Inclusive advertising Lego

[littlebillie]

Just spotted this on Twitter from 1981. Inclusive and refreshing advertising - respect to Lego for this

PaleGreen if you don't want the minidolls sell them. Many a Lego fan will happily take them off your hands. Some are worth quite a bit.

They were inclusive in the 70s too. Now, however ...

@Nellodee

Lego friends is more detailed and tends to have more wildlife themes. Hidden side is also good. Lego elves was amazing. Personally, I find city very bland and not terribly imaginative. It’s important not to be biased against things because they are designed for females.

It’s not being biased against things because they’re designed for females. It’s being fucking fed up to the back teeth of the constant insistence that “feminine” themes are for females, and the incessant gendering of toys indoctrinating children into that way of thinking before they even realise it. It’s how we end up with the logic error “likes feminine things=must be female”.

Lego Friends featuring equal boy and girl characters and advertised with boys and girls playing with them, fab. Deciding that the main Lego line isn’t for girls so making a pink and purple one full of pets and popstars “for girls”, sucks. It’s not the colours and themes depicted that are the issue, it’s the labelling of those colours and themes as “for girls” that is the problem.

Don’t forget the Let Toys Be Toys campaign started on this board!

Personally I always enjoyed the city (hospital/police/fire station) stuff as a child, and the pirates theme! I was bought some pink/mint green “girl” lego, late 80s/early 90s, something to do with horses, but was dissatisfied with it as the colours made it look like the world was made of ice cream and it wasn’t right to my 8 year old eyes! I now collect massive modular buildings and one-off sets like the Women of NASA etc.

motogogo that's great that your daughter is an engineer. Although how old is she. Lego Friends has only been on the market for 9 years so if she is a fully qualified engineer now she was probably not the age that Friends is mostly aimed at when it was launched.

Cwenthryth science and tech, motor racing, sailing, sports, skateboarding, judo, flying planes, camping, journalism....these are just some of these things the Friends characters have done over their 9 years. Oh and one sells Hot Dogs. Are these particularly 'feminine'?

I love that ad! We have enough lego to sink a battleship but my 6 year old boy chose the lego friends ice cream van last time he was thinking the legs shop. I think the bright colours appeal to him

Also Cwenthryth in the 'main' Lego themes there are loads of female characters. The Fire Chief is female. Her name is Freya McCloud. Also I have never seen the words 'for boys only' on any Lego set ever.

And how do you know - from looking at the figure - that she is female?

Cwenthryth I know she is female because her that's her character. Her name is on the box.

Advertising from 2013. I think it's fantastic that more girls than ever are Lego fans. Friends has been such a success for Lego.

@toffeebutterpopcorn "I never wore pink as a child. I don’t think it was ever even offered"

Same here - it was regarded as a colour for babies and toddlers, along with 'baby blue' and soft yellow. My 'girlier' friends wore primary colours, polka dots, maybe peach accessories, but not pink: it was seen as infantile.

Great thing about Lego... Change the head, change the sex. Or even just the hair...

Friends could easily be improved with a few more male characters (there are some). Unfortunately you can't wind back the clock to make Lego friends be Minifigs. But you can't condemn a whole range just because of that.

Which is your favourite modular Cwenthryth? I like the Fire Brigade because to my mind it's the first having a proper execution but a close second is the Parisian Restaurant for its charm.

The only issue i have with lego friends is the dimensions of the characters, who have tiny waists. Why aren't they just normal minifigures?

I also think even just the name 'Lego Friends' just feeds into the stereotype that girls are always 'kind' and 'friends' and that pressure of having perfect relationships, that boys are just not subjected to as much. They can just do their own thing, be the hero etc.

My DD absolutely loves Lego Friends, but I can also see her starting to be socialised that way as well, with her 'BFF' at school, her 'gang' etc and it just feels like my DS just never had that pressure?

My mother was very into the idea of pink and blue, girls toys and boys toys. As a result, I think I was 4 the first time I said it wasn't fair and I hated pink

I played with my brother's Lego all the time anyway. And he played with dolls sometimes too - because we were similar ages and weren't just going to parallel play with the gendered toys that officially belonged to us.

I'm glad there wasn't special pinkified Lego back then. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much.

I played with Lego all the time as a child in the 80’s. Never once occurred to me it was a boys’ toy. All my friends liked Lego.

My DD has never enjoyed the Friends sets as you build them and then they are too static, not designed to be pulled apart and rebuilt in different ways. It’s just glorified model-building.

I had pink Lego in the 90s. I loved it as it was all mine and my brother couldn't touch it. Similarly, I couldn't touch his technic. The normal Lego was shared.

He used to borrow my plastic animals (puppy in my pocket) to use on his knex creations as they were perfect sized.
I played subbeuto with him when he needed an opponent.

So we shared and didn't share.
I have an Engineering degree. We were strongly encouraged in Maths and Sciences as children.

With regards to LEGO Friends, while it is all too pink and 'girly' for my tastes (never mind the minidolls replacing minifigures), I can't really condemn a company for taking the advice of their market researchers.

LEGO noticed that their share of the girls' market was very poor and did research to find why. The net result was a product which was much more 'girly' but which has been a commercial success.

fuelcycle.com/blog/market-research-done-right-how-market-research-gave-lego-a-facelift/

Effectively we have a chicken and egg problem. Girls are socialised to gravitate towards these sort of products. Even when parents do their best to raise their daughters in a more neutral way there are huge influences from friends/classmates and popular culture. If a toy company bathes its products in pink, it perpetuates this but if it instead only produces neutral products then they don't sell as well. How do we break this cycle? Both companies and parents need to be pulling in the same direction to change this strong culture.

This is a shame because the LEGO City range is full of female cops, firefighters, skateboarders and deep-sea divers.

My DD has never enjoyed the Friends sets as you build them and then they are too static, not designed to be pulled apart and rebuilt in different ways. It’s just glorified model-building

All lego can be pulled apart and rebuilt into something else, it simply requires imagination, and unless you buy creator 3 in 1 sets, which are still just model building from instructions, sets from all themes are single model only. Why single out friends?

But I've had to take out and bin the figures. They look emaciated next to normal lego people

Sorry but throwing them away is actually ridiculous. They just look like little figures. Children just see toys. Some prefer the mini dolls, some don't. What do think would happen to your child if allowed to play with them?

This is a shame because the LEGO City range is full of female cops, firefighters, skateboarders and deep-sea divers

Yes but isn't it funny how people cry about 'pink lego' yet don't seem to give a crap that city has always been in blue packaging and targeted at boys. Endless bloody police, fire stations, trains and construction. They might now add a few more female characters than they used to but still mainly aimed at boys.

Custardy I am baffled by what Friends sets you had that couldn't be rebuilt into something else. They ALL can be rebuilt. I will see if I can find a picture of one of my builds.

I feel the need to defend Lego friends. It has huge amounts of fairgrounds rides, safari adventures, robots, garages. Some girls like pink, others green or blue.

It also has characters with big hair and big eyes and tiny waists, short skirts and detailed little shoes. Characters that come apart in your hands when you try to play with them but that's ok, they're for girls so they don't need to DO anything, just sit there looking pretty . Even the bloody Lego Friends horses have big eyes and skinny legs and 'swooshy' manes with bows in them, rather than just being plain ordinary horses like they had back in the 90's. They weren't feminine enough apparently.

I also hate the other extreme they're gone to with the (insert macho American voiceover here) boys lego - all weapons and dark colours and angry faces. What's wrong with the little yellow figures and the open ended building possibilities from back in the day?

Here is one of my Friends builds. I built this from the parts from the Hot Dog Van and Emma's Art Studio.

ordinary horses like they had back in the 90s
What like this set?