to be MAD about bloody Lego Friends airport, where the pilot is a MAN.

[changeshow]

Got Lego Catalogue today. Looking through at all the exciting and colourful stuff for boys. Got to the Lego Friends page. Looking at the nice plane, check the figures.........

FLIGHT ATTENDANT SANDRA and PILOT DAVID. WTAF! Why is the pilot a bloke?!

Did no one at Lego has the wit to say 'errr women can be pilots'?

AIBU to be seriously unimpressed by this? Makes me bloody cross.

My son loves Lego Friends. I feel really conflicted as I do think it's a ridiculous product but equally I don't want to insist that he can't play with 'girls' things. He does mix and match with traditional lego though so I just let him get on with it. He also joins up Elsa and Anna figures with Dr Who. The Lego friends gender role message is disconcerting all the same.

I don't think you can swap the heads on the friends figures? They're not like normal Lego people

In any case, swapping the heads isn't the point!

My DD plays with Lego Superheroes, Lego City and Lego Friends. My DS plays with Lego Superheroes, Lego Starwars and Lego Friends. Lego Friends is not just for girls and the other Lego sets are not just for boys.

I guess the old style lego people would be considered too fat for lego friends!

They do have some great pick and mix ordinary female lego figures in the big lego stores (in America anyway) we got a great goth looking girl figure.

Why don't you go for the Heartlake Private Jet instead then, where Olivia flies the plane and Matthew is the passenger? Or I seem to recall an earlier set where Stephanie was having flying lessons. Plenty of other sets to choose from.

Or you can just switch the heads, as others have said! No need to be constrained by the catalogue blurb.

...as are the minimising replies here. Jesus fucking Christ.

Some people believe it is a non issue. Of all the things to make a fuss over for the sake of feminism, I wouldn't choose a male Lego pilot as an important issue.

Britta - quite, women are defending this shit.

Sally Ride (first American woman in space) said something like "you can't be what you can't see". There are few women pilots, not because women aren't capable, but because it's not held up as an option for women and there are few role models.

I remember getting a sindy hospital as a little girl and it came with a sindy in a nurses' uniform. Even as a kid I thought "fuck this" (or the 8 year old equivalent) "my sindy is being a doctor". Nothing wrong with being a nurse, but being a doctor is higher status and pays more. Why wouldn't we encourage our daughters to aspire to this?

Yabu. Seriously calm down.

The LEGO Friends are a group of 5 very different and very talented girls living in Heartlake City. Your girls can build and expand their own Heartlake City with colorful bricks, dozens of new details and never before seen mini-doll figures

Taken from the Lego website. I fucking kid you not.

the point, for the hard of brain is that Lego Friends is aimed at girls. But the most complicated job type in the 'girls' type Lego is NOT A GIRL.

NOT A GIRL, in the girl's Lego.

See what they did there. Gave the tricky job to a man.

I think you should start a petition.

The majority of pilots are men and I think the majority of flight attendants are female.

twinkie this stuff matters, and it is so easy to fix. Every time this happens girls and boys get the message that women and girls proper place is in lower status, less interesting and technical work. It all matters, get internalised and adds up.

Why do you think there are so few girls studying STEM subjects?

I totally agree with you op. My DW is a pilot. She was the first female captain ever in her country of birth. She would find this absolutely pathetic. Swapping the heads is not the point at all.

I think the problem is that the names them Sandra and David and by doing so gave them a gender. If the had just included one person with short hair and one with long hair I would have been fine with it as both genders can have long or short hair.

and no, in the world with FGM, pro-lifers and a gender pay gap in the UK of 23% it's not 'important'.

But this: Sally Ride (first American woman in space) said something like "you can't be what you can't see". There are few women pilots, not because women aren't capable, but because it's not held up as an option for women and there are few role models.

If you have daughters you need to think about this shit.

And a lot of girls like the pink Lego. It is making a toy mostly seen as a boy toy more attractive to girls. What's wrong with that?

So what?

But it IS an important issue! It reinforces the stereotype when there is a fantastic opportunity to do the opposite.

To repost what I said earlier on the other thread;

Statistics from The Women's Engineering Society

Only 6% of the engineering workforce in the UK is female

Only 5.5% of engineering professionals are female and only 27% of engineering and science technicians are female

Only 5.3% of women in the UK are involved in SET compared with 33% of men

Nearly half (46%) of all co-ed secondary state schools sent no girls on to do physics at A level in 2011

In 2012 nearly 4 out of 5 (79%) of those who took A level physics were male

Only about half (51%) of female STEM graduates actually go on to work in STEM roles, compared with over two thirds (68%) of male STEM graduates

In 2011, men were awarded 85% of engineering and technology degrees and 82% of computer science degrees

In the same year, 83% medical degrees and 79% of veterinary science degrees went to women

I'm not saying that the lack of Women in Engineering and STEM generally is attributable to pink Lego, but I'm sure it doesn't help. So why encourage it?

The majority of pilots are men and I think the majority of flight attendants are female.

Yes, that's the problem.

bastards

What *twinkle& said.

In my mind, I didn't minimise. Nor am I "hard of brain"

Email the CEO if you feel so outraged by it. By the by, don't I recall there being a LEGO female scientist?

It is an important issue. Play is where children firm and test the real world, try out roles and emotions, put themselves in someone else's shoes.