With all these women characters running around in comics, video games, television, and movies, why is it so hard to find action figures of women and not dolls?

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The Internet took notice during the making and marketing of Iron Man 3. Shane Black, the director, had disclosed at one point that there was supposed to be a female antagonist, but it was stopped by Marvel because “toys won’t sell as well if it’s a female.” There was also a reduction in screen time for the female characters Maya Hansen and Ellen Brandt portrayed by Rebecca Hall and Stephanie Szostak at the behest of Marvel.

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Nico Lang explains the impact of toys in his essay “Do Fans Really Want to Buy Female Action Figures?”:

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Toys marketed to a young, female demographic having been declining in recent years after a notable surge in 2013. That year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the sales of girls’ toys were up – buoyed by the success of My Little Pony and the Furby brand – while profits for games, action figures, and other products aimed at young men had plummeted. But what was most interesting about their sales report would become a harbinger of doom for the gendered, aggressively pinkified products long associated with young women’s brands: The biggest gains were in games, where sales skyrocketed by 29 percent… Since then, the sales of Mattel’s classic Barbies have hit the skids, struggling to appeal to a new generation of young women. Despite notable gains in the fourth-quarter, due to holiday sales, Fortune reported in 2015 that Barbie was in major trouble.

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Barbie was and still is declining with girls “opting for more gender-neutral products, in addition to buying toys that might be traditionally thought of as for boys’ only” Lang reported. What has happened since then?