Lego - how depressing

Agree Quenelle. I look for alternative colours too.

Growing up in the 70's I didn't see a lot of pink, my Mum didn't like the colour and I didn't have even one garment that was pink.
It's all Barbie's fault. I won't buy Barbie for my dd if I can help it.

Loved Sindy though...she had blue bedding

How is Harry Potter Lego not for girls as well?

Lego City Camper Van?

New Lego Superheroes has 3, yes 3/8 or so female characters - Wonder Women, Catwoman and Posion Ivy.

I feel a bit sorry in a way for Toy Manufacturers like Lego - who traditionally have not been big offenders in this arena, becasue I think they are forced to keep up with the relentless pinkification that other toy manufacturers, Argos, ELC, etc insist on - and for every one of us there are, I fear, hundreds of parents demanding pink Lego for girls.

I don't think there is a need for pink and purple bricks. My dd will play for hours building with Lego, all the little sets do seem to be boats/cars/trucks though which she finds boring.
Where are the new ideas? I don't think Lego Friends is the answer, they don't really have the amount of bricks to be considered Lego imho. I mean, one of the sets I've seen, the roof is pre-built so where's the challenge in that?
DD does own a pink tub though...but at least there are plenty of bricks for construction and we like the bright colours (lime and orange).
Don't think I'll be buying any of the 'Friends'. Lego must do better.

Urgh.

My 5 year old goddaughter asked for Lego for Christmas. She is very much of the pink is for her and blue is for her little brother persuasion and I hate it. I can't understand why girls are supposed to play with pink, purple and white toys and boys should get all the other colours.

I went to great lengths to find a bucket of bricks, rather than a set, in a colour that she would like that wasn't pink. I eventually found a red one that did go down very well. I would not have bought the pink one and she would not have liked the blue one.

When I first saw those online retro Argos catalogues I was struck by the lack of pink in both the toy and the duvet cover sections. It seems that it was only when the catalogues started doing large Barbie sections that the pink everything thing started.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I absolutely agree that there is NO need for a 'girly pink' version of LEGO. It comes in such lovely brights red, greens, yellows, brown etc and I loved playing with it as a child. Especially as most grass and flowers are green, most houses are brown/red and water is blue - so where is the need for pink from a practical point of view?

In fact, everything is becoming ridiculously segregated between pink girlyness and blue boys' toys - I've got a dd and ds and how hard it was to find a nice unisex bicycle that they can both use. Got a German make in the end, a lovely bright red one. I think manufacturers are doing this so parents end up buying two sets of everything, 'boys' lego/bikes/pencils for their sons and the girls' version for their daughters. Same with clothes - took me ages to find unisex ski suits... could go on and on.

So, yes I agree wholeheartedly! And I hope no one buys the pink girly lego!!

thanks

Sorry I haven't read all the posts, but oh gawd no there is no need! Heard an interview on the radio though where it was said it was parent demand. Yes demand pushed by aggressive marketing.
So depressing. Overheard seemingly intelligent mothers in the park discussing how girls are cerebral and boys are physical. Eh? So little boys are thick then and girls are lazy lumps???! Give me strength!

standard bricks

Sainsbury's often do a variety of Lego. Sometimes half price.

You can find it on the Lego website; I don't know what is available in UK toy shops.

It's great that you want to support your local supports, but do they deserve your support if they limit the toys they provide to 'boys' and 'girls'?

Is there really Belgo? What should I look for?

Our local shop has very little stock at the moment but I try to support local businesses rather than just get everything off Amazon.

There is plenty of unisex Lego available, it just sounds like it wasn't in the toy shop you were looking in.

I bought some of the girly Lego today for a birthday pres for girl friend of ds1 in reception.
'City' Lego is very clearly coded for boys (ie blue, all minifigures in the sets in our local toyshop were male); if I had got her that her parents would have thought I was regifting an unwanted one of ds1's Xmas presents and the odds are she would have written it off as a boy toy and refused to play with it! (She is a very girly girl.)

At least this way she will get a car and some building blocks to play with instead of the other options in the shop such as cupcake making kits and make-your-own nail varnish....

Why can't they make bloody UNISEX lego, the box could be half pink and half blue if they can't bring themselves to make nice red and yellow ones like when we were kids?

Apparently, you can get the "regular" magazine sent to girls, but should they contribute (with photos and suchlike) they will feature in the girls' mag.

Bucharest, that's appalling.

Oh well. I suppose if the Friends range had been out when DD was younger she'd have liked some of these better than bloody Belleville. Not sure I'd bother with the Inventors Workshop... just buy your daughters actual robot kits and chemistry sets

The Lego twitter account just retweeted a link to this: The Google Girls, a group aimed at getting more girls into science.

I found myself smiling, wryly, at what one of the girls said: "Recently, LEGO put out a new series aimed at grabbing girls attention (it is very feminine). It is funny, because I am actually attracted to the regular LEGOs and this line kind of turned me off."

She did then say, "I am not sure why I mention it, except I realized that if LEGO reached a larger audience by doing this, and maybe reaching some girls they hadn?t reached before, then that is awesome!"

But I don't really see that there would be a very natural progression from the new range, which seems to involve little building and more role-play (in beauty parlours, ffs), to the more construction/technical type sets.

DD (9) has acquired a lot of the Ninjago range over the past couple of months, and has really enjoyed putting together all the moving parts and booby traps, which are much more of a lead-in to technical stuff.

I have just bought my 4y old ds the Lego Friends Pet Grooming Set!

He had £10 Xmas present to spend, we went into the toy shop. DS1 7 bought Lego Ninjago. He wanted the doggy set, bless him. Breaks my heart that I had to kick DS1 to get him to not say anything and that in another 6m or so now that he is at school he wont feel able to want these sets.

I also feel like a massive hypocrite as I swore I would never buy LEGO Friends when I read about it. However, looking at it, it is actually really well made, technically, and is the exact perfect transitional step that my 4y old needs - he is obsessed with "big boy" Lego as his eldest brother is a massive fan, no longer interested in the Duplo really, but still struggles slightly with manipulating the normal Lego minifigures - putting flippers on, changing heads etc. Head and hands don't pull off which is great as this drives his brother and me insane at the moment. He loves collecting characters though and this would/is? perfect. How depressing though that the picture at the top is a set of 5 little girls to collect - why couldn't it have been 5 children. I suspect Lego do slightly feel our pain though - at least the packaging is purple not pink - I have managed to persuade both ds's that purple is in fact a unisex colour (no chance with pink now of course).

I was actually having a massive rant in the LEGO Shop in Bluewater over Christmas about the upcoming LEGO Friends range. I almost had the staff on side - mainly students, were agreeing really, saying hopefully it won't sell. Then a middle aged elderly couple came in and asked the staff if they had any "Lego for Girls" as they wanted to get some for their first grand-daughter. They were very sweet and explained they had always bought Lego for their children and wanted to get her some but that she was "a little princess" and wouldn't like all the sets that were on display. The staff were duty-bound to tell them about it of course, and they left utterly delighted. They did say just get her a tub of bricks or a house set after my rant but they loved the Lego Friends. Similarly, the lady in the toy shop today said the Lego Friends has been flying of the shelves (she agreed with us)

Sigh. Big up to MegaBloks though whose Moshi Monster figures have been going down well in our house and are all genders and colours.

It is depressing. When we saw the advert on TV ds (7) said "girls don't want that rubbish".

That "nice" was sarcastic, in case anyone didn't realise.

I was looking for Meccano online yesterday. I was extremely depressed to see "girl's Meccano" in a pink tool box. With lots of nice, glittery pink and purple Meccano.

Apparently, you can get the "regular" magazine sent to girls, but should they contribute (with photos and suchlike) they will feature in the girls' mag.

Have hunted out this thread specifically to see if anyone has mentioned this already as a friend of mine is fighting the mighty lego on behalf of her daughter as we speak!

That was an exact quote from them, including the exclamation mark, so yes, they have.

Oldboots...so, the non-girls mag is 'regular'? OK, Lego has failed basic sexism test.

Just to add to the lego complaints. My son has just been given the lego city sticker book. Nearly all the characters are men: doctors, police, pilots etc. There are a few lucky women who get to be pizza chefs or onlookers. It is so depressing.

Lego have sent my dc a club magazine each, that the one addressed to dd (8) has "girls" plastered in big letters on the front. I really don't see why they need to do that, dd has enjoyed Lego club for years without needing pink hearts and butterflies and dolls with breasts on the cover.

It says on the back sleeve "P.S. If you would prefer to still receive your regular LEGO Club magazine instead of the Girls issue then please call the telephone number above!" (0845 60 60 668)

I think it's hideous. I think the sooner we can convince either toy makers or failing that the ASA that pushing gender stereotypes is harming our children the better.

As ever I suspect the boys come off the worse. Afterall many people have said they have bought space/pirates for girls but who is stepping up to the plate to buy the beauty parlour for their DS?

If you think this is a non-issue and that people just buy what their kids want then you should have seen the thread a few months back when a mum was asking if it was okay to buy her son the pram he had requested for his birthday.

The responses were about 50:50. So apparently half of the people expressing an opinion dont think its okay to buy your child the toy they want and instead think you should buy them only the toys decreed by toy makers to be 'suitable' for their gender.