Female Army figures reporting for duty

Vivian Lord, 6, won a set of plastic green Army men from an arcade while vacationing with her family recently. But according to her mother, Brittany Lord, at some time while she was playing with them, she asked her mom: Why aren’t any of these girls? After some research, some pink ones were found online, but those too weren’t female.

“The color didn’t fool her, and she wasn’t going to let it go — that’s just her personality,” Brittany Lord said.

“I said, ‘OK, what do you want to do? Do you want to write a letter?’ So she sat down and wrote a letter this July. We looked up a couple of places and sent it off and waited. I thought it was just a lesson on speaking up. I didn’t know that we would get a response,” said the mom of two from Little Rock, Ark.

But a response came from Jeff Imel, owner of Scranton, Pa.-based BMC Toys, who said Vivian will be able to get her hands on green Army women by Christmas 2020. According to Imel, five poses are in the works: a female captain with a handgun and binoculars, a soldier standing and firing a rifle, another kneeling while firing a bazooka, a soldier firing a sniper rifle while lying on her stomach, and a soldier kneeling and firing a rifle. A medic and radio operator will be created at a later date. A prototype of the captain will be on display at the Chicago Toy Soldier Show in Schaumburg, Ill.

“All of these are very classic plastic Army men poses,” Imel said. “They kind of form the backbone of your plastic Army and how kids set up their positions, so I wanted to get the combat action poses and move on from there. I feel like I’m creating a toy that should have existed a while ago. The number of messages I’ve received from adult women who told me, ‘I really wanted these as a kid,’ that kind of blew my mind. You kind of expect a kid to wonder today: Why aren’t there any women in this bag of Army men? But to know that it goes back that far. That was a surprise to me.”

Imel said he’s already getting a lot of preorder requests. His plan is to launch a crowdfunding campaign and begin taking preorders in November. His goal is to sell the green Army women on his site, at hobby shops and on amazon.com. Imel said about 1,000 people have already registered for his newsletter to receive updates on the toy Army women.

Imel’s sister helped draft some sketches of what the female soldiers would look like, and he’s done reference work on what women in the military looked like at different points in history. Imel also wants to make sure fans and buyers can tell that these figures are women.

“If you look at today’s soldiers, the gear pretty much hides gender because they’re wearing protective flak jackets,” he said. “You can sometimes tell by size and the faces a little bit. But if the figure doesn’t translate to a woman figure, then that’s not really scratching the itch that people are looking for. It needs to be identifiable and has to connect to the audience I’m trying to connect with — which is both kids and also adults who wished they had this when they were kids. I want to satisfy the need that they have. I’m trying to approach it very thoughtfully and purposefully.”

Vivian’s mother appreciates the effort.

“She’s pretty stoked about it,” Lord said. “We certainly will be one of the first to purchase these Army women when they become available. She has a lot of friends who are saying the same thing.”

Vivian’s request for green Army women has taught her mom a lot.

“I’m so proud of her,” Lord said. “It’s a lesson that she’s learned at a young age that if you speak up and want change, people will listen. It’s pretty cool that she’s learning this at age 6.”