Lego - how depressing

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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 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?

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.