Lego - how depressing

[EverybodysSnowyEyed]

I've always loved Lego as a 'genderless' toy

And now they have launched Lego friends - aimed at the little ladies in your life. And guess what, there's a beauty parlour!

Even DH finds this depressing! Are we alone in this?

I thought toy manufacturers might be starting to realise how bad this all looks!

What I find even more depressing is the number of apparently sensible women I've heard moaning over the years that "Lego don't do anything for girls"

Lego comes in every fecking colour of the rainbow but if it is not pink and lilac then it is not for girls. Apparently.

Yes that's very true.

That people say that - not what they say!

Really? This was my last bastion for non gender less toys to buy for parties. Why oh hy do they succumb to consumerism?

Unfortunately, I love Lego, but my toy loving DD2 really would have liked it pink and lilac we had a bit from the Lego shop, but it shut.
What the op describes is a steep too far.
All I wanted was some slightly girly feeling cars and houses as an alternative to bonicicals (sp)
Instead she got into Playmobil which isn't anything like as much fun.

Yes, everything about it is crap. When I first saw some of the images, I thought it was actually a send up, but sadly it's real. However, my sources tell me that its flopping badly. Girls aren't interested. Parents aren't buying.

Really interesting blog here Shaping Youth about this.

This quote from Peggy Orenstein really sums up the problem.

At issue, then, is not nature or nurture but how nurture becomes nature: the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose them. So blithely indulging ? let alone exploiting ? stereotypically gendered play patterns may have a more negative long-term impact on kids? potential than parents imagine. And promoting, without forcing, cross-sex friendships as well as a breadth of play styles may be more beneficial. There is even evidence that children who have opposite-sex friendships during their early years have healthier romantic relationships as teenagers.

Traditionally, toys were intended to communicate parental values and expectations, to train children for their future adult roles. Today?s boys and girls will eventually be one another?s professional peers, employers, employees, romantic partners, co-parents. How can they develop skills for such collaborations from toys that increasingly emphasize, reinforce, or even create, gender differences?

They'v done their market research and they're making stuff that sells. Someone is buying it. And don't tell me that you don't go to beauty salons or cake shops. It represents a bit of life and is the first release of the sets, you don't know how else they will develop th characters.

Disclaimer: I don't have a girl so have no idea if I'd buy the stuff. Although th house looks nice for playing with

DD(5) got a lego space shuttle for Christmas and was/is thrilled. Shame on Lego.

That said, Playmobil do some fairly nauseating pink things - we are huge playmo fans but we just don't buy that stuff.

star here are about 4 houses in he current range. Apple house is very nice looking. There is also a fantastic lighthouse that is a 3 in 1. That is on my wish list.

Yes it's depressing. "The Beauty of Building". I wish they hadn't explicitly called it "Lego for girls" .....making the rest presumably Lego for boys....who knew?

My 8 yo ds made me proud the other day. He was looking at the Friends range and said

"what's the point?"

I said it's to make money from people who think girls need their own Lego
he replied

"it's not Lego if it only takes two minutes to build, where's the fun it for girls? are they not allowed normal Lego anymore?"

He's correct though, it's not Lego.

Yes- I was quite pleased they seemed to have dropped Belleville... for an altogether more worrying product.

Sarky, in the past 20 years or so, LEGO has moved to more "themed" sets rather than the former "bucket of bricks" approach that promoted creative, imaginative play for both boys and girls. Many of those themes focus on people/animal/creature figures and the vast majority of those are male figures.

Evidence shows that children like to play with toys and hear/read/see stories about characters they can identify with. In the main, those toys and characters are male (even if animals or make believe creatures) and white (if humanoid.) That leaves girls (and non-white children of both sexes) often feeling that they are "left out," and/or getting the message that white and male is the "norm" (i.e. most interesting, most fun, most important, etc.)

It's pretty well the same for Playmobil and Lego figures. For every female figure, you'll get 5 or 10 male ones. It was depressing to see Playmobil introduce lucky dip bags in pink (containing princesses, mermaids, fairies but also a rock star and a highwaywoman, which is something I guess,) and blue (wide range of interesting male characters.)

I suppose at least the female Playmobil figures aren't as sexualised in appearance or given such a narrow range of gender-stereotyped "interests" as the Lego Friends ones. I don't understand why they couldn't have made them, for example, like the female Character Options minifigs. Okay, the figures themselves don't have Barbie proportions, but "cartoon characters" used to promote Lego Friends have those familiar short skirts, tight tops, uber thin waists and legs and made up faces.

Seriously, if they just put more female characters into the sets that are now so male dominated (and represent more ethnic and cultural backgrounds as well,) then I think their product lines would appeal to more girls.

The whole pink/pastel is for girls thing is very, very recent and imho, market driven. Seriously, I'm old and it wasn't like that in the 60's or 70's.

Excellent point Honeydragon. I think Lego is dumbing down generally with its "themed sets" that don't require much skill or creativity. It's depressing that they've made the Lego Friends so they require even LESS skill than the sets populated by mostly male figures. Gah!

Didn't they do some weirdy girl stuff before though? About 20ish years ago? I remember my cousins getting some for Christmas and I much preferred my 'boy' lego. We have just rediscovered DP's old lego over Christmas and I was thinking that it is timeless, and a sort of 'forever toy'. I'm hoping lego friends will flop, the advertisement makes me break out in hives.

I was impressed with ds's alien conquest stuff, that had several femal characters in with the various sets. All action-scientests just the same as the male characters.

Although they then ruined it by making the abduction character female. However as she's in a suit dh assumed she must be the head of the whole operation and that is why they want to kidnap her

Sorry Ds. Dh is not allowed to play Lego unless he's very good

DS's lego space set has (I am informed) 1 male and 1 female astronaut - only one in DD's space shuttle, and I think it is male although I haven't inspected it other than to swear at it every time I have to put the nose cone back on again

I saw these today and, ready to be incensed, was somewhat impressed. The characters are not sexualised. I bought the 'Olivia' set for a friend's girl. Olivia likes science, inventing, and DIY. Her set comes with tools, a microscope, a lab, and a small robot dog. Her friend (I forget her name) likes writing and performing music, and comes with microphones, mixing deck, laptop, etc. Another friend likes nature and gardening, another likes design and crafts, another likes pets, animals, etc. This is relatively good stuff.

Saying that, I am depressed and appalled there's a beauty shop. And, I too wish Lego had not moved from basic bricks and imagination to prescriptive, character-based sets. Yet, my children love the minifigures and I do see their immense play value.

Apparently they have spent 5 years researching and developing 'Friends.' Clerk says they are selling phenomenally well, flying off the shelves in every country. Interesting.

I also bought one of the academic sets, containing 22 minifigures representing mythological/fairy tale archetypes. Of course the female ones are mermaid, queen, princess/bride, Native American woman and witch. Would have been nice to have a vengeful corn goddess, or gothic cyber geekess, or something ;)

Funnily enough the witch minifig inspired a talk with my son about the history and persecution of witchcraft. We watched a documentary called 'The Burning Times' on YouTube. I look forward to seeing how she will now be used in play!

dearth - a quick scan of Amazon would suggest that Olivia is the only properly cool one - she has a tree house and an inventors workshop. The others have (variously) a stage, an outdoor bakery, a splash pool and a "cool convertible"

Was just reading a blog post echoing yours Dearth www.deusexmachinatio.com/blog/2011/12/15/cut-lego-friends-a-break.html

She also talks about it as a smart strategy by Lego to get omnto the girls shelves in storeS.

My heart sank when I saw the ads for 'Lego Friends', for all the reasons already articulated on this thread.

I agree with KRITIQ that Lego clearly focuses its marketing efforts on appealing to boys. Actually, it?s not a matter of opinion. The company has acknowledged in the press surrounding the launch of these Bratz with snap-on hair ?Lego Friends? that their strategy since 2005 has been to market Lego to boys, and that they 'now want to appeal to the other 50% of the world's children' .

Sarky, perhaps the reason why many ?apparently sensible women? complain that Lego leaves their girls out is not because they think that girls can only play with pink and purple bricks, or that girls can?t enjoy Star Wars or Ninjago, but because girl / women figures are hugely under-represented in the world of Lego.

The Lego Annual for 2012, which I recently bought for my Lego-loving niece, features six figures on the cover. All of them are male (with the possible exception of the astronaut who is in a full spacesuit / helmet but probably has stubble underneath ). Inside is a 'which Legoland citizen are you?' quiz, where you answer a bunch of questions about your preferences and it leads you to one of four options: Policeman , Fire fighter (with a beard), Pilot (male, suit and tie), and Railwayman (beard).

I looked on the Lego website at the full collection of minifigures. Of the 96 figures released over 6 series, only 19 have been female. Nineteen out of ninety-six. They included a surgeon, a zookeeper, and a nurse, and a few athletes (tennis player, figure skater). But other than that they are all along the lines of ?hula girl?, pop star, witch, ?kimono girl?, cheerleader, flamenco dancer, and Pam Anderson-style lifeguard. Oh, and the Statue of Liberty.

So now Lego wants to appeal to girls. Why not start by just ceasing to exclude them? By introducing more interesting female figures, in equal numbers to the male ones? Why not put girls in their advertisements, building with the multi-coloured bricks or flying the Millenium Falcon? Or put out sets that appeal to children who like sci-fi / adventure and children who like playing house / veterinarian, but that are packaged in a way that doesn't clearly indicate that they're intended for one particular gender?

Could it be because the girl toys / boy toys divide suits Lego just fine, in that it creates two different markets to sell to, instead of just one? So that families with both boys and girls will buy twice as much, because heaven forbid that brothers and sisters share or pass down sets that are clearly meant for one gender only?

Instead of making a better effort to include girls in what is already a time-tested and classic toy (that generations of girls have been enjoying in spite of the company's disregard for them), they have launched a whole separate line that looks much less challenging construction-wise, but is coloured lavender and features shapely, skinny figures in fashionable short skirts and made-up faces.

I really hope it flops, but I think that if it does, the dunderheads who came up with this will think ?Well, we tried to appeal to the girls but they just don?t go for Lego.?

There?s an interesting article here that also has pictures of the new sets and figures and a timeline of Lego?s previous attempts to market to girls.

Sydney thanks for posting that - you're right that it brings it right home. I'm sharing in on my social networks.

Great post onehandwavingfree.

I think the 'normal' lego range is so reduced, and is now repackaged as the 'city' product, that children don't play with it the same way as previous generations.
Thank goodness DH and I have enough lego for a kindergarten in the loft left over from our childhoods! Tbh, as an early reader, who read voraciously, lego was the only toy I played with as a child.