LEGO Friends - LEGO & Gender Part 1

Watch Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe65EGkB9kA

For more information, links and a full transcripts visit http://www.FeministFrequency.com

LEGO announced that after 4 years of intensive research, they have finally come up with a LEGO product that fulfills the desires of "how girls naturally build and play." This new theme is called LEGO Friends and it's a pink and purple, gender segregated, suburban wasteland populated by Barbie/Bratz style dolls. Many parents, educators, feminists, and media critics have spoken out against LEGOs attempts to separate girls into their own stereotypical isolated enclave within the LEGO universe.

In part 1 of my two part LEGO and Gender series, I'll explore how LEGO went terribly wrong with LEGO Friends and provide a brief history of LEGO's ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls since the late 70's. In part 2 I'll delve into LEGO's intentional strategy to market almost exclusively to boys since the mid 80's by developing and marketing sets that are male identified and male centered. In conclusion, I'll offer LEGO a couple of suggestions that they can consider when creating and marketing new products.

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Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• LEGO Friends
• Heartlake City
• LEGO
• Feminism
• Feminist
• Gender
• Toys
• Minifigs
• LEGO Group
• LEGO House
• Stereotyping
• Gendered Toys

[FizzyMcPhysics]

It's funny that just before this media storm broke I had a bit of a revelation; I was in a Lego shop where they have a stand full of bits of Minifigs. You could make your own and buy them. An assistant (female) told me that recently that had run out of the girl (red mouthed) heads. That's when it hit me! Girls just want more female characters in the sets! If half of the heads were female, or had female faces on one side (there are double sided heads these days) girls would show more interest!

[feministfrequency]

@FizzyMcPhysics I just had that same experience at the LEGO store, I was searching for female heads and the person working there told me they were all sold out. Clearly there is a desire for more female minifigs (in the traditional minifig style).

[loewenzahn]

Urgh! It drives me mad! The wonderful thing about LEGO when I was a kid (and it was my favourite toy EVAR) was that it was so versatile. Because it was literally JUST BRICKS. You could do anything with it. And no one told us what or how to build and how to play with it.

[PatrickLevell]

When I was a kid, my parents frowned upon gender-specific toys for my sister & me. No guns or Tonka trucks for me, and no baking or tea sets for my sister. Lego was fantastic. In the early days, the building blocks were pretty basic. As manufacturing costs came down, more specialized Lego sets came out.  I have definitely noticed the trend of more violent Lego sets. Disappointing. Thanks for the video! I will definitely be letting Lego know that I disapprove.

[MitholX]

I loved my Hogwarts castle, and all my Legos. The lack of female minifigs didn't bother me. But then, I was a child, and I also basically wanted to BE a boy. A desire pretty much born from the fact that boys toys were cooler and more fun, as were boys activities and boys clothes. I grew out of that desire after my parents sent me to an all girls school because I was getting beaten up by the boys at kinder for trying to play with them.

[aspirateur]

The Paradisa range co-incided with my childhood and I had a few sets from it. I also had a few from the regular (apparently) boys range. I honestly never realised the difference till you pointed it out. Playing with them was essentially the same - lots of little pieces; minifigures; instructions for one design; pictures of other designs for inspiration. The central idea was building and creating, and the complexity was identical to non-paradisa sets. Why on earth did they ever scrap that?

[DeeForDisaster]

This video and especially part 2 of it, encouraged me to write to Lego about the issue which I am doing now and while one email may not grab their attention, I'm sure receiving many emails (or letters or phone calls, whichever you find more effective) will. So I hope everyone will do the same to bring back the gender-neutral Lego bricks that the new generation of kids should experience like we did, rather than having the male-oriented sets imposed on them.

[DrShaym]

My Little Lego: Purple is Magic.

[smooveau]

Lego friends what a joke! Boys go to cafes and have friends too!

[Kyrmana]

I remember remember Belville :D Always played with the animals instead of the dolls.

[TurqouiseTapioca]

oh my gosh, i remember clickits. i had the set when i was like, eight... wow

[YourDarkAccomplice]

What bothers me about "female lego heads" is that all women/girls/etc don't wear red lipstick.. I feel like I did when I would watch 90s cartoons (where the female characters always had a HUGE pink bow or high heels.. so they couldn't do much. just cause she was "female.") XD

But I guess right now, we'll take what we can get, right? >.> I just wish there was a more expanded meaning to being "female." Than just "figure/lipstick/makeup." Sounds like a strictly hetero male's perspective of female.

[bobdeath94]

It bothers me that 95% of my minifigs are male, I've always wanted more female minifigs. LEGO is better in it's high end modular line in terms of gender equality, as these sets are not aimed at children like other LEGO products, LEGO would struggle to successfully apply gender to them without destroying the appeal of the sets and thus the figures included are a fairly even mix of male and female. it's a shame they feel this approach is inappropriate for children.