Lego - how depressing

I've been thinking about this recently. My first reaction to seeing lego friends advertised was that it looked quite good. It was an advert for a house; I can remember building lots of lego houses and town as a child and there don't seem to be very many kits of that type around.

However, thinking about it more, I find the pink and lilac bricks a bit depressing. Houses aren't that colour for a start. Also, whenever ds2 sees it, he says, "that's lego for girls." (He seems to say that type of thing a lot whereas ds1 has never said anything like that. ) I think lego has been marketed as a "boys' toy" and the manufacturers are trying to widen their customer base by providing something which they can market at girls. Obviously it reflects ideas current in society.

Incidentally, you can still buy boxes of bricks. Ds2 had 2 for Christmas. They seem to be for a younger age group - 4+ - whilst the kits are 5/6/7+. If you look at the photo a pp linked to, the advert said age 3-7 or 4-7, I think. Perhaps lego started to market kits at an older age group at some point. I certainly don't remember playing with lego once I had passed 7 or 8.

The lego figures change all the time too. When I was very young, lego people were very different. When the little, mini-figure type came in, there were male and female ones. The female ones had sort of long hair.

Overall, I'm not sure what my opinion is . Apparantly lego spent years researching the market. Perhaps a wider range of lego is good, but I don't see why it needs to be all pink and purple.

Maybe they're not in the shops (which is a shame, to be sure) but surely you can still get anything and everything from the website?

Well I don't know, it doesn't seem that bad to me. They look inoffensive, Lego have done lots of research, and I'd happily give them to my kids. What's wrong with a beauty parlour? If it appeals to some kids, great. For those really interested in space, etc., I dont think a blue box will put them off. I would like to see such toys mixed up on the shelves though (perhaps an issue for the shop rather than Lego), and more female figures in all ranges, and more girls in the adverts.

Our girls should be raised in the awareness that they can do whatever they want when they grow up, but that shouldn't be achieved by denying them certain toys if they happen to appeal. I also think we might be overestimating the effect toys have on adult decisions. I hated Lego, played constantly with my dolls, and ended up studying Engineering .

And, I too wish Lego had not moved from basic bricks and imagination to prescriptive, character-based sets.

But you can still buy basic bricks, surely - you don't have to buy any of the prescriptive stuff. And even then - my DD has a few Bellville sets in among her basic bricks and 'gadgety' bits but she doesn't use them in any 'prescribed' way.

Ha ha Isla - as I recall her name was Anita! Yes, tartan flares, omg!

I also noticed the little boy at the front on the right wearing what seems to be a (gasp) pink shirt - although it could have been a faded red shirt of course.

It would actually be great if in the push to reuse, reduce and recycle in these difficult economic times, folks would stop buying into all that gendering in children's clothing, toys and activities.

That photo's brilliant KRITIQ. The child on the far right (I don't know if it's a boy or girl!) is probably wearing hand-me-downs and looks a bit like a Bay City Roller. Especially with the way the hair is captured just at that second so it looks like a side burn

I wonder if the age of austerity that's supposedly coming will see more hand-me downs and less gendering. We won't be buying twice, once for each gender - we'll be buying once and making it last.

Cynical me - I think alot of it IS about hoping to make double profits by selling two lots of toys, games, clothes, etc. to families that have both boys and girls - and having no sense of social responsibility in doing so.

Although there have been significant gains in terms of gender equality in the past 30 or 40 years, there does seem to have been that worrying shift to strict gender demarcation in toys, games, clothing, activities and even attitudes in the past 10 years or so. What worries me is the impact this will have on children's lives, relationships and society in general in the future. It's like a gender apartheid of sorts.

The old LEGO advert made me a bit dewy eyed, thinking back to what it was like when I was little. I honestly don't think it's just a rose coloured glasses thing. Here's a photo of a summer "playgroup" I attended circa summer 1975 (same year the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in the UK!). Seriously, can you imagine any group of children dressing in such a unisex manner today?

This is how they used to advertise lego a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/397445_10150440365398303_9171233302_8853826_2146337768_n.jpg

What a shame they were more progressive 30 years ago than today

Hi SnowyEyed

I see your point re: the minifigures not being particularly gendered, but when I was counting the numbers of male and female figures (God, I need to get a life) I was using the official minifigures.lego.com website, where there's a little blurb about each of the characters. The ones I called 'male' were the ones referred to as 'he', and the ones I called female were the ones referred to as 'she'. All the ones referred to as 'she' did have different facial features, like shaped eyebrows, lashes and more prominent eyes.

It wasn't based on my own perception of male and female roles, clothing, appearance etc.

These are the figures put out in the last five years, again, the time period when Lego itself acknowledges that they were marketing for boys. I remember loving the minifigures as a kid, when my brother and I were Lego obsessives, and they were all identical, plain :) faces. I agree that the classic yellow Lego head doesn't look like one or the other, and there's no reason that kids can't play with it as a female character. But sadly that's not because Lego is trying to be gender-neutral or inclusive. Most of them don't look like that anymore; they've either got five o'clock shadow, or eyeshadow and lipstick to indicate which gender they are.

There are a handful of non-human figures (robots, aliens) that don't look particularly male or female, but these too are referred to on the Lego website as 'he'.

I'm afraid that the introduction of these new, different-looking, differently-shaped, skinnier figures to represent the females is going to mean that the blocky, classic, normal version is now going to be used for male figures only. I'm curious to see whether the new shape will be phased in for female figures outside the 'Friends' series.

Yes I agree, i think it is fairly difficult to 'tell' the gender or ethnicity of a yellow lego head....a bit like this

I am sure I read somwehere that lego said it was a policy decision not to have specific different ethnicities to their minifigs, unless they were specifically meant to represent particular actual people.

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.

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

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.

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.

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"

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!

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