#dollsforboys: how gender-bending challenges and reinforces masculine norms through hybrid masculinities

Gender categorisations permeate markets and fuel gender inequalities. A marketplace strategy to address this is gender-bending, whereby marketers reposition products targeted to one gender to another. In this paper, we explore whether gender-bending challenges or reinforces the gendered norms that maintain gendered inequalities. We examine this through a qualitative research study of dolls designed for boys. Our study demonstrates that gender-bending traverses hybrid masculinities that both challenge and reinforce masculine norms. Specifically, whilst the signalling of alternative masculinities challenges masculine norms, these norms are still reinforced through the signalling of hegemonic masculinities used to render the gender-bended product more palatable. Our paper demonstrates that gender-bending is more than a gender reversal and can involve the navigation of complex gender dynamics in the marketplace. Further, we advance understandings of hybrid masculinities in consumer culture by highlighting the capacity of gender-bending to disrupt gender hierarchies – especially for boys.