Disney struck gold with the Princess phenomenon of theirs by releasing Frozen in 2013/2014. The unstoppable juggernaut saved the toy industry and Anna and Elsa have flown off the shelves of toy stores ever since. It’s still on prominent display in the Disney Store despite having come out well over two years ago.

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And if you think about it, Elsa is literally a superhero, with her power being control over frozen water. The only difference between her and a superhero is that she’s a princess who doesn’t have a super villain to fight in the third act. It’s not like Disney has not proven that audiences like lead female characters who can fight that are not princesses, because Mulan was an unmitigated success.

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What’s the real difference between a princess with super powers like Wonder Woman, and a woman who is not superpowered or a princess that can hold her own in a fight like Batgirl? Even though toys become more gender segregated when children get older, proven successes like Frozen and Mulan show that women and girls want women with heightened abilities and the ability to fight.

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Lang goes on to report that the most successful toys so far that are not Frozen were Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens:

 

The frustration over the lack of Star Wars toys specific to young women further indicate how much demand there is for this population to be formally included in a market they’re likely already buying into. After Rey – the film’s female protagonist – was conspicuously missing from the action figure sets for The Force Awakens, the Internet quickly took notice. (She wasn’t even included in the Monopoly board game!) Female fans, however, were used to it by now: The exact same thing happened to Gamora when the merchandise for Guardians of the Galaxy hit stores in 2015.

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Nolan Rampy in “Where is Rey? Why Gender Stereotypes Dominate Popular Culture” elaborates more:

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Hasbro representatives quickly issued a statement claiming that they left out Rey to avoid any plot spoilers, and that it was their plan all along to include Rey in future editions. But according to reports from an industry insider, that’s a lie. Early prototypes of many of the product lines featured Rey prominently, but Lucasfilm executives explicitly instructed the product manufacturers to remove Rey from the product lines. According to the industry insider, product developers were told: “No boy wants to be given a product with a female character on it.” In recent years, there has been increasing criticism about the marginalization of female characters in comic book and science fiction movie merchandise.