More generally, there aren’t more “dolls” for boys because there aren’t many boys asking for dolls. The toy companies are probably among the most profit-driven of any industry. If there’s a buck to be had, they’ll do whatever they have to to get it. If there were money to be made producing traditional dolls for boys, they’d already be on the shelves. Boys just don’t play with dolls the way girls do.
For a boy, the vast majority of the time, a doll is a way for him to tell a story; it’s a prop or a representation of a character. To a girl, the doll is more often the subject of play; she interacts with the doll directly, as though it were a playmate or sibling.
Sure, girls still engage in storytelling using dolls and other toys, but the story serves as the framework for interaction with the toy, rather than the toy serving as a vehicle for conveying the action of the story.
While anecdotal, I see this with my daughter. She has several dolls of various kinds, including some Star Wars figures, stuffed toys, Barbies etc. In her play, the dolls mainly interact socially, and she is an active character in the story. When I was a kid, I also had Star Wars figures, but for me, the figures were there to act out some adventure, and I never inserted myself as a character that could interact directly with the figures.
Somewhere out there, there’s an article that expands on this, where girls given a toy (sometimes not even an anthropomorphic one) will treat it as a character she can interact with, such as making a “bed” for a dump truck. While a boy in the same experiment might turn an obviously-anthropomorphic toy into a tool or other object, such as pretending a Barbie doll is a gun.
That is a great observation you made.
I have a 5 year old daughter, and will monitor for that behavior.
I have Legos. I love them. I try to get my daughter interested. Turns out the Legos merely provide the back drop to the drama she creates.
It’s all interpersonal stuff with her.
When I was a young mother with 2 little boys close in age and #3 of 4 on the way, I decided one Christmas that I just had to have under the tree on Christmas morning a beautiful baby doll that I spotted in the store. I reasoned that perhaps the boys would want to interact with it. After all, they had teddy bears that they slept with, and they would probably be fathers one day....
I learned my lesson pretty quickly, as it was not long before a now nude baby doll became a missile of some sort. Certainly hope that poor doll found a good home with whoever subsequently bought her from the Good Will Store.
Now, that I am a grandmother to 4 boys, I understand little boys so much better. My 4 boys taught me a lot over the years.