It is depressing to go to Target with your daughter looking for a nice, small lego set for her. Don't try it. You won't find anything beyond the big pink box that contains a few pink lego blocks. There are no girl story kits, barely any girl characters. In the whole City series, there is one girl character, among many policemen and firemen and other boys. At least in what was available in Target. A quick look at the Lego website City series shows that things are somehow better. I just looked at the pictures of the sets and counted the characters that looked like girls and the ones that looked like boys -- all the characters with helmets, or non-gender specific I counted as boys, considering that there should have been at least a small effort to hint at them being girls: a dress, a pink bow, a red lipstick, a ponytail peeking out of the helmet, a purse painted on the side. Here are the statistics: Lego City series
Harbor theme: 5 sets, 12 boys, 2 girls (both in one set)
Space theme: 4 sets, 7 boys, no girls
Police theme: 11 sets, 30 boys, 1 girl
Airport theme: 7 sets, 13 boys, 1 girl
Fire theme: 5 sets, 14 boys, no girls
Trains theme: 6 sets, 7 boys, 2 girls (in two separate sets)
Town theme: 3 sets, 8 boys, 4 girls (all three sets have girl characters)
Construction theme: 2 sets, 2 boys, no girls
Farm theme: 4 sets, 5 boys, 2 girls (in two separate sets)
Total: out of 47 sets, only 10 sets have girl characters, for a total of 12 girl-looking characters among 98 boy-looking characters.
And this pathetic presence of girls, in sets that are mostly not appealing to girls at all. At least not to mine. Except for the farm. My daughter would have liked a school, a park, a hospital, a vet office, a pet shop, maybe, something of that sort. But we couldn't find any of that. Of course, in the store the options went beyond the City series. However, in the Harry Potter kits only the very large (and expensive) ones have the Hermione character. The same with the Pirates of the Carribean set. You will find however, plenty of space ships, cars, planes, robots and knights, who are not at least saving one lame princess that we can identify with.
The Lego section in the stores looks like a boys' toys section. All black, grey and white. All weapons and machines. Nothing gentle, more feminine, not pastel colors, no animals, schools, unicorns and whatever other "girlie" stuff our girls have become accustomed to. I mean, Lego is not even trying. You know, I would be happy with stereotypes at this point, anything. But honestly, a girl character, is what I'm asking. A girl centric story. We have such things, don't we? All I was looking for was a small, $10 - $15 set with a girl and a house. A girl and a car. A girl and a robot. A girl and a forest. A girl and a school. A girl and a horse. A girl and a hospital. A girl and a police station. A girl and a farm. I want my daughter to be able to populate her imaginary universes with as many girls as boys (it not more, if we are to be realistic).
It does not make any sense to me. What world is my daughter living in? Did she already get the subtle message that she should veer away from the legos and turn to the dress-up clothes and the cupcake makers? Not that boys are allowed to even consider the dress-up clothes and cupcake makers. Which is sad, but not as serious, because these are considered inferior interests in our society anyway, compared to the creativity-enhancing, systematical-reasoning-teaching, "inspiring-and-developing-the-builders-of-tomorrow" Lego. The sexism that starts in the lives of children this young is unbelievable. I am reminded how J.K. Rowling did not sign Harry Potter with her full name afraid that little boys won't read a children's book written by a woman. I know. It doesn't even sound real. Embarrassing. Shameful.
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12 comments:
Hi Lori,
I love Lego sets, and I dislike how there are few girl characters, and few gender neutral sets. When my son was young, it was fun to build things together. Through the years, I've given Lego sets as gifts to both boys and girls. Maybe more parents should band together to let Lego know it's good for both boys and girls to have sets that allow children of both sexes to build creatively, without even thinking about whether it's a set for a boy or a girl. Some of the basic sets are good for that, but only if they have both boys and girls in them; unfortunately, the balance of figures always runs toward boys.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Annie. This has been a very frustrating experience for me. And I know that Lego would argue that Lego is gender neutral, that does not reflect at all in the stores. Maybe a movement needs to start, indeed, to force them to reevaluate the balance.
I've never realized that. Both my son and daughter love playing with legos, and they have a few sets, yet the gender of the figures hasn't come up.
Hi, my little girl is turning 6 has lots of lego, but wants some princesses, castles type lego, there is none :( there is in duplo for the young kids, but surely girls of age 6 can still enjoy princesses in proper lego. The funny thing is my daughter is a bit of a tomboy in some ways. I think lego seems to have become more boy centric over the last few years, a shame as it is great for both genders to play and be creative with. Glad I am not alone in my thoughts!
I know, Angie. I probably wouldn't have discovered a problem until the day when I wanted to reward my daughter and buy her a small Lego addition to her big set. That is when I realized that beyond the large sets, there is very little gender neutral or including girls. Also, is your daughter ever attracted to the Lego aisle out of all the toy sections? My daughter would never stop there. Just by a quick look she can tell that there is nothing there that is supposed to be attractive to her.
I'm very glad I'm not alone in this also, Anonymous. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. My daughter is also turning 6.
I've noticed this too, the gender stereotyping in our children's toys is alarming. It's in writing too, in the stories we read. It's everywhere and it delimits the choices our children can make in their lives, just as our choices were limited.
I'm new to your blog, Lori, here via Rachel at snow like thought. Pleased to meet you.
Hi, Elisabeth. Thanks for stopping by. It is everywhere, isn't it? So very frustrated and sad. It makes me feel so powerless. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this.
I get frustrated in the toy store, too - boy areas clearly set aside from the girl aisles.
It's just wrong.
Thanks for pointing this out, Lori.
Right, Rachel. The toy store needs a large scale gender study because its impact on new generations and its role in proliferating societal inequities are very significant, I believe. We should not be toying with the toy store.
Completely agree. My daughter turned 7 in September, and wanted a lego set--pink house, town, anything like that--but my local Lego store even did away with the "Belleville" series (which was pretty skimpy). Even my local Legoland didn't have any girl stuff.
What gets me, is that in the past they had a lot more girl stuff (and not just for the under 5 crowd). I always see girls as well as boys shopping in there.
On the Lego forum, one of the moderators said that they did some kind of research and that girls don't like to "build". Well, of course they don't, because they don't necessarilycall it building, they call it "creating" "making something" or a "project".
So, I did end up buying my daughter one of the urban townhouses, which will be her Christmas present.
She ended up picking the lego cup and choosing her own pieces--although she was upset that they only have the red petals for the flowers now, no more pink ones--she ended up "building" a beautiful garden!
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I think that is just ridiculous that girls don't like to build. Of course girls like to build stuff. It doesn't have to be buildings, necessarily, but it's not like boys build buildings that much. You are right, I think, girls might interpret "building"as something for boys, although that is entirely Lego's fault -- there, I said it. We are the ones who teach our girls what to like and what to not like, what is acceptable and desirable for them, and what is not. In most situation, this is learned behavior. I know that companies only care to make money and if they could monetize on a group of customers they would, so it's probably not only Lego's fault. It is a more generic situation for which the whole society is probably to blame. It is just so heartbreaking sometimes.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts.