Lego and the equality of the Sexes.

[harrysnapperorgans]

I just find this interesting. Lego seems to be primary promoted as a boy's toy. There has been the Beville and Clikit lines, which were designed for girls- but only younger ones . . .

The thing is, a lot of Lego relates to real life or history. Sets like town, western, castle, and even space could be enjoyed equally by girls and boys, men and women.

I think the one reason that less girls are into lego comes down to a basic thing. Minifigs.

I have around 50 minifigs. Of that number, I believe 5/6 are female figs.

That's a pretty poor ratio. And until recently, there hasn't been much variation in faces and hairpieces for female figs. (The Indy range has done wonders for this!)

Do you think that this puts females off Lego? And how could Lego attract more TFOLS and AFOLS?

And finally some of my favourite builders - Amy Hughes, Heather LEGOGIRL, Rita Starlings, Deborah Higdon-Leblond, Mandy Dee, Tânia Baixinho, and Stacy Sterling.

Not because they are female, just because I'm blown away by their attention to detail, designs, and incredible MOC'ing.

[DarthSion]

Its simple, Lego is a males toy, barbie is a female, lego certainly is doing well as it is, if it ain't broke don't fix it, lets face it there are a few female users here so it doesn't stop them from playing with lego, its just males are more likely to have big boys toys then females are.

[Commodore Hornbricker]

I for one would welcome the inclusion of more female minifigures and female minifigure pieces.

[lightningtiger]

You can say two groups cause this problem, one Lego themselves and the other, the parents/grandparents.

Lego think girls only like pretty pink things, that is true to a point. Although many a little girl wants to be Wendy from Bob The Builder instead of a fairy or a princess. Girls do like building with Lego, but they are not into the 'macho' trucks, cops and fire fighters. They like houses, shops, things to do with horses and other animals or even a goodlooking guy in a sports car, Belvile has touch on some of these themes, but their build is very TownJr (over basic).

Parents/grandparents guess at what the children like and rarely ask what they really want, especially when it comes to girls.

They assume girls always want Barbie, not always they would sometimes play with an RC car or build something over Barbie instead.

[Lord Admiral]

Lego has always been geared towards boys. Their forays into girl territory haven't done nearly as well. It's not entirely the company's fault. Socially, there's a lot of pressure on girls to play with more girly toys. Granted, the girl lines seem a little patronizing, so you can call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you'd like. But in the end, boys are the target demographic because they're the ones who buy (or ask their parents to buy) Lego.

That having been said, I know several female FOLs. I don't think they even see the regular minfigs as male. Minifigs, with a few exceptions, are mostly asexual. They can be male if you want (and that's a natural way for boys), or they can be female. Lipstick does not a woman minifig make. Granted, there are certain roles that are male-only (the king for example), and this reflects the male-orientation of Lego sets. But for minifigs that have helmets and no definite hairpiece, male, female, it's whatever you want to make it out to be.

Anecdotally, from what I understand, creator and modular town sets attract a larger percentage of women. But I could be wrong about that one.

[Peppermint_M]

We had a big conversation on this a few months back (but I cannot remember the name so I can't retrieve the thread).

Lego doesn't make very many "girly" sets or girl figures, society has an ingrained set of gender roles and associate dos and dont's for both so girls don't play with construction toys and boys don't play with dolls. As much as part of me hates to admit, many girls (despite the best efforts of radical femmenists) love pink and barbie and all those other things.

At the moment, girls who play with and buy/request Lego beyond pre-school Duplo or girly Lego are a real break from the norm (like me) but it is getting better as we go along because parents are becoming less rigid with gender roles.

That is all

[allanp]

Personally I don't think it has that much to do with target demographics and hardley anything to do with minifigures. I think it's just one of those things really. It's not sexist to say boys and girls are different and like different things. Whilst i'm sure Lego could do more to create sets that appeal to females I guess any amount of time and money spent doing so would create better results for Lego if they were to spend the same amount on males as they are generally more likely to find pleasure in building something (yes I know there are exceptions and that is a generalisation but it's true isn't it?). It is also true that males and females on average have differing levels of spacial awareness and many other things which also has a huge role to play in enjoying Lego products just for the fact that they are construction toys. There are some amazing FFOLs out there but it's hardley surprising that there isn't really enough.

[Erik Leppen]

It is a construction toy, that alone I think makes it appeal more to boys than to girls.

I think girls are more into social interaction, which playing with Lego doesn't offer equally good as some other toys, like, say, games (not necessarily computerized).

I wouldn't be surprised if the Lego Board Games series would appeal more to females than other Lego themes.

[lightningtiger]

Okay, hands up who is a parent of a primary school aged child, boy or girl.

Those like myself (I have a nine year old son) generally get a feeling what kids want, of course if we listen better then the divisions between boys and girls could get smaller. Of course there will always be girls playing with Barbie dolls and boys playing with Tonka trucks, but there are times when boys play with action figure dolls and girls build a house with construction bricks.

So there's more than one reason for this situation and to solve this problem maybe it's up to parents like myself and others to start thinking outside the box and just let the children play with what they want to play with !

[prateek]

There's already a topic like this here

[knuclear200x]

From what only i can tell, girls like fashion stuff and all that crud. But I do wish Lego could make some female populated sets like Amazon something something, and if not made yet, something mall/fashion-themed. I don't think Lego has made City sets that have a Mall theme.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, just take any pre-existing theme and replace or populate mostly with girl figures like an all-female Pirate Ship or all female Police Precinct with a boy in it.

That's all I can think of right now.

[wooootles]

So, does anyone want a return of Paradisa? Pretty sure well over half the minifigs there are female. I'm lucky I inherited my sister's Paradisa sets and got a nice boost of the female population.

[Peppermint_M]

*jumps up and down waving*

Not all girls like fashion and shopping etcetera. Besides that, Lego won't have any success competing against Polly Pocket in that respect. What Lego need to do is have a lot more "incedental" women figures in sets, like Playmobile. Other Little Brother adores Playmobile and I have a soft spot for it too, so I buy him sets. It just so happens that there is a femal robber, a policewoman, a lady vet. They aren't "Look! Look! We have included a girl!" they are just figures in a set alongside other figures.

(By the by, for newer members, I did have the Lady tag until my recent ascent to Fellow.)

[DarthSion]

I don't know I think lego has done enough trying to get girls into lego, I mean they did make the TTgames lego games for the Wii.

Its ironic, the theme that probably has the most regular females is Star Wars, this year had 4 sets with 3 females.

Besides, lego sells to boys, probably wouldn't be the best idea to try and sell new stuff for girls given they have failed in the past and right now we have the GFC.

Or maybe they should do something with cars, certainly enough worked for top gear.

[Destroydacre]

I see a lot of generalizing in this thread, but for most of us that's how society has shaped our views as we grew up. I'd like to see more female minifigures, because in real life I believe there are more women in the world than men. It would be nice to see at least the town sets reflect that, and you are seeing more and more female figs included in sets whereas you rarely used to see any. In the late 90's a lot of themes started including one female character which was a move in the right direction and it looks like Lego has expanded on that some since. Obviously you won't see too many women in the pirate or castle lines and that is more understandable, but it is nice to see some queens/mistresses etc be included in those lines since 2000. Wenches and Maidens especially were harder to come by throughout the 90s. Obviously in themes like Star Wars etc, the characters are fixed so you really don't have any control over the genders of minifigs released. However I know for me, when I was growing up Lego was much more about building stuff than it was the minifigures, so for people with similar views as me, having the majority of figures being male wouldn't be a deterrent for females wishing to play with Lego.

[knuclear200x]

So, does anyone want a return of Paradisa? Pretty sure well over half the minifigs there are female. I'm lucky I inherited my sister's Paradisa sets and got a nice boost of the female population.

as long as they dont make it mostly pink and feature that thin-mustached fig with the striped tanktop cuz that'd be so gay...................i mean.......YEAH and they should throw in like a sun-bathing thing or some other female=related activity yes...

Edited November 29, 2009 by knuclear200x

[DarthSion]

Can someone translate for me.

[Lord Admiral]

So, does anyone want a return of Paradisa? Pretty sure well over half the minifigs there are female. I'm lucky I inherited my sister's Paradisa sets and got a nice boost of the female population.

I kinda liked Paradisa, and probably would've liked it even more if the color scheme hadn't been pastel. There were some nice sets in that line. I bet they would've done a lot better if the color scheme was closer to the rest of Town. Granted, it was supposed to be a way to break into the girls' market with the pink packaging and all, but if they had used a neutral (white, yellow?) package, it would've attracted both girls and boys.

[Grimmy]

This is one of my complaints as well. If you read the reviews on the official Lego store, you'll see some parents talking about how it isn't fair that the Bellville sets aren't on par with other sets. You'll also see a demand for more girl oriented sets. Some say that girls don't just want only pink, they want girl sets but not the stereotypical girlie sets. I personally think it's a big mistake for Lego not to go for the girl market more. Their are a lot more females in the world then males. The ratio is something like 3 females to every male? A big market there.

I've never owned a Bellville set but I've researched them and often people say that they don't have much to build. The figures are cute and nice, so are the animals, but the sets have too many huge already built pieces. I ended up buying my niece a 405 piece pink box. She liked it but wants more. I'm going to try one of the Bellville sets that are better rated. I read a lot of reviews on the official site shop and I watch youtube reviews on sets.

Lego definitely knows that many moms of daughters out there want better girl sets. You can even sometimes see a Lego representative on the site replying to the mom saying they are sorry that they were not satisfied and explaining how Lego are trying to make everyone happy. Which was nice to see that the reps are watching and do care. I have a feeling more will come for girls in the future. Too many requests and responses to ignore. The toy story line looks like a good unisex theme.

Some people are saying Legos are for boys and girls get Barbie. Well, girls do get Barbie but lemme tell ya, Barbie ends up in the old toy bin with all her friends and other new flashy toys after the hype has gone. They get dusty in there. Also, mother's have said that their little girl has brothers who love their Legos and she wants some too but just a tad more girlie.

Edited November 29, 2009 by Grimmy