Lego - how depressing

On their website in the search stuff there's a category 'Girls' but I don't think there is a 'Boys'. Its the same warped thinking as 'regular' mag and 'girls' mag.

The whole thing just gets my goat. If all that stuff is so natural for girls then why do they need to shove it down their throats?

What's wrong with incorporating these so called "girls' interests" into the mainstream lego. Or are they afraid that boys won't want to play with it anymore if there are a few pink lego bricks? It's ridiculous.

I don't think anything we played with comes close to the amount of crap thrown in the direction of girls today.

Mouikey - that would have been Lego Scala - for little homemakers - I had it too....

and I studied Marine electronics - radio and radar - at college before becoming a computer networks manager.

It is a toy....

Oooo is it on Brickipedia?Just had a look and there is one but it's the completely pink free and only about 5 pieces,no structure so you'd have to build a building.Some strange cat in it. Far more play value to it,could be anything.

Now off to see if my 80s burger bar is on there.

I'm not sure if this has been posted already, but I had a lego beauty salon when I was 4 or 5 years old... I'm now 35, so its not a new thing, and I still have the original in the loft!!

Sorry dd just did the last lot of exclamation marks.

Still half price-£33.99,now if that isn't a real bargain I don't know what is!!!!!!!!

Belgo those figures are fab.We got our PM pyramid at Christmas(half price in Argos,wonder if it still is).Bloody fantastic toy,all 3 love it although Polly Pocket went on holiday to Egypt and got locked in the tomb!!!!!!!!!

Bishopstonmum - I hope you are going to write to Lego and tell them that? For some reason our Lego Club magazine hasn't arrived yet, but DD has already heard about it from her best friend, who was furious - she and her mother are already composing an outraged letter to Lego about it. I have sent them several tweets on the subject, but they are not responding.

It just seems so stupid to unilaterally decide that all girls who are members of the Lego club should get the new pinkified girls-only version, when the reason they are members of the Lego Club is that they actually like the existing Lego ranges.

(pedant alert) 'streaks ahead' ... streaking ahead or streets ahead - but other than that, so true MrsHeffley.

My DD has some 'girlie' friends and they love doing chemistry or setting up a snail or woodlouse habitat in my kitchen.

MrsHeffley you will be pleased to hear that me and my girls have made a Lego pyramid, out of ordinary Lego blocks, complete with Lego Cleopatra and Lego mummy inside.

I refused to spend 100 euros on the Playmobil version.

What gets me is there are a whole group of girls growing up who have only been bought Barbie,Littlest Pet Shop et al who are missing out on the creativity,engineering and scientific aspects that are there in a lot of 'boys' toys.Those boys and the girls with brothers or parents who don't buy into the pink plastic shite are going to be streaks ahead in engineering,science etc because kids learn through play.

It's very sad and I feel for those girls. Many well meaning parents wouldn't dream of not buying books or craft stuff(albeit Barbie themed) but are perfectly happy to buy toys that do nothing but create sterotypes and nothing else,they reject the technology toys,the science sets,the correct globes etc,etc.

Money is tight don't waste your hard earned cash on shite.Look at every toy as a learning tool.Fine your dd likes animals well Playmobil do a fab vet clinic then leave it at that.Don't waste your money on endless talking pets,fluffy animals and pink cutized pets.Spend it on proper Lego,a microscope,some Knex,Staedler felts/pencils,a proper globe(not a pink one),books that teach,science kits,Playmobil pyramid or African set.........there is masses out there to appeal all interests.

Mrs. Heffley - there was a post on the Lego site from someone who said they gave their daughter Barbies for Christmas but the next day she was back playing with her brother's lego again. He was going on about how good these new sets were and how glad her brother would be that she wouldn't steal his lego again :(

lollygag, they may rocket, and we may end up with a generation of girls who want to do nothing but talk about makeup etc. Not just because of the Lego, obviously, but because of the whole culture that Lego have now also bought into. My niece is 9 and apparently already finding it difficult to find girls who want to talk about other things.

Hmmm I have a dd with twin brothers a year older.We have the entire alien range,a lot of Star Wars,a huge collection of house bricks including the beach house,a huge collection of vehicles stuff,Power Miners and loads of Creator sets(which are fab).

Dd has always played with her brothers:- aliens,Harry Potter,making Go Go houses,crystal mining,Hex Bug runs,sky scrapers etc.The list is endless,the bricks are endless.

My problem with this is(aside from the pink) is the easiness of these sets which are aimed at 6-12 year olds.The other sets look a lot harder.The themes are also very closed and boring and obviously stereotypical I mean vet,beauty parlour-perlease. How many toys out there aimed at girls are pets or beauty?

There is far less play value in said sets.The beauty of Lego is the ability to make it what you want it to be.The big chunky pieces in these sets limit invention imvho.I would worry girls would no longer play with the other variety.These will sell just like Littlest Pet Shop,Barbie and all the other shite aimed at girls.Girls will thus stop playing with Lego how it's meant to be played with and as I did in the 70s.They'll only select pink bricks thus limiting creativity.They'll focus on 'girl' themes.Less Go Go houses etc.

Finally I have a big problem with the out of scale lipstick in the beauty parlour,don't think I need to tell you what it reminds me of.

belgo : 'the father figure is male.'

There you go, bloody patriarchy! (not sure whether I want a here or here)

Surely it's not that difficult for adults to work out which girls actually want 'girlie' toys

Lego is the sort of thing frequently bought as gifts by relatives or as birthday gifts by the parents of their daughters friends. My DD who despised Dnsney princess and Barbie-type dolls was given quite a few. Also a Bratz (urghhh) and pink clothes - parents who only had sons were always the worst for getting this wrong. (some got it brilliantly right with magic sets or Men in Black kit).

Luckily DD has a friend in a non-overlapping set with a birthday a week later who was girlie so we were able to discreetly regift items DD really didn't want.

jjkm the same does apply to boys as in 'he is a boy so therefore must like lego star wars'

I quite like the lego for girls and more importantly DD likes it and I am sure that doesn't mean that she now won't play with her other lego anymore or will decide that all other lego is for boys. Like I said in a previous post, I played with lego in the 70's that was specifically aimed at girls (or 'little homemakers') so nothing new there.

Unless,of course,sales rocket and other toymakers say 'let's do what lego did'.

It's not so much the shape of the figures IMO as the fact that, especially in the marketing, they're vacuous and simpering - the overall effect is just weedy. And the beauty salon stuff is pretty bad for a toy aimed at five year olds and up - definitely sexualisation. The science lab is a lame but ineffective effort at redeeming it. The house looks all right, so does the treehouse if you take away the fact that the branches seem to be whole, but the whole concept of a different kind of Lego for girls and the way it's being marketed is vomit-worthy.

(re. pink - pink is a great colour, so is purple, but IMO they look terrible together!)

The petition (here) to Lego against it has over 35,000 signatures now. Hopefully all the bad feedback will end up causing other toymakers to look back in future and say "Let's not make the mistake Lego made."

jjkm: Surely it's not that difficult for adults to work out which girls actually want 'girlie' toys.If they can't then they are not really trying.

jjkm completely agree with you. It was always the assumption that because I was a girl, presents, toys and clothes had to be pink. 'Oh it's a pink toy, she'll love it!'

And now there's a 'range' that has predominantly pink bricks. Why not just introduce a pink brick as part of the standard range? Why does it have to be available as part of a 'special' range aimed at girls? Why can't a beauty parlour just be part of the 'city' range? It's the assumption that these have to be separate and not part of the normal range to appeal to girls that I find sexist.

Yes, there are gender differences. Yes, there are toys that will appeal to predominantly boys and some to girls. But it's a shame that what I consider to be a great 'unisex' toy feels it has to create special pieces for girls when the standard range can appeal to girls anyway. But Lego are responding to market forces I presume, and the majority of parents cling to gender specific ideas of toys. We can but fight the tide here.

My 10 year old daughter burst into furious tears yesterday when the Lego club magazines arrived for her and her 7 year old brother. He got the 'normal' magazine and she had been sent a new 'girls' Lego magazine: pink and purple and minus many of the Lego features she was interested in eg Lego Ninjago which she loves. Thumbs down to Lego for teaching my daughter that she is excluded from the good stuff by virtue if her gender: thumbs up to her for being angry about it.