The scale of my dolls, the relative sizes of one doll to another, has surfaced as an issue again as I share my doll photos with Someone I Know. And I find I am facing a kind of doll discrimination....

As I began my doll collecting in earnest again a while back, I was paying a lot of attention to scale. I collected lots of photos and information for reference, measuring my dollies and pouring over photos of dolls that might be a good fit. Since I was starting with a variety of sizes and proportions to begin with-think Terri Lee, Barbie, and 14" baby dolls for a start, it was a challenge to make decisions about who to add....

I decided to collect doll friends or "family" for my singletons, since having only one of each really showed up the wild difference in scales. It wasn't easy for me to imagine making up a photo story with my vintage Barbie and Terri Lee together.  

So the old Terri Lee acquired a friend from the 90's (who recently fell to pieces soon after my Terri broke the rubber bands holding on her appendages...but that is another story). And Barbie now has a Liz Taylor and Clark Gable to keep her company.

My two old Dee An Cee Cindy dolls at least had each other. But I thought  perhaps I wanted them to have children, to create a story about moms.... Since they are 14" I couldn't use the two 14" Dee An Cee baby dolls I have had since I was little. That would just look strange. So another doll hunt manifested 2 little 5" Berengeur babies, which will do. And so cute!

As my dolls' friends arrived, with some very successful scale matches and others not-quite-right (Tonner 18"males have smaller heads than my round faced 16" Ellowynes), my get-it-right scale demands started to relax as my dolls got to know each other. Okay, I mean as I got used to seeing them together. 

And my photos started to include these slight mis-matches, as if everything was All Right, like in this photo of tall Crissy, playing hairdresser and stylist to tiny Agnes Dreary.

That's when Someone I Know started to kick up a fuss about it, as he saw some of the doll photos and stories for the first time (great editor if I can stand all the constructive criticism).

Now I hear myself justifying the use of this slightly big headed doll with a perfectly proportioned one,  the big-eyed dolls with normal sized eye dolls, the skinny dolls with the chubby, the large with the small....

Come on, nobody will care like you say they will. Will they?

So...if my Barbies end up at a party with my Terri Lees, and I post the photos, you sticklers will know it is due to the steady deterioration of my own early discrimination.

I mean, have you noticed how many big headed humans there are?

 And how many small minded?

Mixing with the rest of us?

And we put up with it! 

Doll scale discrimination must be acknowledged and questioned!

There oughtta be a law.

Wait a minute. I think I have lost my perspective...

I am going to go play with my dolls for a while.

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