Canadian Mom Creates Diverse Doll Line Herstory For Children Of Colour
This Canadian mother of five is empowering girls to be themselves with a toy that is sure to be treasured by girls around the world. When it comes to raising kids, it's no secret that when they have toys that either looks like them or their peers, it helps them to thrive. The only problem is that there are not enough diverse dolls to be found. And even though there have been companies like Mattel who've manufactured toys from different races, and recently, different body types, it can still be a challenge to find dolls with natural hair, hijabs, braids, or even dolls with freckles. But that's where Queen Cee, the creator of the Herstory doll line comes in.
Queen, is a mother who lives in Hamilton, Ontario decided to create a custom collection of dolls after having difficulty finding dolls of color in Canada that resembled her daughter. Her daughter was about five at the time, and she wanted to make sure that they could have conversations about diversity and culture. This is essentially what led her to customize dolls because there wasn't a lot of diversity when it came to the toys she was looking for. Queen believes that a girl should be able to have a doll and create the character that she wants and that's what her story is, and rightly so. Queen, who also works as a community activist and singer, strongly believes that these dolls represent a niche that is worth catering to. She also thinks that diversity is much more complex than offering one generic doll of every race. Being in Canada, regardless if someone is biracial or racially mixed, you can't tell by the color of someone's skin tone where they are from. Queen says that if you have a black doll, you automatically assume they are either from somewhere in Africa, or they are African-American. But what about the African-Canadians, or someone from Germany the U.K., the Netherlands or Brazil?
People are from around the world. And a girl should be able to have a doll and create the character that she wants, and that's what her story is. To that, Queen plans to produce dolls with a variety of skin tones and hair textures to help represent a wide range of backgrounds for children of African descent. Having this type of representation, even just within the realm of black dolls, is essential to help children of all races recognize what inclusion should look like. Queen has already gotten an overwhelming number of positive responses from people around the world to the Herstory collection. Queen has also caught the attention of actress Meagan Good, who shared the mother's crowdfunding link to her nearly three million followers on Instagram. But while there's already a buzz around her dolls, she says that this is only the beginning. She is hoping to expand her business globally and that she can just be in touch with girls from all over the world. She wants kids to realize that beauty comes from what you make it, and not to let the beauty of yourself be defined by what the media and society says. You may be the darkest of browns, or your skin is so fair t you pass for being white. The fact is that this just shows you what the human race is all about.
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