Sleepytiger

I have 3 kids. I have an 8 year old girl, and a soon to be 7 year old girl. I also have a 4 year old boy. I see two issues with Legos for my girls. A) The sets are inherently skewed to males, in that literally all the minifigs are male. If we find a set with a female we cheer. Even then, we are lucky if is one female. B) The themes. My 8 year old enjoys Star Wars. I love Star Wars. What do we see with so many of the Star Wars sets? There are shps, weapons and more ships. Power miners and Atlantis were/are interesting themes, but it seems like every set is a vehicle or a transforming vehicle. There is the kingdom line, but now we are back to conflict and next to no female characters. There is a line dedicated to cars. The issue here, is that time and again th themes and sets seem to revolve around vehicles and conflict, with predominantly male minifigs. My girls do not have interest there. They want a set, where the can delve into a world of pretend, where they can explore the characters, and have something more than a vehicle to creat that world of play. The issue with the Creator line, is there just isn't enough for them to sink their teeth into. As for city, no, they don't want to explore police, firefighters. Ther are two lines that have drawn their interest, although one can"t quite be called a line. Harry Potter has been a HUGE hit with them. Just looking at female minifigs... Hermione, Ginny, Bellatrix, Professor M,, Luna. They have created Cho. They have a range of female characters and male characters to choose from. The sets are not all about vehicles. The sets have a ton of accessories, that ramp up the pretend value. Big spiders, mni spiders, wands, food, owls, etc., etc. The sets are wonderful sets to build and aren't a joke like Bellville. With Harry Potter they have developed a theme that is VERY accessible to not just boys, but girls as well. There are good guys and bad guys, so a sense of adventure is still there. The other line they have enjoys are the two winter themed sets... The toy shop and bakery. They like it for very similar reasons. The set has more than one female, and there are kids. In addition th set has tons of accessories to really increase the pretend. skating pond, horse, wagon, Christmas tree stand, bread, presents, skates, skis, Christmas tree, toys...... The issue is that too often Lego goes for the vehicles/conflict themes, without throwing in enough females, or accessories/items to reallly open things up further. I think the upcoming Pirate of the Caribbean set is an example of that, although they could surprise me. For the pirates, they chose to go with POtC. They could have gone with something like Peter Pan. With Peter Pan, you still have pirates, but you have much more. There are girl characters in Wendy, Tger Lily, Mermaids and Tnkerbell. There are kids in the lost boys. Besides pirate ships and pirate fights, there could have been a mermaid lagoon and Peter Pan's home. Skull rock would have been cool. With a theme like that, you can really customize it to have a wonderful sense of adventure. Now, I do understand that some may consider Peter Pan to be to 'young', but my point is more along the lines, of a set like that could appeal to everyone, while I suspect whatever they do with PotC will again be fixated mainly on the battle/conflict element. I think there are many themes out there that could really be made to not just appeal to one gender, but they are not creating them. I think adding more female minifigs, having a theme without the utter focus being conflict/vehicles, and insuring there are enough accessories so kids can really delve into pretend, would make a difference. Tammy I wanted to highlight one other aspect this thread mentioned, without it getting lost. Yes, girls want to build as much as boys My daughter could not be pulled away from building Hogwarts. For her 7th birthday she will receive Diagon Alley. Sets like Bellville, which are a joke when it comes to building, I find to be almost an insult. Tammy