If I may chime in, I would like to offer my perspective. Growing up during the '80s, an American Girl catalog was mailed to me. I found this astounding -- I'm male -- and spent the next few days wondering exactly how in Hades did they: (1) Get my name and address; and (2) Come up with a rationale that I would actually buy anything in the catalog?

Having said that, however, I must confess that I was intrigued; it was obvious, perusing the catalog, that the company purveying the goods in the catalog was obviously trying to set itself up as the anti-Barbie. Being raised in a liberal household (in a mostly Repugnantcan town and county) I was as glad as when I saw that feminist cartoon show Inspector Gadget on television.

Having said that, however, I (too) have been taken aback by the commercialism of the enterprise. I understand that they're in the business to make a profit, but I am still uneasy. I remember seeing a notice at a public library announcing a gathering for girls who have an American Girl doll. "Good god," I thought; "Exactly how do they reconcile the fact that they are a public agency and that the activity in question will be -- however obliquely -- promoting a private, for-profit concern?"

In the end, all I can say definitively is I have ambiguous feelings about the enterprise. It would be so much easier to embrace the product if the purveyor was a non-profit.