LEGO has been around longer than Kim Kardashian but critics are suggesting the company is doing more damage to little girls’ minds than the nuptially-challenged, sex-tape-making reality star.
Seriously? Is that even possible?
IF THIS OFFENDS YOU.. GOOD! IT SHOULD! OUR DAUGHTERS LOOK UP TO THIS HOSEBAG!
Here’s the problem in a nutshell..
- 1932: Ole Kirk Christiansen, a toy maker from Billund, Denmark sets out to entertain children everywhere – and to avoid starvation.
- 1934: his company comes to be called “LEGO”, from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means “play-well”.
- 1947: The company expanded to producing plastic toys
- 1949: Lego began producing the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them “Automatic Binding Bricks”. These bricks were based largely on the patent of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were released in the United Kingdom in 1947. No wonder I’ve never heard of Kiddicraft. Beware of imitators kids; if they can up the ante on you, you’re dead!
Fast forward to the here and now – I’m skipping A LOT I know, but we have to get to the point sometime – and the world has changed. As a company LEGO is a powerhouse; largely due to their Star Wars playsets. But they’ve always been missing a MAJOR segment of the market.
Namely, those with two “X” chromosomes.
A petition on the website Change.org, started by Bailey Shoemaker Richards and Stephanie Cole of the SPARK Movement, a girl-fueled activist movement to demand an end to the sexualization of women and girls in media, condemned the sets and claimed that LEGO was “selling out to girls.” So far more than 36,000 people have signed the petition.
Selling out? How does a company sellout? They’re in business to make money, people!
I understand the concerns being voiced here
-
LEGO Friends features five revamped Lego figurines – complete with budding bosoms and online personalities.
-
The playsets include an inventor’s workshop and a design school alongside a bakery and a pool, something critics suggest give in to gender stereotypes and aren’t as construction focused.
-
Half the fun of LEGO is the construction phase, which kids fully control – you can build ANYTHING your mind can conceive – but the new sets feature pre-assembled components.
This entire situation may indeed be a non-issue; how much harm can these toys do compared to “role models” like Kardashian and her brain-damaged family? Then again, I’m hardly qualified to assess the long-term effects, if any, of these toys.
Approaching this issue as a male, I can only offer views based on my own experiences; I spent hours playing with LEGO but that’s because I had to actually build my creations! Kids – regardless of gender – need constant mental stimulation and LEGO can provide that.
Old school LEGO, that is.
Related articles
- Hey Anti-Lego Feminists, Lego For Girls Actually Kicks Ass (gizmodo.com.au)
- Are the New LEGO Friends for Girls Sexist? (inhabitat.com)
- Lego Marvel makes minifigs of The Avengers movie (pocket-lint.com)
These are obviously not the Legos I knew a LONG time ago. Play is becoming more and more structured. Where is the imagination and inventiveness in play for kids with this stuff?
My sentiments exactly!
Yesssssss!!!!!!!!!! And this is happening not only with LEGO, I think….. One of the important “toys” of my childhood was just “imagination”, but today children are never encouraged to play with that….
Very true, my new friend!
I remember when I played with Lego as a kid and it just came in the blocks with the red tile thingies peices where you could make roof tops or a slide with them. That was pretty much it.
My sisters and I LOVED it!!!!
But then we got the space ship one.
And I was hooked. My sisters hated them. I have always loved puzzles. And that’s how I saw them. You got something like 500peices and you had to attempt to follow the instructions and just jerry-rig it to make it all work. Used a lot of brain power. That was neat.
I got turned off Lego when they stopped being challenging. Took up 3D puzzles instead.
I agree with you here where you have the lack of thinking peices for the double x’s. But when you think of it and you get that floosey Barbie and all her accessories… it’s basically the same thing.
Shiny thingies, flashy everything…. and now Lego’s just jumped on the band wagon of that downward spiral.
Imagination is not key, creativity has been tossed out the window. Parents don’t want to listen to their kids asking them for help putting something together, kids see this sort of stuff on the TV and they want it. It sucks… but this is how it is now. Kids, teens and adults no longer want to be challenged or have to use their brains.
And yes, kids regardless of gender DO need mental, imaginative/creative stimulation. These are traits that are being weeded out of children because they are living in the instant gratification society.
Have fun at work!!!!
My kids always follow the instructions at first , but later break it down and build their own stuff. We, myself included, spent 2 hours on the floor last night.
My kids were making robots by mixing body parts from the “body shop” we made. Later they created a graduation ceremony. Just because something starts out as someone else’s idea, doesn’t mean it can’t be a springboard for a million other ideas.
Very true…
Wow! What a fantastic, intelligent comment, Woman! Am I ever glad our paths crossed!
I love legos. My boys room is covered in them and his 5 year old sister will only play with him if she gets to be a girl. We just got her a Lego friends set and it is so cute.
Lego has been doing surveys for the past year over what customers would like to see next (I keep up with all the Lego news). Many people, myself included voted for more sets for girls. If people were going to throw a fit, they should have done it about the lack of girl themed Lego sets before the Friend sets came out. Boys and girls are different and like different things. Get over it feminists!
Well said, Hobbler!
I agree with woman. These sets don’t appear to be any different than any other toy on the market aimed at that particular demographic.
I don’t get what they’re objected to. What is their problem with these sets?
They feel the sets are too simple and they lower girls’ self-esteem.
When I was a kid, I loved playing with Legos and I remember thinking the couple of clear blocks were really cool!….
Me too! Weird, right?
I think kids just have too many options. Too many toys and idols to look up to, but my point is that … I hope in the home, parents do not allow their children to look up to trash like K.K up there. My hope is that parents direct their child’s idolizing ways to a more positive role model. But Im not a parent, just an Auntie, that tried to protect my three angels from the evils of society as much as I can.
And you do a heck of a job, if I may say so!
I’m a girl who loves Legos. I never thought of them as a “gendered” toy to begin with, if I thought about things like that all. I don’t care so much about the colors, if kids want pink toys let them have pink toys, boys or girls. Who cares? But I agree with you that the pre-fab element is a no-no. Legos are for building. Sure, when you buy a set you expect to follow the instructions (the first time anyway) and get it to come out like the picture. Even that requires manual and mental dexterity and an ability to follow directions. Shame on you, Lego. Let the little ladies have tiny candy-sized blocks with which to amuse themselves!
You have a wonderful, down-to-earth way of looking at things, my friend!
haha are you sure you’re not a fan of Kim??
But anyways, I think anything that encourages kids be creative in their play is a good thing in this day and age. It’s about time girls get included in these types of toys – boys always had the better deal with toys that had them building roads, sky scrapers, conducting war, etc. Even if these girl version still perpetuate gender stereotypes that should be diminished, I think it totally does a lot more good than any level of bad!
Thanks for offering an opposing – and intelligent – viewpoint!
The only thing wrong here (aside from that skank at the top- why did you do that Hook??) is that Lego have pre-assembled some of the pieces. girls and boys will naturally err towards one side or the other. Sure girls will be tomboys and boys play with ‘girly’ things…. but I see no issue with this. Those spacemen need a home to come back to!
I’m a firm believer that girls these days have more issues because of their mothers telling them to not be girls and go do whatever the boys are doing – “because there’s no reason why you can’t”. Bah, let your kids be kids without dictating how they should play. Good on Lego for making something that the girly girls want to play with.
That skank is there to demonstrate… 1) Just how skanky she really is..
2) Just how far our kids’ standards have fallen…
Thanks for the cool viewpoint on this Lego situation, young lady!
I didn’t play with Legos much when I was a kid, I was more of a Hot Wheels guy myself. still and all….it’s amazing how much controversy there can be over a bunch of tiny plastic blocks that snap together.
That’s how I first felt about it!
I was a Barbie gal, but my brothers spent lots of time in Lego land and loved it. It is a scary thought that young women look up to the hosebag. Girls need to be girls. Happy and innocent.
That’s how I feel. Why can’t the Kardashians just go back under whatever rock they crawled out from?
Pingback: The Hook Balances The Scales – A Little! | You've Been Hooked!
Judging by what I’ve read here I would say the new sets are too simple and the kids will become bored very quickly with them. Maybe then they will ‘graduate’ to the old ones, who knows.
Let’s hope so…
It’s a bit depressing to see Lego go this extreme with the gendering of its toys. The figurines themselves are the worst bit. I know my younger cousins (both girls) enjoyed Legos before these new sets came along, and I doubt they will be interested in them. They both prefer the Harry Potter sets. At least those are complicated designs. These seem pretty basic and uninteresting. Though on some corners of the internet crafty Lego fanatics are already trying to find ways to used the specific pieces from these sets to make interesting models of their own.
They sure succeed in some cases, don’t they? I agree with you Aaron; these new sets are uninspiring.
Lego remains the ultimate “toy”. Surely addition of a more varied range will not take away from the older designs. Lego may also need to follow the demands of the “marketplace”.
Sometimes the marketplace gets it wrong though! Lego has always challenged young minds, not dumbed them down!
This is exactly how I feel about it. Lego’s big draw has been the fact that its product has treated kids as creative individuals, rather than simply consumers of a specific product. They still want to make money off that product (which is fine), but this seems like a step away from what makes their product so great.
That’s how most of us feel, Aaron.
Great post, Hook. Thanks for brining it to my attention. Interesting that this is still an issue and getting media attention in Feb. Hard to blame Lego as they must make a profit and sales have fallen(and there are several battles over who invented first and hold the copyright…a couple of “newer” US companies involved, too.) Legos are a great toy – and it would be a real loss to kids if the company stops. You notice the petition doesn’t target other major US companies who are just as guilty – at least Legos have some redeeming value…some of the others, questionable.
More colors the better, I think – then maybe it won’t be an issue. (didn’t that have lilac and Easter egg colors once?) Thanks for the Gizmoto link. Hope to link this post to mine. Once again Great job!
Once again, thank you!
I’m on the change.org emailing list and thank the gods I didn’t get that petition!!! I’m probably aging myself here, but I remember Tinker Toys and had more fun with them than anything. I too find it hard to understand why people like the 2 bio***es who started that petition even bother – they are certainly a few decades (at least) too late and are coming from the wrong place!!! yaay toys that kids (not girls, not boys, KIDS) like to PLAY with!!! and thanks for a great post which I found through philosophermouseofthehedge’s post. http://philosophermouseofthehedge.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/slap-that-sassy-pink/ good job, youse guys!!!
janet
Thanks for the input – and visit!