1980 Kenner Strawberry Shortcake Magazine Ad
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“Strawberry Shortcake dolls must be seen as symptomatic of a broad cultural discourse that links femininity, sweetness, and proper odours.”
– Heather Hendershot, “Dolls: odour, disgust, femininity and toy design,” 93.
*Originally written November 6, 2023
A recap of Heather Hendershot, “Dolls: odour, disgust, femininity and toy design,” The Gendered Object, 90-102.
Strawberry Shortcake was created in 1977 by Barbi Sargent for American Greetings and rose to prominence in 1979 when Kenner Products released the first doll. Styled as a traditional rag doll, she had freckles, red yarn curls, a strawberry-print bonnet, and most distinctively, a synthetic strawberry scent, heavily emphasized in advertisements aimed at young girls.
In her analysis, Hendershot focuses on the doll’s product design within a consumer culture preoccupied with scent. She draws parallels to the marketing of deodorants, perfumes, douches, and scented tampons, which collectively construct the ideal woman as free from unpleasant odours. Much like critiques of Barbie and the unrealistic body standards She promotes, Hendershot argues that toys such as Strawberry Shortcake participate in the early construction of gender norms, shaping expectations through play. The doll’s built-in sweetness literalizes the association between femininity and sugar, echoed in common endearments for women like “sweetie,” “sugar,” and “honeybunch.”
Hendershot’s survey of Strawberry Shortcake fans—primarily late-teen girls—revealed a stark contrast in the gendering of scent. Female-associated smells were described as fruity, floral, “sweet, pretty, and romantic,” while masculine scents were linked to beer, dirt, gasoline, and rocks.
1981 Kenner Strawberry Shortcake Magazine Ad
“The proper female body is, above all, self-contained, and commodities such as deodorant, douches and scented tampons help construct and reinforce the ideal of the properly contained, properly scented, adult female body.”
– Heather Hendershot, “Dolls: odour, disgust, femininity and toy design,” 90.
Skinny Dip Advertisement, Seventeen Magazine, June 1973.
Cutex Advertisement, 1958.
This emphasis on sweetness persists as girls age. The strawberry scent, Hendershot argues, conveys a wholesome, innocent femininity that is both natural and seductive. Compared to cherry-scented products—which are viewed as more provocative—strawberry products signal purity. Women are conditioned to monitor their bodies not just visually but olfactorily, internalizing a fear of smelling “bad” that fuels the market for scent-related goods.
1973 Kenner Baby Alive Magazine Ad
Strawberry Shortcake’s synthetic scent, though artificial, is designed to appeal to children. It blurs the line between pleasant and repulsive, shaping sensory experiences early on. Childhood, a time of curiosity and experimentation, allows for an open engagement with the body and its senses, yet toys marketed to girls often police this boundary. Hendershot uses the Baby Alive doll to illustrate this tension. Though capable of simulating bodily functions like urination and defecation, the doll lacks a realistic scent. Baby Alive evokes the thrill of bodily realism, while Strawberry Shortcake subtly suggests that even a child’s body should smell sweet, shaping olfactory expectations from an early age.
Avon Sales Brochure, Campaign #24, 1972
“While selling girls grown-up perfumes would probably be seen as perverse, strawberries are emblematic of a more wholesome, so-called natural femininity, connoting a pre-sexual sweetness and child-like innocence.”
– Heather Hendershot, “Dolls: odour, disgust, femininity and toy design,” 92.
Scented dolls like Strawberry Shortcake are part of a larger consumer network aimed at girls and women, where scent becomes a gendered design strategy. Hendershot argues that toys don’t merely reflect consumer desires—they actively shape them. Her critique targets the design and marketing industries that limit sensory experiences within rigid gender binaries. The issue is not with girls enjoying sweet scents, but with how those pleasures are narrowly defined and marketed, reinforcing essentialist ideas of femininity.
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