To really dislike the Lego Friends figures?

[LegoAcquaintance]

DD has just written her Christmas list, and has put "Lego Frainds" on it.

I will probably buy some for her, I don't want to be one of those mums who is all principled about toys, and make my child miss out amongst her peers, and in general I really like Lego and think it's a great toy.

But AIBU to absolutely hate the little figures?

I don't really mind the fact that it's marketed at girls.

I don't really mind the fact that it has lots of pink and purple bricks - it's nice to have some different colours in the collection, after all.

I don't mind the subject matter of the sets - shops, cafes, schools, jungle adventure, holidays, professions (albeit slightly stereotypical female professions). I would have liked that as a child playing with Lego, I think.

But the figures, WHY? Why are they taller and thinner than the normal, iconic lego figures, and why have they got natural coloured skin - they should be YELLOW! And why are most of them wearing mini skirts? It just makes it more separate from all the other Lego sets you can get, and makes me not want to buy it.

I mean, FFS, the little yellow lego person is absolutely iconic. Why did they need to design a new one???

Really, Tunip? Because it looks like the Friends figures are too tall to sit in the Lego City vehicles - I always find the roof is pretty close to the head of even the standard minifigures. And the friends ones don't look like they can "stick" onto a lego brick, or seat when they are sitting down either.

If they can, I'll be a bit happier about buying them.

I used to have Lego Fabuland as a kid, which was loads of animals and hpuse sets and things. It was the 80s, and I don't think things were quite as gendered then - it was all primary coloured, wasn't it? Luckily my whole family never throws things away so my DC also play wih Fabuland, as well as normal Lego.im glad that my DD has never asked for Lego Friends as I'd not want to buy it for the reasons stated in this thread. I did buy a bunch of pink and purple bricks however, and those definitely do seem to be favoured by DD.

Ds has lego chima and has started watching the lego ninjago cartoons and I am pleasantly surprised at how little fighting there is. In the one he watched the other day the moral of the story was "the best way to defeat your enemies is to make them your friends" which I thought was lovely

I can't say it really bothers me. There's nothing on the boxes to say "This Lego is for girls only" or "This Lego is for boys only". They've just expanded the catalogue to include a more diverse range of interests and colours. You are the one labelling it a girls' only toy.

I am very much anti-anti-pink tho. I think extremism at either end of he gender stereotype debate is equally as damaging. Pink and dolls are no more and no less worthy as choices than blue and footballs are.

I like them, my daughter has a lot of the Lego Friends Jungle bits and pieces on her birthday/Christmas lists. They fit in other Lego bits and pieces we have. The figures are also from different ethnic backgrounds, I like the way you can take the heads off and attach them to different bodies. They're a great size to use in Sylvanian Family accessories and they work well with the Playmobil stuff we have. One of my daughters also shares the same name as one of the characters and she loves that.

I agree with TunipTheUnconquerable.

The lego Friends figures do fit into the Lego City vehicles - I have just tested this out! The friends figure sits comfortably in the Lego police car, although she does not have the holes on the tops of her legs to fix her into place.

My children play with the Lego friends figures and the classic minifigures altogether.

Stealth: Ds2 loves watching chima and ninjago too. The lego sets for them do tend to be very much focused around fighting though. Weirdly, the chima ones are probably more battle focused than the ninjago ones. If they're not speedorz (or legend beasts) they seem to be focused around the weapons for attacking and defending things.

I don't really understand it, as there's so much more in the chima and ninjago worlds that could make great sets. The gorilla forest could be a really cool set, with the little houses in the seed pods. And the tower flowers would also make a cool set. Instead we get the gorilla striker.

Saucy - Lego do claim they have separate boys and girls ranges in marketing materials, and have a 'girls' section on their website. Plus they only show boys playing with standard Lego and girls with Friends in my experience.
Lots of different versions marketed in an inclusive way would be ok IMO.

OP, YANBU. I hate the friends too (again I don't really mind the sets, though can't see why they couldn't be part of the normal range. But hate the body shapes and won't buy them myself (my kids do have some, because my DM is on a single-woman mission to undermine my reluctance to have disney-princesses/needlessly girly stuff in the house, but I won't buy it). We have lots of 'normal' lego too.

LegoAcquaintance - I wouldn't be surprised if Lego friends didn't fit in some of the vehicles, but in our house things tend to be built properly once then the bits just go into the general box and they're used again in a more freeform way (I thought that was how everyone plays with Lego?!).

What I find bizarre is how nobody ever made a fuss about the fact that most Lego in the few years before Lego Friends was targeted clearly at boys (blue boxes, preponderance of male figures, boys shown on in dominant position on boxes, located in boy areas of toyshops), and yet now there's something that's targeted at girls people are up in arms about it. I think this is not unconnected to the fact that we are so used to having the male seen as the norm in all kinds of areas, that we mostly don't even notice it. My dd is playing more with 'boy-themed' Lego as a result of having Lego Friends - previously she would have said Lego was a boys' toy but Lego Friends has very successfully disrupted that assumption.

I don't like the figures either.

I detest them. They have lollipop heads and their torsos and limbs are stick thin, noticeably so compared with standard Lego cgaracters. I can live with the whole twee-ness of them, but I am offended the toys marketed at my 5 year old daughter are so size focused.

I get why this bothers you. It is creating a defined separation between what is for boys and what is for girls and it does seem a bit of a shame.

However - I know that if Lego Friends had existed when I was little I would have lapped it up :(

I don't have DDs but find the idea of 'girls' Lego' really depressing. I completely loved Lego as a child and would've hated Lego Friends even then - I wasn't remotely girly and adored pirate Lego and space Lego.

Yanbu, at all. It's sexist shit .

What turnip said at 12.00!

People who moan about this sort of thing are the type who like their boys to wear tutus and pink feathers but their girl? oh no, she can't, she needs a stick and a light sabre.
weird

The lego feiends stuff dd has is not overly pink and she loves it, although plays more with the little animals than with the girls. She is great at building animal habitats and it's great for imaginative play. I can see what you mean but perhaps if they had gone less down the male superhero/fighting route witg the regular lego then they wouldn't have had to come up with lego friends.

Btw I loved the forts and pirate ship sets when I was a kid!

Yanbu. My mil was just 2 minutes ago complaining about the 'sexualised' figures in these sets. I haven't seen them but I'm sure I'd agree. Mumsnet campaign?

Daddy pig I take issue with you there. I'm all for my dd dressing up and playing with anything she fancies, and my ds too, but I think this is thin end of the wedge stuff. Lego has existed for years in its classic format, with fantastic, imaginative variations on themes, but my objection to the friends lego is that I see it as yet another bit of female body conditioning, yet another division between 'boys' and 'girls' toys, and I think it contributes to the pinkification of everything, despite people saying they don't mind the colours.

You might think I'm mad (fair play), but when I look at those bloody stupid female figures, I see the controllers of society and industry conspiring to keep us in thrall to photoshopped or plastic-moulded ideas of beauty and femininity. Their ideas and ideals, not mine.

My dd quite likes them though

I'm off for a lie down.

I loved lego Fabuland - the stuff with the small figures with animal heads
something like that would be universal and fantasy oriented

But toys change and develop over time. If they didn't all our children would be playing with gender neutral abacuses, abucai?

I grew up with lego and I'm an engineer and it really really annoys me that Lego has gone so BOY and now...a bit for GIRLS, like they are different species.

DD has inherited ALL my technical lego and all the space lego I had as a child and she knows I won't buy Friends lego over my dead body.

I think it is truly damaging for children to think boy and girl are very very different, when actually people are more similar than different and being able to play with lego is not linked to a chromosome. The really pernicious thing is when children are indirectly told there must be something "wrong" with them if a girl plays with a toy designated for boys and vv.

Like boys are never going to go shopping or have kids...? Really, they are all going to grow up into ninjas?
I wonder why girls get toys that tell them what to be as adults while boys get out and out fantasy stuff.

Rant over...

Hear hear Miggsie.

I thought at first you said you were a lego engineer though. Now I've read it properly, I have to say I'm disappointed

Totally agree with your post miggsie!

Yy to mumsnet campaign.