How did Lego become a gender battleground

[AmperZand]

Yup, women's right to vote sure was a regretable feminist achievement. Every woman I know feel very unhappy about that. Amongst other things.

Your understanding of the timeline of Feminism is incorrect. The hypothesis I referred to was put forward much later than the movement for universal adult suffrage.

[Blondie-Wan]

You're right. Friends is not for everyone. It is for little girls, not feminists who want to turn other people's little girls into men.

Feminists don't want that at all. So many people have no idea what feminism actually is or what it's about.

[TheLegGodt]

Without going into heated discussions where everyone is telling each other what fenimism is or isn't, here's a quote from myself about the Research Institute:

Built this set this evening with my 7 year old daughter. She already has a very anaytical mind and is an independent thinker. She ended exclaiming she wanted to be a scientest too when she is older. I think tihis is a testomony to the original designer and TLG! And yes, she also plays with Friends and Princess LEGO so imagine my relief that her mind had not been poisoned by all those pinks and purples haha! Diversity rules!

[MAB]

On a personal note with this, I find it bad form when LEGO Ideas is being used as a platform to pander to it. I could put up a project in which the disabled, lesbian astronaut from an ethnic minority conducts a peace mission for NASA and get support - this upsets me because it means the supporters are thinking more on social values than project build quality or idea potential.

That is what is happening more and more on lego ideas now. For example, this idea ...

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/74539

has been featured on a number of blogs recently, for example:

http://thefamilybric...ry-exploration/

http://nerdapproved....xploration-set/

There is very little discussion about the set. The whole focus of it seems to be a female in a non-confrontational space role, although she is about to mine alien planets for their minerals. I reckon it would have only half that number of votes if the head was a male one.

Edited August 12, 2014 by MAB

[TheLegGodt]

That is what is happening more and more on lego ideas now. For example, this idea ...

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/74539

has been featured on a number of blogs recently, for example:

http://thefamilybric...ry-exploration/

http://nerdapproved....xploration-set/

There is very little discussion about the set. The whole focus of it seems to be a female in a non-confrontational space role, although she is about to mine alien planets for their minerals. I reckon it would have only half that number of votes if the head was a male one.

This is so true. Let us enjoy our wonderfully fun hobby that lets us be little kids again rather than get all lofty, arty farty and moralistic - boring!

[ummester]

That Idea was one of the one's that came to my attention.

Personally, I think it is well enough constructed and don't care if it has a male or female protagonist - but I will not support it because it is pandering. If it just had the female astronaut standing there - without creating a fuss about the choice - I would definitely support it.

[fred67]

I would neither support, nor buy that set if it were made, but I did support and did by the Research Institute because it was a good set. It didn't matter one whit to me that it was designed to feature women - a woman made it, and if a guy made it he'd probably make it with male scientists (probably being the operative word, there). That they made a point to use women didn't really matter to me, although I also do not like the idea that feminists (and their male apologist counterparts) would support such a set solely to push an agenda. I think the fact it sold out so fast is testament to the notion that people just thought it was a good set... I think, even if they planned on buying it, it was LEGO fans that made it sell out on day 1. (there's also the conspiracy theory that TLG made a very restricted number of them just to make it look that way; I wouldn't be surprised either way, but I'm leaning against that theory)

[ummester]

The dino skeleton in Research Institute looks nice fred67, though the original idea was designed around an agenda. As a matter of comparison, an idea I recently supported is here:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/74885

This one also features a female paleontologist, though doesn't draw attention to the fact. It could be subtle pandering, who knows - though, if you read the creator's comments and comments they have passed on other dino builds, it seems they are primarily trying to design an accurate representation of dino skeletons, to get kids interested in museums.

[MAB]

I would neither support, nor buy that set if it were made, but I did support and did by the Research Institute because it was a good set. It didn't matter one whit to me that it was designed to feature women - a woman made it, and if a guy made it he'd probably make it with male scientists (probably being the operative word, there).

You didn't support the Research Institute. You supported the Female Minifigure Set.

There were a number of different scenes in the original submission, three of them happened to be science based. The whole point of the submission was not the Research Institute, it was the female minifigs.

[fred67]

If you say so, I guess I'm a closet feminist.