"Because women are doing it and women are the principal actors in this, it’s been stigmatized differently.... just another way to regulate women’s lives."

Said Camila Infanger, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of São Paulo, quoted in "Extremely Lifelike Dolls Cause a Frenzy in Brazil/To some, the dolls, known as reborn dolls, provide comfort, escape or just plain fun. But politicians across Brazil have tried to pass bills banning the dolls from public spaces" (NYT).

What's the "frenzy" supposedly in need of a legislative solution?

In the northwestern Brazilian state of Amazonas, one lawmaker, João Luiz, recently carried one of the dolls into the legislature and argued, without evidence, that some women have been demanding public benefits for the dolls. His colleague Joana Darc also voiced concern.

“You just can’t force a doctor in a hospital, for example, to treat a reborn doll as if it were a child, which is a living being,” she said on the floor. “You can’t force a teacher to accept a child in a day care center because the person wants the reborn doll to study.”...

At least 30 bills have been filed in legislative houses across the country to bar the dolls from receiving services in public health facilities, according to public records. But there appears to have been just one documented case of a woman with a psychiatric disorder showing up at a hospital to seek treatment for her doll, only to be turned away at the entrance....