There’s bad news everywhere today. I just sat down to check my emails and my aunt sent me one with a subject line that says NO!!!!! and a link to the new Lego Friends site.
This is the landing page for Lego friends.
This is the landing page for the regular Lego site.
I love Legos. I loved playing with them with both my children when they were little and now that the kids knock me out of the way I’ve been known to sit alone and put together the architectural series on my own.
We have issues. We have very smart women and girls being told that they aren’t of value unless they are adorable/sexy/fashionable.
When I called the LEGO group at 1-800-838-9647 to give a little feedback they explained to me that Lego Friends is the result of four years of research including research where girls said they wanted more realistic characters. They’re LEGO, they used to be the best. Now, they’re LEGO and they still have great toys, but maybe they don’t think girls need great toys?
Please LEGO. Please stop telling my daughter that her brain doesn’t matter.
yes and that boys like to play characters and girls don’t?
totally accurate & thank u for pointing this out-
I don’t know…I’m not offended by this at all. I was always a tomboy because the only “friends” my age were my male cousins. I played with Legos, Lincoln Logs, Matchbox cars, Micro Machines, Transformers, you name it. That said, I always enjoyed femininity, too. I would have loved these Lego sets. I wanted to be the girl who could prove that I didn’t need to look, dress or act like a man in order to excel at male-dominated activities (this is part of the reason I love Angelina Jolie movies, but I digress). My very first blog, which I started when I was in architecture school, was intended as a hub for other young women studying architecture. The logo (designed by myself) featured a woman rocking a pencil skirt and heels while carrying blueprints. I also used gratuitous amounts of pink. The site reflected MY personality. Some bitter feminist art snob wrote a blog post attacking my site as “pandering” and gag-worthy. She must have assumed a sexist man was behind it. Suffice to say, I don’t think that catering to the feminine aspect is automatically insulting. I do think that things like Bratz dolls are disgusting, but Lego Friends doesn’t cross a line for me.
I have been on the fence about this ever since I fell off the chair when I received the Business Week issue w the very pink cover. Lego is a company that’s meant to make money. That being said, I didn’t know about their landing Page for this new product until now. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. If I wanted Polly Pockets, I’d paid a lot less!!!
Seriously…what is the problem? I’m so sick of moms’ like you always bitching and complaining and causing controversy for no reason. What’s wrong with these toys anyway??? Nothing, quit making mountains out of mole hills. They are wearing the same type of clothes they sell at Target and Walmart etc etc…are you going to call their 800 #’s and tell them to stop selling these clothes because it tells our girls that they have to wear adorable clothing. I doubt your daughter really thinks less of herself or that her brain doesn’t matter because Lego came out with a girls line of toys.
Aren’t you the same person who had no issue with a breastfeeding doll?
Thank you for writing about this. I DO think they are listening. The Lego rep I talked to today sounded a little nervous, and I think they are hearing A LOT from concerned parents.
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
This is awful! I grew up on LEGOs and am absolutely astounded to see this!
I actually think there is a larger issue here – when did Legos go from being an open-ended toy that inspired creativity to being a marketing tool? Just TRY to find the plain, old, small Lego blocks that aren’t branded with either the Lego characters or television characters. You can’t find them! So instead of my kids – a son and a daughter – having the chance to explore their imaginations, they can use these blocks to build a fire truck. Or a girl with a pet. Or a scene from SpongeBob. It’s really distressing.