...whereas my barbies usually got ritually burned at the stake. I *hated* it when people gave me dolls to play with.

The attitude was partially explained by the fact that I thought you got to pick your own gender at about age nine or ten. (Well, you heard people saying that someone was turning into a young lady...). As far as I could tell, boys got to do all the fun stuff, wheras being a girl meant dresses and sitting still a lot. Bah! I resented attempts to make me be a girl.