Gah bloody sexist Lego Minifigures! <fume>

[MarineIguana]

Lego has these new little single figures out that you buy in a little foil packet - DS got one on a magazine.

Well we were reading lego club brochure thing today and it introduces you to 12 of these minifigure characters.

10 are men and 2 are women. The women are a nurse and a cheerleader. The others are all action-hero or active types - astronaut, caveman, cowboy, skateboarder etc etc - all things that could easily be female but none of them are.

W.T.F? what century are we in again? If you had told me about this and I hadn't seen it I would have said "nah that can't be right, toy companies are more enlightened than that these days, especially Lego". We have Lego pirates and I was glad to see there are female ones - or so I thought - maybe they're not, maybe they're actually meant to be passive wenches.

Honestly what hope is there?

THUNK

Someone said the other day why can Lego not make more girly lego, full stop - barbie lego would be very popular I'm sure.

But I think you're right about the minifigures, they really are very stereotypical. It's not fair is it.

I never really thought about it having boys.

found them here they are very cute but you are right about them being sexist.minifigures.lego.com/en-US/Default.aspx

grrrrr

I know more boys probably play with lego (though I loved it as a child myself and I was a girl) - but boys also need to be given the message that women don't just exist to look after men and cheer them on from the sidelines. Boys need to see female astronauts and boffins and male nurses etc.

There are so many sad threads on here about awful men ranging from the selfish, lazy and clueless to the downright abusive and dangerous, and women putting up with it, and this is where it starts. I really do think there is a link between that scenario and children learning that a woman's role is just to be supportive and caring.

Take the male head off and swap it with a female head.

Done.

Cowgirl, cavewoman etc.

they look male to me - no lego ponytail or freckles you see!

we bought three yesterday as it happens dd3 was almost in tears becuase hers wasn't a cheerleader (you can't see what you've got until you open them)

Eleanor we have this little leaflet about them and the 10 men are described as "he" and the two women as "she". I agree you could get creative with some of the figures themselves and say they were women though.

And put lady heads on them too!

the astronaut is called SPaceMAN

My dd1 loves lego, so do I.

Belville is the girly lego and it's crap.

but you can have lipstick under the helmet!

malovitt - we used to do that with our Playmobil in the days before the girl ones had all had breast implants.
One man + one woman = one woman with long hair and trousers and one woman with short hair and a skirt

I thought exactly the same. Although the nurse is holding a verrrry scary thermometer or something that you really wouldn't want inserted anywhere intimate.

it's an evil looking syringe!

She obviously wasn't allowed into space with this glam do then!

Oh - yes she was...

I don't actually think either male or female lego astronauts have any hair at all come to think of it

You want Lego with added cultural mysogeny?

[[http://www.thebricktestament.com/ Ta Da!!]

she has lipstick though.
If they hadn't feminised the nurse and the cheerleader quite so much it would have been easier to convince dcs that some of the others were actually women - as it is when they've so clearly gendered those two it's not going to be very convincing.

that's fab Slug!

Resurrecting to highlight the joy of the three female characters in Lego mini figures series 2 (out soon):

A Baywatch babe
A pink popstar

and an evil green witch

Arse

Witch

Bumped in case anyone else is bored and wants to be outraged.

Actually I am quite cross.

Still want the crash test dummy one though.

ds1 age 5 asked me when he got his, why are all nurses always ladies? I said, they're not, and that one is a lady doctor. Job done.

Oh, he also automatically thought the diver was a woman as I go scuba diving so, persevere ladies, there is hope for this generation of men ....

I do agree it is beyond irritating that we are still trying to overturn the automatic stereotyping and assumptions in 2010 - why i hate the ELC - the girls are still always nurses and boys doctors in the pictures

Don't let it spoil it, i still love Lego, especially the mini figs - we have all 16!

crash test dummy and robot pretty asexual I reckon.