from etc.

Now Midge had been invented a long time ago by Mattel, as Barbie's friend. Midge was not directed towards collectors, but towards children. Why they chose such a horrible name I don't know, except I think they were making sure Barbie remained the star. Midge was even quite plain, way back when she became Barbie's friend. Must keep the competition down you know. We just couldn't have Midge being prettier than Barbie.

But I digress.
Anyway, in the early 2000s, Midge surfaced again. Still Barbie's friend, but now much prettier and sporting a wedding ring. Permanently on her finger, this wedding ring. But there was something else. I personally think it was genius on Mattel's part. Midge was pregnant! Yes indeed, she sported a magnetic belly, inside of which were twin babies. Her sales box featured a cardboard Ken lurking in the background, and apparently some other goodies...I don't know what, never having seen a complete package.

See....some women (or maybe jealous men) were outraged. They felt that girls would rush out and try to get pregnant or some other awful thing. I wonder if this was the same group who hated the original Barbie body, feeling that it was not at all along the lines of a normal woman's body (it's not), and that as a result of this, young girls were growing up traumatized and possessed of low self esteem due to feeling that their bodies didn't measure up to Barbie's.

Ever watched little girls play with Barbies? Because that is mostly who does play with them, little girls. And that's what they do, they play. I don't think they ever compare their childish torsos with toy dolls that are built like soldiers.

No, those crazy kids, they probably just played with the dolls.

One of the operative words here is "play." Play with Barbie dolls. Fantasize with Barbie dolls. Dress them up, have them doing different jobs, cooking, swimming, whatever little fantasy you're acting on. It's a doll, people, something to play with. Let children be children. They haven't been embued with the adult experience of the world, which at least in this case, seems to be flawed and paranoid.

Ah, but in the instance of pregnant Midge, somehow at least part (a very vocal part) of society rebelled. Midge was married and pregnant, something that happens, more or less in that order, at some point, in all women's lives. But oh no...the powers that be, obviously those who still had low self esteem from growing up not looking like soldier Barbies, took offence to this.

What did they envision? Hoards of little girls running around trying to get pregnant? Why would they see a pregnant doll as such a bad thing? After all, girls have been playing with baby dolls for years, and I don't believe this has spurred them on to make real babies. Wouldn't playing with a pregnant doll, one who in fact has a removeable tummy, be sort of a natural thing? I mean, it's not like the doll was a Crack Ho Midge.

But Midge was taken off the market.

Now I own a Midge doll, and her story has just begun. Stay tuned.