When I was four, I had an older neighbor’s older sister give me all of her barbies. She had a fuckton of rad 80′s barbie stuff, including a dreamhouse, an apartment, furnishings, boomboxes,etc. I don’t think my mom ever bought me any barbie stuff because she didn’t have to, and it mean that I didn’t have/get to cultivate my collection. Either way I played a a ton of Barbies with my friends that wouldn’t play nes with me. I fell into a weird 80′s Barbie pinterest hole and found a bunch that I used to have but didn’t know the themes for.
I guess most of them were fashion based instead of gender defying vocation based, but who the fuck cares? My barbie could be a doctor in a sparkly pink dress. Even though she is femme as fuck and I loved that; they all seemed genderless too, partially because of how exaggerated and distorted her body was. Like they went so far femme that they sort of broke gender (and lived in overwhelmingly female presenting societies). Putting a judgement on how kids play, as if it isn’t mature enough or doesn’t meet some precocious intellectual bragging right is ridiculous.