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[Duane Cunningham]

I have a son and a daughter (just short of 5 and 3) and our big Lego bucket is filled with a mishmash of sets, plenty of which are Friends and plenty aren't. And stuff just gets built using all of it together. I'm pretty sure that we've bought sets of both "genders" for both kids, maybe? I don't think they care, and I don't either. Spider-Man people, Ninjago people and Friends-Elf-People and etc seem to just co exist in the same messy world; it's fine.

 

[massoluk]

Lego Friends is a great tool to fight the stupid toys, an alternative for parents to move girls from Bratz to brains. That's what counts.

Those branded themes are great cash cows for Lego, sure, but they are also the way kids get into Lego. They are a backdoor. Once the radioactive Lego brick bites them, they become hooked. The next time they will want one Lego set just because it seems cool or more complicated. The space shuttle. A Lego creator building. A Technic car. Both girls and boys would pick those and build whatever they want with them.

I was disgusted at first, but this point kinda makes me a believer.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Gender roles are reinforced in tons of stores for tons of products everywhere. Not sure I get what you mean

The success shows that people are embracing the roles

That's kinda the problem.

 

[neorej]

I have a son and a daughter (just short of 5 and 3) and our big Lego bucket is filled with a mishmash of sets, plenty of which are Friends and plenty aren't. And stuff just gets built using all of it together. I'm pretty sure that we've bought sets of both "genders" for both kids, maybe? I don't think they care, and I don't either. Spider-Man people, Ninjago people and Friends-Elf-People and etc seem to just co exist in the same messy world; it's fine.

Having a daughter of 4, I have witnessed Stormtroopers riding their (originally thought up and built) speeders and cars to an ice-cream parlor manned by Venom, while the Lego Friends figurines sail into town on a pirate-ish boat (mostly pirate, but also Lego Knights and Space elements).

Gender-targeting doesn't mean shit to these kids, unless you teach them.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

LEGO only does this because it makes them money. If gender based marketing didn't work, it would not exist.

LEGO is not a non-profit.

If I was a LEGO shareholder, I would want them to continue.

Hence it'd be the role of governments to step in, no idea of the ideal solution though.

My nieces love Lego Friends - and one of the things they like is the fact that it's pink and violet and flowery.

Until I realised that, I agreed with the discussion in the original post. But now... I'm not sure my nieces would be that fond of playing with Lego if Friends wasn't as pastel as it is.

The question is, though, is it that my nieces have been fed gendered content all their life and so have been left with a lasting impression that that's what they should do... or do they just, naturally, like those colour schemes? I can't answer that, I've not been privy to all the decisions about their upbringing.

As I'm not a parent I can't say I'd be privy to answer either. Just afaik gendered toys have gotten worse over the last decades even.

Gender roles are reinforced in tons of stores for tons of products everywhere. Not sure I get what you mean

The success shows that people are embracing the roles

What I mean is that it's bad that companies make quite a buck while simultaneously reinforcing gender roles. I don't know what the solution to that is, whether it is mandated by the state or if parents just need to be made aware, etc. but just looking at the gender splits in academic subjects is pretty damning.

 

[entremet]

Hence it'd be the role of governments to step in, no idea of the ideal solution though.



As I'm not a parent I can't say I'd be privy to answer either. Just afaik gendered toys have gotten worse over the last decades even.



What I mean is that it's bad that companies make quite a buck while simultaneously reinforcing gender roles. I don't know what the solution to that is, whether it is mandated by the state or if parents just need to be made aware, etc. but just looking at the gender splits in academic subjects is pretty damning.

I'd rather the focus be on educational strategies to make up that gap than to focus on low hanging fruit like toys.

I don't think a decent study could be developed to isolate a variable of gendered toys and academic performance in STEM for girls. It's way more complex than that.

 

[Karkador]

I'm not seeing how to conclude from this that gender-based marketing works. Unless you want to argue that Lego whipped up a demand for "girl legos" by shutting them out of the fun when they aimed their existing product lines at boys (and grown men, to be honest).

The appeal of the Friends line could be attributed to features about the sets that are more specific than "it's feminine". Maybe people like the new color palette, or the different types of objects and item sets that are modeled. Also, Frozen really is an insanely popular thing.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

Also, there's a girl character in the Ninjago sets so Lego is actually incorporating female characters into their most popular sets.

She's also the best character in the sets and had the coolest mech.

 

[Weevilone]

I'm not really feeling the issue. I have young twins, one of each gender. They split their time with all different sorts of activities, so each is rather flexible in that regard.

When they're doing Legos, my daughter does lean toward the Friends line, though she digs the newer elves too. Her Friends cross-section is rather diverse. She's got a beach house, a bit of the girl targeted stuff mentioned, a cruise ship, some rock star stuff, a lot of outdoor adventure stuff (camping, rafting, etc), I think maybe a stretch limo.. a jet, a hot air balloon.. lots of stuff. Honestly I think she leans toward friends for the extended color palette mostly, same with elves.

And if you don't want to let your girl play with those, it's not like there aren't a ton of other lego lines to choose from, and many are gender neutral imo.

 

[MarkMclovin]

I have loads of legs sets. None of them appeal to girls. At all. I've even tried to push them onto my 5 year old but she's just not interested in building a vehicle, or building or scorpion.

As soon as I get her the Lego Friends Heartbreak Food Shop and boom, she loves it.

Just goes to show they're doing the right thing seeing that Lego has been mostly aimed at boys even if they don't mean it to.