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  • LEGO is here, hey kids, look a whole new world to build.”

  • LEGOS are one of the most fantastic and creative toys ever developed.

  • I mean check this out, it’s a LEGO stegosaurus, it even has light up eyes *rawr*

  • Research has consistently shown that playing with LEGOs accelerates childhood development,

  • and is upheld as a gateway to math, science and engineering fields, promoting spatial memory, spatial design and of course imagination.

  • Sadly, as a consequence of LEGOs decision to design and market their products almost exclusively to boys over the past few decades,

  • girls have been largely left out.

  • So when the LEGO Group announced that they were committed to expanding the LEGO experience for girls in 2012 in a significant way I was excited,

  • but a little skeptical. Here’s what LEGO had to say

  • We actually see ourselves as duty bound to find a fantastic LEGO experience for Girls.

  • we are passionate about what the LEGO experience does to children around the world,

  • I mean, their development, great experience, ability to concentrate,

  • and it’s just not good enough that we cannot do something which is really appealing to girls and delivering that same great experience.”

  • LEGO claims to have spent millions of dollars and 4 years doing intensive research on this endeavor and theyve even budgeted 40 million dollars to market to girls globally.

  • So with all that what has the company done to integrate girls back into the LEGO experience?

  • LEGO Friends. New LEGO Friends.

  • Welcome to Beautiful Heartlake City. I’m Stephanie, I’m going to a party at the new café with my friend Olivia.

  • That’s me, I just finished decorating my house. Time to chill with the girls.

  • At the Beauty Shop, Emma is styled and ready to go. This is gonna be so much fun!

  • Welcome to the world of LEGO Friends. New LEGO Friends.

  • *Sigh* So where do we even begin?

  • This new LEGO collection features 23 sets that focus on the lives of 5 “Friends®” Mia, Emma, Andrea, Olivia and Stephanie

  • who all hang out and have fun in someplace called Heartlake City, not to be confused with the regularCitywhich is LEGO’s longest running theme.

  • No, Heartlake City is a pastel colored gender segregated stereotypically female suburban paradise.

  • And to make it absolutely clear that these sets are for girls,

  • theyve covered everything in pink and purple, from the branding to the boxes to the bricks themselves.

  • Another way LEGO has segregated the Friends theme from the rest of the LEGO universe is by creating a brand new LEGO person.

  • The traditional LEGO characters orminifigsas theyre called has become a recognizable icon world wide.

  • The minifigs are the center piece of the entire LEGO universe

  • featured in their videogame and movie franchises, extended merchandise, and even in their theme parks.

  • By contrast the new Bratz/Barbie styleLady Figormini dollfeatured in Heartlake City

  • is taller, curvier and they wear little skirts.

  • By essentially making the mini-doll an entirely separate species

  • it just works to further segregate the Friends theme from the rest of the LEGO universe.

  • The Friends theme sets focus on traditionally female identified tasks

  • including baking at the City Park Café,

  • getting your hair done at the Butterfly Beauty Shop,

  • taking care of pets at the Heartlake Vet,

  • or homemaking at Olivia’s House.

  • Out of the initial 14 offerings the only set that breaks out of this mold might be Olivia’s Inventor’s Workshop,

  • which would be really awesome if it weren’t for the inexplicable decision to make all of her tools purple.

  • Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with pink and purple, I’m sometimes fond of these colours, obviously,

  • pink and purple are just two options out of the rainbow of brick colors available in the LEGO universe.

  • The problem is pink and purple hardly ever appear in the sets marketed to boys and Heartlake city is dominated entirely by soft pastel colours.

  • There is also nothing inherently wrong with LEGO sets that include

  • places to live, places to eat, beauty salons, entertainment venues etc.

  • These are all establishments that you’d expect to find in pretty much any city.

  • But here is where LEGO starts to go horribly wrong

  • First, the activities featured in the Friends theme such as baking, cooking, caregiving, homemaking, decorating, hair styling

  • are rooted in deeply stereotypical and limiting roles for women in children’s toys and sadly, in society in general.

  • Second, these types of establishments only exist in the girlsworld of Heartlake city.

  • The real LEGO city, on the other hand, you know, the ones that come in the blue boxes, that’s marketed almost exclusively to boys

  • has dozens of CITY subthemes including Search and Rescue, Police, Firefighters, Construction, the Space Port

  • which are all traditionally male identified occupations (though they shouldn’t be).

  • Noticeably absent are any places for the LEGO city minifigures to live or eat.

  • Isn’t it curious that there are almost no housing, entertainment or restaurant subthemes in LEGO city?

  • So what happens when something in Heartlake City catches on fire?

  • I guess you have to call the boys to put it out, similarly what happens when someone in LEGO city gets hungry?

  • I guess you’d have to call the girls to bake them something. This is just absurd.

  • Now you may be thinking to yourself that kids don’t have to follow the instructions, they could build whatever they want out of the LEGO set,

  • girls could build spaceships out of the beauty salon for example.

  • The problem is that the Friends theme was developed from the ground up based on a story of five friends

  • and everything that girls are meant to do with the sets revolves around that specific story.

  • This severely limits the possibilities of what most girls will do with the sets.

  • And there’s nothing else in the rest of the LEGO universe that will encourage girls to think outside of the gendered walls of Heartlake City.

  • It seems as though LEGO is convinced that boys and girls just naturally have different interests,

  • the LEGO Group CEO saidWe focused on creating a play experience centered on the joy of creation, while heeding the way girls naturally build and play.”

  • Using the language ofnaturalornaturein reference to gender infers

  • that girls are biologically predisposed to like dolls and pink things.

  • As noted by Peggy Orenstein in her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter,

  • if we look to the turn of the century this gendered color dynamic was actually reversed,

  • in the early 1900s blue was associated with baby girls and pink with baby boys, really,

  • it might be hard to believe but you can look it up.

  • This demonstrates that colour association with gender is a social construct,

  • it’s not biological, it’s not genetic, it’s not natural. It’s made up.

  • Contrary to LEGO’s press release that states thatLEGO Friends is the first 100 percent LEGO building experience fully optimized to girlstastes and interests.”

  • LEGO has tried this type of gender stereotyping before.

  • Here’s a quick history of LEGO’s ridiculous attempts to market to girls.

  • In 1979 LEGO released SCALA, a jewelry making kit that featured little plastic pieces with birds and flowers painted on them.

  • In 1992 LEGO released the PARADISA collection, which to their credit,

  • was meant to fit together with the larger TOWN LEGO theme (which is now renamed CITY).

  • Paradisa, Paradisa, sun is shining all day.

  • Let us ride down to the beach, go surfing, camping and play.

  • We can do anything we like at the house with the sun.

  • Paradisa, Paradisa, this is where we have fun.”

  • It included female minifigs so that’s good but all the boxes were bright pink,

  • and all the activities were leisure activities like the poolside paradise, the fun fair, and the country club.

  • In 1994 LEGO reduced the building experience to almost nothing with the Belville theme.

  • And similar to the ladyfigs of the Friends theme,

  • the characters of Belville looked a lot more like Barbie then Lego’s traditional minifigs.

  • The play focused on fairy tales where girls could play house with prince charming or have magical tea parties.

  • A few years later LEGO brought back the Scala theme, in name only,

  • this time there was virtually nothing to build and the core of the theme was to play with and dress up the Barbie knock off dolls.

  • And finally, in 2003 this happened.

  • Youre a very stylish girl,

  • just click to change your style,

  • youre a very stylish girl,

  • your way, your style.

  • Clickits, click it your way. Clickits.”

  • So they brought back customized jewelry making with Clikits.

  • I have no idea how this product is associated with LEGO since it has none of the iconic LEGO elements.

  • This brings us back to 2012 and the new Friends theme.

  • LEGO Friends. New LEGO Friends.

  • Welcome to beautiful Heartlake City.

  • Were here! Let’s all help out, make burgers, shakes, bake the cupcakes. It’s perfect.

  • Welcome to the world of LEGO Friends.”

  • Yeaaaa….

  • But moving on, LEGO’s press release on the Friends theme states that,

  • LEGO Friends delivers on a girl’s desire for realistic role-play, creativity, and a highly-detailed, character-based world

  • and apparently girl’s also desiremore beautyaccessoriesand interior building.”

  • I’m slightly confused because all of those things are also true about the other existing LEGO sets. Let’s take a look at a few of examples.

  • The Medieval Market Village is extremely detailed as is the Death Star which has 13 separate interiors.

  • Or what about Hogwart’s Castle?

  • It comes with Dumbledore’s office, the Slytherin and Gryffindor common rooms, the Astronomy Tower, the Great Hall.

  • It has 11 different minifigs and for accessories you get the Sorting Hat, Tom Riddle’s book, a Basilisk fang, various wands.

  • You even get a little Mrs. Norris!

  • If this isn’t a highly detailed, creative, role playing, interior building world then I don’t know what is.

  • Setting aside thedesire for beautywhich I guess just means pink.

  • It appears LEGO already makes toys that offer creative, role playing, character based, accessorized, interior building, construction experiences

  • so there must be something else keeping girls from embracing the LEGO experience.

  • The real reason girls aren’t interested in LEGOs as a whole is because for the last quarter of a century

  • the LEGO Group has been telling girls repeatedly that bricks are for boys.

  • How did LEGO’s products shift from its initial relatively, gender neutral, universal building experience to a more male dominated, male identified one?

  • Well, it didn’t happen by accident.

  • Join me for Part 2 of my LEGO and Gender video series where I’ll dig into exactly how this happened,

  • starting with a brief history of LEGO’s TV commercials including Zack the LEGO Maniac.

  • I’ll also offer LEGO a couple of suggestion to fix their gender segregation problem.

  • I hope you enjoyed that video, it was probably my most ambitious project to date and took an enormous amount of time to put together,

  • please help keep Feminist Frequency going by donating today. You can visit feministfrequency.com/donate

LEGO is here, hey kids, look a whole new world to build.”

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樂高之友--樂高與性別 第一部分 (LEGO Friends - LEGO & Gender Part 1)

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    阿多賓 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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