Friends "Controversy"

[Laura Beinbrech]

Well, they are occasionally used in other themes. Medium Lilac (Bricklink's Dark Purple) was used in several boy-oriented sets, such as Danju, Dark Panther, Smash 'n' Grab, Voltix, most of the skeleton and snake vehicles from Ninjago (though on those it was an accent color, not the primary color), and the raven vehicles from Legends of Chima. Alien Conquest also used Medium Lilac as an accent color and used Bright Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Magenta) on all the alien uniforms except for that of the commander.

Don't forget also, that even though the color didn't originate with Friends, Medium Azure has been heavily used in friends, and is seeing increased use outside as well (initially it was just the ADU trooper's uniforms, but now they use it on all the "Blue" squad vehicles in the Galaxy Squad)...

I personally would love to see the day that pink, lavender, and even purple are no longer considered almost exclusively "girl" colors: I found out early on in elementary school that being a boy and actually admitting you liked pink, even if blue was your favorite color, basically gave a license for all the other boys to beat you up on the playground, as well as an excuse for all the teachers to look the other way because I "brought it on myself" (this was back in the Dark Ages of the early 1980's, when teachers believed in discouraging any "deviant" behavior for the child's "own good").

[Aanchir]

Don't forget also, that even though the color didn't originate with Friends, Medium Azure has been heavily used in friends, and is seeing increased use outside as well (initially it was just the ADU trooper's uniforms, but now they use it on all the "Blue" squad vehicles in the Galaxy Squad)...

I personally would love to see the day that pink, lavender, and even purple are no longer considered almost exclusively "girl" colors: I found out early on in elementary school that being a boy and actually admitting you liked pink, even if blue was your favorite color, basically gave a license for all the other boys to beat you up on the playground, as well as an excuse for all the teachers to look the other way because I "brought it on myself" (this was back in the Dark Ages of the early 1980's, when teachers believed in discouraging any "deviant" behavior for the child's "own good").

Well, actually, the Alien Conquest and Galaxy Squad sets used Dark Azure, not Medium Azure. Though Medium Azure shows up in other themes, too, particularly the Medium Azure bike which has been used a couple times in LEGO City if I'm not mistaken.

I grew up in the 90s myself and luckily didn't have to experience any of that kind of bullying firsthand, but there was still a lot of elementary-school sexism going on. I agree that I'd like to see society move past that. I also did feel some pressure to be "masculine", such as when my dad managed to shame me into no longer watching Hamtaro, a cute and funny shoujo anime about talking hamsters. I feel humanity needs to accept that a lot of what we consider "girly" isn't rigidly so, but at the same time that liking feminine things isn't something anyone — boy or girl — should be ashamed of. And that idea's never going to sink in unless parents can be progressive enough to accept it for themselves and pass it on to their kids.

[Gryphon Ink]

While I agree with the second part, about just sticking to reviewing the Friends sets as one would a set belonging to a different theme, I disagree with the first part strongly! It may be my fundamentally Libertarian views, or... "Fahrenheit 451"... or it could be from the six years I spent in the Navy... but my policy is that you have to GIVE respect in order to GET respect. In this case, vandalism (yes, putting stickers on boxes in a store legally counts as vandalism), loudly declaiming something about which you have failed to do one shred of honest research about, and pulling the rhetorical equivalent of putting one's fingers in one's ears and shouting "LALALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" at the top of one's lungs is NOT the way to gain respect OR credibility for one's cause! While I do admit that some of the points made by Spark are completely valid, they are couched in so much hate and vitriol that it's like panning for gold in a sewer: You gotta go through a lot of crap to get to what's worthwhile, and I'm sick and tired of being told I have to "accommodate" others' viewpoints when those on the other side flat out refuses to do the same thing in return.

I wasn't talking about acommodating SPARK, and I wouldn't encourage anyone to do that. My point was not being nice to Spark, but being more diplomatic in general. There are a lot of women and men out in the real world (i.e., not AFOLs and not SPARK members) who feel that the idea of a special girls' theme for Lego is marginalizing and wrong to begin with, and some who heard the SPARK rhetoric and were offended. The word is out that Friends is a simplified, color-coded, cutesy sexist version of "Real Lego". A lot of people are turned off by the idea.

Now, some of those people bought the SPARK story hook, line and sinker, and they will never change their minds about Friends. Those people tend to be more extremists who will not be satisfied by anything we can do here. If they aren't already boycotting Lego, they will probably only buy the "pure" Lego for their children. In other words, Bricks and More sets and possibly Creator. Frankly, it's their loss. They are not my worry.

My concern is with normal people who happen to be feminists and heard these horror stories about Friends. Some of them are the kind of people who will research a subject. They will read reviews of the sets. They will THINK about things. And some of them will come to Eurobricks, one of the biggest Lego fan sites in the world, to do their research. For those people, and for the potential thousands of girls and women whose interest in Lego might be sparked by Friends and lead to lifelong Lego fandom, I would encourage us all to do just a little better about not treating Friends like a joke or perpetuating misogynistic stereotypes.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

I would like to add my 2p again on this topic after reading on and on for pages of comments.

I really, really feel like as if WHICHEVER theme will have critics and thumbs up.

No matter how they would have released "Friends", this topic would have been open all the way.

TLG does what it's for: a toys company. And they have to sell.

I am very, very often in toy shops, and I see what girls usually buy.

Friends, in Italy, was a total success.

In my toy fairs, before the advent of the Friends theme, I rarely sold lego products to little girls. It happened, of course, but in the ratio of 1 to 10 compared to boys.

Since the debut of this theme, instead, the proportions were balanced.

I really think it's not only bad, but also stupid, deciding in the place of little girls what should be better for them, when it's about LEGO.

Friends has no wrong female stereotypes, and if my girl preferes it compared to a classic Lego theme, what's the problem?

Selling datas are giving TLG all the reasons to regard Friends as one of their better commercial choices in the last years.

What I can only tell is : did we really need those new minifigures? That's my only little concern about that.

For the rest: there are more male minifigures than female? I fail to see any problem in it. Really, I fail.

I am in a very, very large LUG, and girls are really 1 out of 10. Girls may like lego too, of course, but usually it doesn't grow as a strong passion as it goes for boys.

I really see all this sexism problem as totally invented just for creating some noise and trying to lower the image of TLC, by those people who are never satisfied no matter what is going on.

When people will start to understand that female and male are not interchangable because have TOTALLY different brains, they reason in a totally different way, they approach life in a totally different way, this world will work better.

Until that time, in which males want to act as females, or vice versa, this kind of confusion will always generate anger.

[Aanchir]

I would like to add my 2p again on this topic after reading on and on for pages of comments.

I really, really feel like as if WHICHEVER theme will have critics and thumbs up.

No matter how they would have released "Friends", this topic would have been open all the way.

TLG does what it's for: a toys company. And they have to sell.

I am very, very often in toy shops, and I see what girls usually buy.

Friends, in Italy, was a total success.

In my toy fairs, before the advent of the Friends theme, I rarely sold lego products to little girls. It happened, of course, but in the ratio of 1 to 10 compared to boys.

Since the debut of this theme, instead, the proportions were balanced.

I really think it's not only bad, but also stupid, deciding in the place of little girls what should be better for them, when it's about LEGO.

Friends has no wrong female stereotypes, and if my girl preferes it compared to a classic Lego theme, what's the problem?

Selling datas are giving TLG all the reasons to regard Friends as one of their better commercial choices in the last years.

What I can only tell is : did we really need those new minifigures? That's my only little concern about that.

For the rest: there are more male minifigures than female? I fail to see any problem in it. Really, I fail.

I am in a very, very large LUG, and girls are really 1 out of 10. Girls may like lego too, of course, but usually it doesn't grow as a strong passion as it goes for boys.

I really see all this sexism problem as totally invented just for creating some noise and trying to lower the image of TLC, by those people who are never satisfied no matter what is going on.

When people will start to understand that female and male are not interchangable because have TOTALLY different brains, they reason in a totally different way, they approach life in a totally different way, this world will work better.

Until that time, in which males want to act as females, or vice versa, this kind of confusion will always generate anger.

While I understand what you're trying to say, I think saying male and female brains are totally different is an exaggeration, and in truth, this is the sort of idea LEGO Friends is trying to combat. LEGO Friends sets are different from traditional LEGO sets in some ways, such as more emphasis on details that make a scene "complete" or "livable" than on action features, but the theme is founded on the idea that girls can enjoy the activity of construction as easily as boys can, and don't need a building toy to be "dumbed down" for them to enjoy it.

Besides, the ways in which LEGO Friends is targeted toward girls take nurture into account as much as nature. For instance, the pastel colors of LEGO Friends, while they have a sense of visual harmony that girls seem to identify with on an aesthetic level, are not inherently feminine, and some of these colors have been culturally identified as masculine in certain times and places. To the LEGO Group, it doesn't entirely matter if a girl's preferences are ones she is naturally inclined towards or ones that she has picked up from her peers and elders. As a toy company the only way they are going to reach girls is to create a toy that appeals to them as they are, not as any one group feels they ought to be.

Truthfully, some of the articles before the release of LEGO Friends, as the LEGO Group was conducting their research, suggested that peer influence is a big factor in why many girls stopped playing with LEGO once they were out of the Duplo age range. As they start to attend school, there is pressure (both internal and external) to fit in with other girls, and this often means playing the kinds of games or playing with the kinds of toys that are popular among those girls. Influence from parents is also a factor, of course — I have known girls whose only exposure to LEGO is through male siblings, because their parents and relatives wouldn't buy them LEGO sets of their own — but even a parent's guidance isn't always as influential as the interests of a child's peers.

Regardless, it is good to hear that you've gotten to see how LEGO Friends has influenced the market for building toys firsthand. Incidentally, have girls been buying more LEGO from other themes since LEGO Friends came out, as well? I know it is demeaning to think of LEGO Friends as nothing more than a gateway to "real LEGO", and this is a mistake many AFOLs made in the early days after LEGO Friends was announced, but it'd be interesting to hear whether LEGO Friends fans have started buying sets from other themes to expand their collections. Certainly when I was primarily a BIONICLE fan, my love of BIONICLE influenced many of my other purchases, and a big factor in what sets I was interested in was whether they had any useful or exclusive BIONICLE parts.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

While I understand what you're trying to say, I think saying male and female brains are totally different is an exaggeration, and in truth, this is the sort of idea LEGO Friends is trying to combat.

I don't want to sound rude since I have an high esteem for you and your work on eurobricks and it's difficult for me to counter your arguments, but you're wrong here.

Usually a man has 7 times the grey matter a woman has, but a woman has 10 times the white matter a man has, whilst having a 10% smaller brains.

This makes woman and man's brains indeed TOTALLY different.

It is scientifically demonstrated that man and woman reason in a totally different way, though exceptions may occur, and this is seen in the everyday's life.

It's just society which is desperately and failing trying to pass everyone the concept that man and woman are interchangable, causing many problems that alas end in sexism.

What I observe is: girls are INDEED attracted to that colours and themes, in the vast majority of cases, and I have never seen a boy wanting to buy a Friends set. And I can tell it from a very big experience since I sold hundreds if not thousand of sets to real life people. While boys wanted a very different "set of sets" making them disappear slowly from the shelf, all the girls wanted nothing but Friends making this theme the firs to be sold out in at least two different toy fairs while themes like City, Technic or the others still remained.

I can't know if Friends will be used as a bridge to normal lego themes, since it's too new and girls I met still stick to it. I alas never experienced a recurring Friends buyer to go to normal Lego.

On my behalf, I would have appreciated a Paradisa-like theme for girls more.

But this Friends stuff works perfectly and that's most because girls like those things more than boys do, and this fulfills perfectly their needs as girls.

This is no shame. Girls like those colors and kinds of stuff with friendish girls happy living, boys like Ninja and monsters and robots and whatever. That's the way it is and I don't see any need for saying it differently.

[BeeGeeDee]

I think friends is good but my issue with the mini dolls is they are presenting a false image of how they should look, like models. That's the beauty of the minifig - no model-like image and a male fig with a female hairpiece often looks like a female.

I guess that's more a issue with dolls in general.

[Aanchir]

I think friends is good but my issue with the mini dolls is they are presenting a false image of how they should look, like models. That's the beauty of the minifig - no model-like image and a male fig with a female hairpiece often looks like a female.

I guess that's more a issue with dolls in general.

Personally, I don't see how the mini-dolls present any more of a false image for girls than minifigures. The difference from what I can tell is mini-dolls present a much more realistic image than minifigures. Minifigures are blocky and geometric, mini-dolls are naturalistic.

It's true that mini-dolls are generally thin rather than having a range of body types, but I am often astonished by some people's comments that they look anorexic or overly sexualized. In fact, I think they provide a healthier body image for girls than many toys or cartoon characters, including female minifigures, because instead of exaggerated hourglass figures and well-defined circular breasts they have subtler, more modest curves. Moreover, mini-dolls are not unrealistically thin, but rather, like classic minifigures, they have exaggeratedly-large heads. If you shrunk the head of a mini-doll down to more realistic human proportions then you'd have a pretty accurate picture of a 14-year-old girl of a healthy weight.

More body types would again be nice (I am certainly not under the impression that any roundness to the body is unhealthy, and I was quite pleased to be able to give a somewhat round tummy to my Hero Factory MOC Kit Martello), but then you run into the issue of interchangeability. Truly this is a factor in the generic designs of many types of doll — you can't dress the figure up in different outfits if the outfits are sized according to particular characters rather than more generic body types. Currently, LEGO Friends has torsos for adolescent girls, adult women, adolescent boys, and adult men. The legs, incidentally, are interchangeable between all ages and genders — Olivia's dad Peter uses the same piece for his pants as any of the girls' riding pants or Mia's dress pants.

One final note: I'm quite happy that even standard minifigure designs are less generic than they were back when a hairpiece was the only thing separating male and female minifigures. Back in the day, it was difficult if not impossible to give the impression of a long-haired man unless you gave him a beard, or to give the impression of a short-haired woman unless you gave her bright red lipstick. Nowadays, minifigures have been able to overcome this with features like chiseled cheekbones for men, subtle makeup and curvy female torso prints for women (much better than the overdone mascara and lipstick that was typical of female minifigures in the 90s). Really, we're well past the era where one's hairstyle was what defined them as male or female in real life, so I think it's a good thing that we've also moved past that with minifigures, even if sometimes the feminine curves on minifigures are overdone.

[GregoryBrick]

I don't want to sound rude since I have an high esteem for you and your work on eurobricks and it's difficult for me to counter your arguments, but you're wrong here.

Usually a man has 7 times the grey matter a woman has, but a woman has 10 times the white matter a man has, whilst having a 10% smaller brains.

This makes woman and man's brains indeed TOTALLY different.

It is scientifically demonstrated that man and woman reason in a totally different way, though exceptions may occur, and this is seen in the everyday's life

It's just society which is desperately and failing trying to pass everyone the concept that man and woman are interchangable, causing many problems that alas end in sexism.

Hi!

Firstly, men's and women's brains aren't 'totally' different, though there are some differences which appear when looking at aggregate measures.

Secondly, because there is such variability within groups of men and women, aggregate measures tell us very little about individual brains. For example, even if average male brain mass is higher than average female brain mass, this does not mean that every woman has a smaller brain than any man. Gender ends up being a poor indicator for concluding much about an individual's brain.

Thirdly, even recognizing these differences, there is a long leap from recognizing neural variation to using it to explain toy preference in children. There are many confounding variables, not least of which is primary socialization.

If you would like to understand more about the virtues and pitfalls of neurology and gender, I recommend recent work by Cordelia Fine.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

Hi!

Firstly, men's and women's brains aren't 'totally' different, though there are some differences which appear when looking at aggregate measures.

Secondly, because there is such variability within groups of men and women, aggregate measures tell us very little about individual brains. For example, even if average male brain mass is higher than average female brain mass, this does not mean that every woman has a smaller brain than any man. Gender ends up being a poor indicator for concluding much about an individual's brain.

Thirdly, even recognizing these differences, there is a long leap from recognizing neural variation to using it to explain toy preference in children. There are many confounding variables, not least of which is primary socialization.

If you would like to understand more about the virtues and pitfalls of neurology and gender, I recommend recent work by Cordelia Fine.

Hi!

I politely disagree with you, there are so many studies supporting what I told that I wouldn't be able to count them. You could pick for example Simon Baron-Cohen.

To newbies to this argument I would just reccommend to google "male and female brain differences" and voilà, tons of links explaining why we are so deeply different.

[Laura Beinbrech]

Guys, guys! I would like to (hopefully) de-fuse this debate somewhat by pointing out that why there are, statistically speaking, differences in the way MOST people of a given gender think or interact with the world, one of the GREAT debates still raging in biology and social science circles is how much of these gender differences are based on biological factors (genes hormones, etc) and how much is based on SOCIAL factors, such as constant reinforcement by parents, friends, etc.

There are compelling evolutionary reasons for why, for thousands of years, women and men have been placed in specific roles (sometimes literally beat into line) because, in the distant past when we were still mostly just really clever snacks for large predators, guaranteed the survival of the race. One specific case I pointed out earlier is the fact that, throughout history, women have been treated as valuable reproductive commodities, while men have been treated mostly as disposable cannon fodder, human shields and mobile sperm banks.

Of course, now that we're one of, if not THE dominant lifeforms on the planet, those evolutionary imperatives are no longer relevant (or at least not nearly as compelling back in ye olde stone age), but it would seem that it negating hundreds of thousands of years of biological and cultural development in just a span of only a century or so (i.e. how long the women's equality movement has been around)....

Personally, I don't see true gender equality being achieved for another few generations in the most enlightened countries as a best-case scenario, and sometimes, in my most cynical moments, I don't think that any of the gender issues (including gay rights, transexualism, etc) will be truly resolved until we develop bio-engineering on the level of the Culture in Ian M. Banks sci-fi novels. For those not familiar with the setting, the Culture has basically developed technology to the point that, among other things, people can consciously change gender anytime they want to (although the process takes several months to complete), meaning that since nobody has a fixed gender anymore, nobody cares at all about it anymore, or who one chooses to have romantic or even physical relations with.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

Guys, guys! I would like to (hopefully) de-fuse this debate somewhat by pointing out that why there are, statistically speaking, differences in the way MOST people of a given gender think or interact with the world, o

Er... this would work if we had same brains.

But we have not, so even if culture is desperately trying to set gender equality for mysterious (to me) purposes, it would never work.

That's it, pure and plain.

[Pandora]

This is an interesting and polite discussion, which I welcome.

We are straying into the territory of discussing Iain M Banks books (with which I am extremely well acquainted - I have read all of them (and the non-Sci-Fi ones) and he is by far my favourite author) rather than LEGO Friends, though.

So let's not debate what may or may not be possible in fiction.

[LiamM32]

Usually a man has 7 times the grey matter a woman has, but a woman has 10 times the white matter a man has, whilst having a 10% smaller brains.

This makes woman and man's brains indeed TOTALLY different.

It is scientifically demonstrated that man and woman reason in a totally different way, though exceptions may occur, and this is seen in the everyday's life.

It's just society which is desperately and failing trying to pass everyone the concept that man and woman are interchangable, causing many problems that alas end in sexism.

I only occasionally read these gender psychology articles, but it is quite obvious that to say the 2 genders of humans have "TOTALLY" (all-capitalized) different brains is incorrect. While there are some significant differences to list, the similarities in our brains obvious psychologist or not, while the differences are more trivial. I also think that the diversity in individual humans is much more than between the genders.

When men and women converse about their thoughts, what happens in their own minds; they would often have personal connections with what others are saying, including of different genders. Further; If men and women's brains were "TOTALLY" different, then they wouldn't be able to understand each other very well, or communicate with each other. Humans are the only animals that have the genetics for their brains that allow them to verbally communicate with each other, with the exception of a few birds to a lesser extent. The similarities in men's and women's brains allows us to live together socially and peacefully, and perform the same tasks. I don't think that the numerical measurements you mentioned justify your argument

If you were to randomly select 5 women and 5 men (preferably of similar age) around the world: The people of each gender would probably be more diverse among each other then the differences you could between the 2 groups specifically. If you were to look at which individuals had the most in common (in terms of mind), then they would probably be more likely to have things in common with the people of their own gender, but there would still be some across the genders. But the idea of picking 5 random people was intended to exclude rarer factors such as autism, so if I included those things then the gender would appear to be less important.

But enough of this debate; No matter what information is the truth, we should stop this stuff before it becomes a controversy of it's own.

I can agree with you to much extent about that 4th paragraph (3rd in the part that I reposted) with a single sentence. The rules that determine what we are allowed to do should be the same for men and women (called "equal rights"), which it is mostly nowadays in most of the world I believe. But for themed Lego sets, I think it is fair to have different products for different genders due to the mental differences. Some may say that girls could just play with the other Lego themes, but it is still somewhat unfair if the designers are mostly just thinking of the appeal on the male mind. It would still be nice to have more generic sets that try to be gender-neutral.

I appreciate the mental differences in human genders, as it is just one of things that contributes to the diversity of the people of the world. However, people should not be prevented from interests and behaviour associated with the other gender. The people that defy their own gender norms are just another cause of diversity. This means; If you are part of the minority of girls who prefers action Lego, or part of the minority of boys who likes Friends, then go for it.

Now on to a different point; Today I discovered a VLog website called Femenist Frequency. I watched a video today on the site about Lego Friends (click link).

It was an interesting video. The speaker talks about the history of girl-targeted Lego. She seems to know more about Lego than most internet articles about Lego Friends. I laughed a bit when she compared Friends to the male-leaning Lego City. She pointed out something that I had thought about Lego Friends (a zig-zag of an issue and a solution) in a more humorous way. I noticed myself that Lego Friends could have compensated for the poor gender balance in other Lego, and the lack of peaceful things like housing, food, and recreation in Lego City, but the minidoll and other compatibility barriers getting in the way of helping those problems. (Spoiler Alert:) She said that if a house caught fire in Heartlake, then the friends would have to call the City boys to put it out. If someone in Lego City gets hungry (which happens quite frequently in any City), then they would need the Heartlake girls to cook something for them.

[pup]

Out of curiousity, I picked up a Friends set several months ago (the Karate one) and built it, just to see if the flames were justified. My rating: it's a cute, fun set, with about the same amount of building as most of the "standard" sets of the same size.

The only issue I had with the minifig was the legs -- they don't separate, which makes them a little static. But the set itself was a nice build, with some clever uses of bricks.

[vexorian]

Tell me again how girls and boys played with LEGO in equal numbers before this whole shift occurred.

I don't think I implied that. The point was that LEGO far less sexist back then. Less about stereotypes.

Obviously that was what The LEGO Group wanted to happen with their gender-neutral marketing in the 70s and 80s. But I don't think I've seen any indication that it worked.

The thing is that success or lack of success does not change the truth value of whether or not toys are now more sexist than they used to be.

I don't see how LEGO Friends having a different figure is any different than, say, Technic having different figures back in the day

They are no different. Technic figures were meant to segregate technic sets from system sets.

"These are grown up boys' figures, different from other sets". It was a stunt to underline how different Technic was.

Different figures mean segregation. The segregation in this case is related to gender.

It hardly means that they are blind to the possibility that girls might take interest in their other themes,

It totally means that. If they thought that interoperability between the themes was important for girls they wouldn't have made different figures.

Bear in mind that sometimes one of the best justifications for grabbing a high-profile license is to prevent competitors from profiting off of it. And it can usually be justified as long as the license isn't a liability as far as PR is concerned (truly, this is why LEGO has avoided pursuing a first-person shooter license to compete with Mega Bloks's Halo line, and probably part of why they never sought out the Halo license for themselves in the first place).

Success or lack of success is not my problem though. I don't agree at all that just because LEGO are doing things that profit them excuses them and means I am not supposed to criticize them for doing sexist stuff. Making most of their themes stereotypically boyish and then segregating the figures of boys and girls is sexist. The research they used to base many of design decisions in Friends is inherently sexist. Looking for those differences between boys and girls.

For the rest: there are more male minifigures than female? I fail to see any problem in it. Really, I fail.

I am in a very, very large LUG, and girls are really 1 out of 10. Girls may like lego too, of course, but usually it doesn't grow as a strong passion as it goes for boys.

I really see all this sexism problem as totally invented

Women happen to be around 1/2 of the population of earth. If LEGO had no issues with gender, the rates would be around the same for minifigures.

Even if girls were biologically less able to appreciate building toys (A claim that is ridiculous and has absolutely no evidence in support) It would still be a problem to have such underrepresentation of females in figures. Because boys would be receiving a special message from LEGO: Men are the ones who do things, and maybe 1/4 of the people who do the interesting things that you like are women. If not less.

Edited July 15, 2013 by vexorian

[LiamM32]

I forget to say something in my last post. I have some observations that I have made over my life that go against the information that TLegoG appears to have about how genders play.

I remember back when I was a primary student in elementary school, a day after school when I was sitting on the desktop computer in the playroom while my sister and her friend were playing in a Barbie dollhouse on the floor next to me. They were acting-out a story that they were improvising with their Barbie dolls. They pretended that the lower floor of the house was on fire, so the dolls ran upstairs before noticing that they were trapped and that the telephone was left downstairs. What stereotypical little girls play . I got reminded of that when I watched the Feminist Frequency video, which said that the girls from Lego Friends would have to call the City men to help if a house caught fire in Heartlake city.

A far less funny observation from recent months; In my Lego town, my younger brother likes to play as his minifigure of himself. I personally prefer to make fictional characters for the town, but he wants me to make a minifig of myself and our family. Does this contradict TLegoG's study that girls play as themselves while boys pretend to be someone else? I might be thinking of it the wrong way though, as my brothers minifig character is supposed to be an adult version of himself who is a car builder and swordsman. (My brother is in real life a child without any job or sword skills)

Women happen to be around 1/2 of the population of earth. If LEGO had no issues with gender, the rates would be around the same for minifigures.

I think that there should certainly be more female minifigures available in sets. In most sets, I think that the ratio should be somewhere between realistic demographics of the setting and target audience. I wouldn't mind slightly more males than females in a playtheme where 5 of 6 fans are boys, but the minifigures should be more balanced than 1 female to 5 males even in this example. In the sets that I like to buy (Modular buildings, Creator houses, trains), I would like to have an equal balance of males and females.

I think that Lego establish rules for gender balance. They should require a minimum for each gender for all sets with at least 3 minifigs. There should also be a minimum for themes and series in total.

I am quite fed-up with the poor balance in the Creator houses. Before Creator houses included minifigures, I appreciated the gender-balanced fanbase from my observations. The first 6 Creator houses with minifigs all included a male minifig (with no females). It wasn't until the 7th, which has both a man and a woman.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

Er... Vexorian, I think you should allow people to have a completely different point of view from yours.

I read your point, and I completely disagree with you, I really find it hard to agree with even smallest parts.

I don't want you to take it like an offence of course, disagreeing is normal among civil people.

I think that (and that is only my opinion)

A) There is NO way that TLC is making sexists toys. I really have strong difficulties in finding HOW you figure them to be sexist.

I mean, you can be convinced for your own reasons, but sexism is totally a different thing from what you say. Sexism is about negative stereotypes, I don't see any of the Friends (or Belville, or Scala, or Paradisa) sets portraiting negative stereotypes.

On the other hand, we see girls attending Karate Classes or Magician Studies, where I really fail to remember a female karate champion in movies or shows, or a female Magician... so I would say that TLC was even pushing OVER the classic stereotypes, and PRO women.

B) For my experience as a toy seller, it's definitively true that boys appreciate more and enjoy more building toys than women. I don't know if it is biological or social, but is actually what happens. Wander this forum and see how much women are there. Open a toy shop and see how much girls will buy NON-friends lego sets. Go to a lego toy fair and see how many families with female children come.

C) It is purely logical and normal that TLC does more male minifigures than female, because boys do buy that more often than girls.

I see a big problem here: most people are thinking as AFOLS where Lego is a product for children.

And mostly boys buy those.

Let's make another example: collectlible minifigures.

In every series you have 1/3 of the minifigures which are females.

But I really highly doubt that 1/3 of the buyers are females.

So the scale is towards girls since the percentage of figures portraited is higher than the people of that gender actually buying those.

I am an army builder and I do mainly manly mocs, so most (not all, just most) female minifigures in the collectibles are a wasted place for me.

But I really see that I can't complain since there is needed room for them.

In the end:

I just think the whole "friends controversy" is wrong. Friends is excellent, it helps girls who wouldn't have plaied lego to get closer to this toy I love, it doesn't at all portrait negative female stereotypes, and we should learn to appreciate the big differences there are between man and woman.

[Aanchir]

Yeah, in general, it's easy to say sexism has nothing to do with who actually buys LEGO sets, but if you're making toys that neither boys nor girls are especially interested in, what good are you doing as far as social activism is concerned? TLG made their toys appeal more to boys because they were worried about losing the one audience that could reliably keep them afloat to other interests like cartoons and video games. They made toys that appeal more to girls because they recognized an audience they had NEVER been able to reach effectively with their traditional products.

Furthermore, gender-targeted products and marketing are not inherently sexist. One observation feminists have made is that the current landscape of society doesn't give girls the same opportunities and role models as boys. That's an imbalance, and many have quite reasonably sought to correct this imbalance not by trying to homogenize the existing toy and media landscape but by creating girl-oriented products and media that help fill the vacuum on that side of the scale. Lauren Faust, creator of the latest generation of My Little Pony, is one person who has passionately followed this strategy.

Finally, it's definitely true that there's no biological reason for girls not to buy building toys. But there are cultural obstacles, and those are no less real than biological ones. They're just more mutable in the long run, and overcoming that cultural prejudice is one of the central goals of LEGO Friends. It does no good to create a line for boys AND girls if girls are going to spend their pocket money on dolls instead. But by creating a product line they want and that doesn't alienate them from their parents and peers, LEGO makes meaningful steps towards a future where building toys are considered a legitimate interest for boys OR girls.

[TheLegoDr]

As more and more people come to know that I am an AFOL, the more I've heard of females that state they always wanted LEGO as kids, but their parents wouldn't buy them any. It seems like a lot of children have this regret of not getting into it, even though it was essentially out of their control. Sure, some kids can acquire money and then they can spend it wherever.

So far the Friends line is great. I only buy Licensed sets and Exclusives for myself and then a mixture for my daughter, but she loves the mini-dolls. She has an assortment of my castle princesses and her Friends dolls hanging out all of the time. I think more girls being exposed to it and seeing the dolls doing more activities than just dress up or make up, will help keep the idea afloat in their head that they can also do anything they want. Friends is definitely opening that path for people. Many Barbies will essentially be in a bikini or a super short skirt and then labeled as a doctor. I'd say LEGO is a much better role model than a lot of other traditional girl toys.

[Kristel]

Although I've followed this topic with interest, I've avoided posting myself because I think this is an argument that will continue for a long time and there will always be opposing views on the matter. I don't think my comments below will change that, but I wanted to put my views out there anyway.

I just think the whole "friends controversy" is wrong. Friends is excellent, it helps girls who wouldn't have plaied lego to get closer to this toy I love, it doesn't at all portrait negative female stereotypes, and we should learn to appreciate the big differences there are between man and woman.

I think you've summed it up nicely here. I think people easily forget that the Friends line has opened up LEGO to girls who would otherwise never have even considered LEGO. Furthermore, yes there is a beauty parlour (and, shock horror, I don't mind getting a facial every now and then), but there are plenty of non-typical, positive roles portrayed by the Friends girls.

But there are cultural obstacles, and those are no less real than biological ones. They're just more mutable in the long run, and overcoming that cultural prejudice is one of the central goals of LEGO Friends. It does no good to create a line for boys AND girls if girls are going to spend their pocket money on dolls instead. But by creating a product line they want and that doesn't alienate them from their parents and peers, LEGO makes meaningful steps towards a future where building toys are considered a legitimate interest for boys OR girls.

I think the cultural obstacles are the biggest and it is our role, as parents and "grown ups", to not enforce those. The standard response to me showing a Friends set at work is "Oooh, girly LEGO". I know that there are external influences that we can't control (such as what they hear at school), but we still need to do what we can.

I think more girls being exposed to it and seeing the dolls doing more activities than just dress up or make up, will help keep the idea afloat in their head that they can also do anything they want. Friends is definitely opening that path for people. Many Barbies will essentially be in a bikini or a super short skirt and then labeled as a doctor. I'd say LEGO is a much better role model than a lot of other traditional girl toys.

Exactly. The theme of the Friends movie is that they can do anything. I would happily have my daughter adopt one of the Friends girls as her role model.

[LiamM32]

Finally, it's definitely true that there's no biological reason for girls not to buy building toys. But there are cultural obstacles, and those are no less real than biological ones. They're just more mutable in the long run, and overcoming that cultural prejudice is one of the central goals of LEGO Friends. It does no good to create a line for boys AND girls if girls are going to spend their pocket money on dolls instead. But by creating a product line they want and that doesn't alienate them from their parents and peers, LEGO makes meaningful steps towards a future where building toys are considered a legitimate interest for boys OR girls.

Yes it is unfortunate that there are cultural obstacles of people of a particular gender doing particular activities, sometimes even enforced by parents and caretakers. When I was a child, I once saw my babysitter (a woman in her 50's) and my sister knitting some 2d images. I said something showing interest in trying it, to get a response "But it's for girls," from the babysitter.

I think that it would be best if there is slightly more stereotypical girlyness in the advertising than the actual toys, just to appeal to those already interested in dolls before they find a new interest in Lego. Lego Friends may have already done this to some extent. I I think that Friends is a good first step to remove the masculine stigma of Lego. Succeeding with the goal of Friends that you mentioned at the start of your post (not reposted here), they seem to be making the best success with girls in a long time. Unlike Belville, which wasn't nearly popular or famous enough to remove the masculine stigma of Lego.

B) For my experience as a toy seller, it's definitively true that boys appreciate more and enjoy more building toys than women. I don't know if it is biological or social, but is actually what happens. Wander this forum and see how much women are there. Open a toy shop and see how much girls will buy NON-friends lego sets. Go to a lego toy fair and see how many families with female children come.

I see a big problem here: most people are thinking as AFOLS where Lego is a product for children.

And mostly boys buy those.

Let's make another example: collectlible minifigures.

In every series you have 1/3 of the minifigures which are females.

But I really highly doubt that 1/3 of the buyers are females.

In the end:

I just think the whole "friends controversy" is wrong. Friends is excellent, it helps girls who wouldn't have plaied lego to get closer to this toy I love, it doesn't at all portrait negative female stereotypes, and we should learn to appreciate the big differences there are between man and woman.

I think I recall seeing a few advertisements for girl-targetted building toys. I remember seeing a TV advertisement about a decade ago for a new girls building toy called "Ello". I just looked-up the page on Wikipedia. It said that it was a breakthrough for making a building toy that appealed to girls. It ended in 2004, for an unknown reason.

I have mostly disagreed with most of your posts, but I really like that sentance about the adult perception on childrens toys. It is certainly true that the social concerns that adults have for childrens entertainment often differ from what children really pay attention to. Just look at film censorship in North America. It is really easy to get away with violence in childrens media around here, despite the phychological studies that are against it. However, the MPAA will give an R (17+) rating to a movie with displays the wrong body parts, claiming it is "sexually explicit" regardless of context. Even bare female breasts could give an R rating (but not male), which brings up another rarely-addressed issue of cultural sexism. Fortunately, I think that this example is less true where you live in Italy.

About the statement about 1/3 of collectible minifigures being female; I have seen a few women looking through the case at my local Lego shop, and I know my sister who likes them too. I don't know the exact ratio. I read that you sell Lego, so I don't know if you sell collectible minifigs, but probably not by the way you said "highly doubt".

Now your final point about Lego Friends; I also agree that Lego Friends has much more good to it than bad, even if my post failed to convey that message. I have a few minor issues, and I wouldn't buy them myself, but I am very glad that they have found a successful way to bring more girls to Lego, and the Friends line appears to have good sets. This is how I interpret most users on this topic, so we mostly agree on the main point. I am glad that they exclude negative stereotypes present in many girls toys. I must disagree that Belville and Scala dolls were free of gender stereotypes. I think that the poor building quality compared to other Lego sets implied that girls wouldn't be as good at building.

As more and more people come to know that I am an AFOL, the more I've heard of females that state they always wanted LEGO as kids, but their parents wouldn't buy them any. It seems like a lot of children have this regret of not getting into it, even though it was essentially out of their control. Sure, some kids can acquire money and then they can spend it wherever.

So far the Friends line is great. I only buy Licensed sets and Exclusives for myself and then a mixture for my daughter, but she loves the mini-dolls. She has an assortment of my castle princesses and her Friends dolls hanging out all of the time. I think more girls being exposed to it and seeing the dolls doing more activities than just dress up or make up, will help keep the idea afloat in their head that they can also do anything they want. Friends is definitely opening that path for people. Many Barbies will essentially be in a bikini or a super short skirt and then labeled as a doctor. I'd say LEGO is a much better role model than a lot of other traditional girl toys.

It is unfortunate to read that first paragraph. It shows that many parents are far too concerned about their childrens conformation to their gender (and possibly other things). That also points out a possible reason that Lego doesn't sell as well to girls. It's evidence that cultural beliefs and norms could be a stronger cause than the girl's personal interests.

Although I've followed this topic with interest, I've avoided posting myself because I think this is an argument that will continue for a long time and there will always be opposing views on the matter. I don't think my comments below will change that, but I wanted to put my views out there anyway.

Yes. We are arguing too much about something that differs from the main point of the topic. I tried to say something myself to suggest that we stop. But of course, It was just one little sentance that few would notice.

But enough of this debate; No matter what information is the truth, we should stop this stuff before it becomes a controversy of it's own.

Hopefully your post will successfully disrupt this tiring debate. Hopefully my post above won't just be another source of disagreement.

I will post this video for the third time now (before it was just a link). But I was disapointed that no one responded about it. It is a very good video, and the person speaking in it is very intelligent and educated on the topic.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

About the statement about 1/3 of collectible minifigures being female; I have seen a few women looking through the case at my local Lego shop, and I know my sister who likes them too. I don't know the exact ratio. I read that you sell Lego, so I don't know if you sell collectible minifigs, but probably not by the way you said "highly doubt".

I also sell them and rarely girls are interested, if never.

I will post this video for the third time now (before it was just a link). But I was disapointed that no one responded about it. It is a very good video, and the person speaking in it is very intelligent and educated on the topic.

I couldn't make it to the end. That girl may look educated, but she's biased as hell.

Not only. She says much false things (one for example, but there are more, she says that in Friends all professions/activities are female stereotypes, while I already pointed out that magicians or karate champions are not female stereotypes, nor biologist or so on... so please...) and hearing that made me nervous.

This person is misleading and reporting biased and facticious stuff in order to attack TLG for mysterious reasons.

What's the problem with girls liking pink stuff? I mean, when I was a boy I highly disliked pink stuff. And that wasn't because my parents teached me that!

For example again: as a child I highly wanted the "market game" in which you get a small assorment of fruit and so on to play the greengrocer with your friends... That was considered girlish but my parents bought me it for Christmas and I was very happy. I loved the tiny fruits looking like real ones because I always loved miniaturized stuff, this is mostly what I love in LEGO. But apart from that single thing, that makes me think how my parents didn't care if a product was girlish or boyish, I know what I liked.

We should stop to decide what's better for our children. They are people as much as we are, and if they can't decide most of the things, I am totally sure they can decide which toys they like most. Children are not a product. They have their life and it's their right to choose. If a boy wants dolls, I hope he gets dolls. I don't think dolls will make him gay and even if they did, what's the big stuff?

Girls usually love different stuff from boys, that's it.

Plus, I have experienced fun in building Friends set, they're not EASY to build, they present the same issues, if not more, in building a counterpart of a city.

THIS is what people should be concerned about: if they made easier set for women, that would have been a problem.

Sorry that biased girl really made me nervous, I always hate when people try to manipulate the people's opinion by stating incomplete or facticious facts.

EDIT:

I went to her youtube channel to tell her how wrong this video was and no surprise she doesn't allow comments.

Only dictatorial, antidemocratic, or people who know they are purposely selling false things, disable the opportunity to reply.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Itaria No Shintaku

[Itaria No Shintaku]

I'd add some spare thoughts, after I got calm, since I lean to become argumentative and I don't like myself, when topics get hotter.

I really, really believe this topic should be closed before it gets too far.

I felt really offended by the video posted, and in the meantime I know for sure that LiamM32 didn't intend to.

I beg pardon it's just I find outrageous that people use toys and children for their political purposes.

So I really really wish this topic to get closed and people like the girl in the video spreading all this hate towards a TOY really become aware of how mean they are, exploiting a toy for children to convey their personal controversial political ideas is really a low blow.

I won't reply this topic, I get mad when I see stuff like this.

I tried to keep it polite, but I won't be able to keep it like this for long, so I prefere to censure myself.

I repeat myself at the cost of being annoying: using kids and toys to convey ideas, moreover wrong, it's the thing that pisses me off the most.

This is why I overreacted.

[kermit]

I think alot of people have gotten over this controversy thing after seeing the high quality of sets that have been put out and its ability to appeal to both boys and girls.