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 opinion is also just as valid as yours jassy.

I suspect that if I had dd not ds I would get pretty angsty about lego friends too

Will be interesting to see what happens with this generation of pink and blue kids - I hope they prove our concerns to be unfounded

lets all just wear grey or go naked but then there will be boobs, bushes and peni to contend with. Chop the lot off I say and be genderless

I'm not sure my opinion would have any validity at all were it to be completely undermined by facts or reality. It would certainly be my opinion, it would still objectively be wrong.

You say that aggressive questioning isn't really your style. I'd refer you to one you've asked:

What culture are we talking about here then Jassy? Tell me about your "culture".

Reads quite aggressively. Why the quote marks, if you weren't seeking to belittle what you perceived as my culture relative to yours, or if you weren't aiming to be aggressive or rude?

I'm rather unclear why you're on a discussion board if you're not interested in discussing things.

In the interests of full disclosure I have held many opinions that have been flat out wrong in the face of factual evidence. I'm sure I hold many more. I like to test the assumptions I'm aware of though. It's bloody interesting to understand the world better, for a start.

Maybe this is a symptom of my cultural inferiority, though. Sorry, 'cultural'.

crustaway it has got nothing to do with being genderless, as I think you know.

It's assuming what children will like, and want to be when they grow up, based on whether they have, or will have, "boobs, bushes and peni"

Hate to interrupt the banter but can you imagine why Lego might have retired this 'overwhelmingly popular' set.

I want one.

Oh get a grip.
Women have been able to take degrees and do other stuff for a very long while.
The only reason this is all a question at the moment is the 13 years of social engineering that happened in the UK.
FWIW 90% of male flight attendants are as bent as corkscrews and SERIOUS pilots are teetotal.
HTH

Stoop it took a long campaign to get that set made.

Oh well there's always this spa to replace it.

stoops, I got the very last normal-priced one on Amazon for a scientist friend's birthday. I go round to hers to play with it.

A bit telling that it was in the Ideas range wasn't it? Ie suggested and developed by lego users rather than the company...

Saw it for normal price before Christmas and didn't buy it. Absolutely gutted because it's at least twice the price now.

I could be completely anal and source the individual pieces.

Not anal. Resourceful.

Incidentally I'm sure I read somewhere that you can buy flat shoes for Barbie now, probably on mumsnet so it must be true. Hurrah.

I love that science set! Especially the angry cross eyed one. Her experiment has definitely been contaminated.

I want one to play with DD.

There are female lego pilots.
Pilot Penny was a firm favourite of our son when he was younger:

shop.lego.com/en-US/Let-s-Go-Vroom-6760

Re the private jet

It says here the pilot is called 'Matthew'.

www.toysrus.de/product/index.jsp?productId=47317651

But on the UK one 'Olivia' flies it

www.toysrus.co.uk/toys/lego-friends-heartlake-private-jet-41100-/0150665

The cruise ship Captain is also a man

www.lego.com/en-gb/friends/products/41015-dolphin-cruiser

"Steer the boat with Andrew and take the girls for a spin around Lighthouse Island!
"Get Mia and Maya ready for the party on the captain’s deck with a shower and some primping in the bathroom"

I had to click the link because I was convinced that you were taking the piss there DoughDoe, but no it really really says that the 'girls' should be doing some primping. It's all just incredibly grim.

As to what it's gradually doing to our children, well I expect to see more girls thinking they must be boys and vice versa. Why are we putting them into these stupid gender straightjackets?

So from some of the links people have posted we can see that lego sometimes has male pilots, and sometimes female pilots.

The OP can relax now.

What I just don't understand is that it isn't Barbie selling this. It's bloody Lego.

Why take a backwards step Lego? What the hell are you thinking??

The thing is Tiggy, there are hardly any male Lego Friends figures, but bring out a boat or plane that needs a pilot and lo and behold there's suddenly a male!

Attention minimisers. You're right. Of course it doesn't matter that Lego reinforce gender stereotypes. Girls will be girls after all. They're just 'naturally' drawn to make up, service and caring roles rather than to the technical, business or intellectual side of life. It doesn't matter that when they grow up they earn less than men, do more of the shit jobs, and are barely represented in board rooms or governments because, since the age of 3, they've been told that their job is to look pretty, drink coffee and get ready for parties. And maybe have a spa day when they want a treat.

We have equality legislation now so everything is ok right? If ordinary women encounter sexism in our culture they can just sue! It's really easy to do that. Can't see the problem.

(Sarcasm)

Aren't the mayority of pilots in real life men?

I fly about 4/5 times a year and have yet to encounter a female voice saying "this is your captain speaking"

So how many men 'in power' are there across their entire range? You can't really just look at one toy and say that all the key jobs are men. So far we've looked at 2 sets in their range and found one male and one female pilot. Seems reasonable to me.

And if there are hardly any male figures they need to make some more.

Yes bit these sets are pink and aimed at little girls.

Of Lego produced sets with an aircraft, properly liveried, with a 'crew' of men and women - well no problem. You could have one male and one female pilot.

But instead we have pink plane with female blonde flight crew and a male pilot in uniform.

I work in a similar organisation and I can tell it's tough fir those women performing traditionally male roles (not me, I'm too much of a house cat)

They have to be better than the men. There is still the perception from women that this is male territory.

It sucks. And those toys suck too.

The figures should represent the society they're sold in. Seeing women in jobs makes girls think that they might be able to do them too. Rather than giving up and going for a blow dry because it's clearly a male dominated industry.