Category Archives: Toys & products

Lego responds to parents and misses the point

Posted on by
Reply

Last week, Lego released this statement to parents who are upset about the gender stereotyping marketed to kids:

We want to correct any misinterpretation that LEGO Friends is our only offering for girls. This is by no means the case. We know that many girls love to build and play with the wide variety of LEGO products already available. LEGO Friends joins this global collection of products as yet another theme option from which parents may choose the best building experience for their child’s skill and interest.

We listen very carefully to the opinions and input that people share. We will continue to do so as we develop the LEGO brand to deliver the best experiences with the strongest appeal, and we will review our communications to ensure that we represent LEGO play for all children. We are proud to have developed a collection that is receiving positive feedback and reviews from parents and children who are now trying it at home, and we hope that we will engage even more girls in the skill-developing experience of LEGO play.

Here’s my response back to Lego:

LEGO Systems, Inc.
555 Taylor Road
P.O. Box 1138
Enfield, CT 06083-1138
 
 
Dear Lego,
You’re missing the point. It’s true that Lego Friends is particularly shocking in how it perpetuates gender stereotypes. Still, the problem is not that Friends is the only offering “for girls,” but rather: Why does Lego market so separately to girls at all?
Why does Lego picture mostly boys on its boxes, boys in its TV commercials, and boys flying an airplane on its Facebook Welcome page? When you go to Lego’s website, why are categories organized: Trains, Robotics, Buildings, Vehicles etcetera and then Girls? Why does Lego act as if “Girls” are in a separate category than so many other options? That boys are important and central and that girls are secondary and an afterthought? It’s this belief that permits missteps like the creation of the Friends sets. In your statement, you write: ”We know that many girls love to build and play with the wide variety of LEGO products already available.” But then why doesn’t Lego aggressively market all of its sets to all children? In 1981, you did. What happened?
Sincerely,
Margot Magowan
Please write your own letter to Lego as well. The petition on Change.org asking Lego to stop selling girls out has over 47,000 signatures. You can sign it here.

35,000 have signed the petition against Lego ‘for girls’

Posted on by
4

As of this posting, just over 35,000 people have signed the petition on Change.org asking Lego to stop selling girls out.

The petition, created by SPARK and Powered By Girl, reads:

After 4 years of marketing research, LEGO has come to the conclusion that girls want LadyFigs, a pink Barbielicious product line for girls, so 5 year-olds can imagine themselves at the café, lounging at the poolwith drinks, brushing their hair in front of a vanity mirror, singing in a club, or shopping with their girlfriends. As LEGO CEO Jorgan Vig Knudstorp puts it, “We want to reach the other 50% of the world’s population.”

As representatives of that 50%, we aren’t buying it! Marketers, ad execs, Hollywood and just about everyone else in the media are busy these days insisting that girls are not interested in their products unless they’re pink, cute, or romantic. They’ve come to this conclusion even though they’ve refused to market their products to the girls they are so certain will not like them. Who populates commercials for LEGO? Boys! Where in the toy store can you find original, creative, construction-focused LEGO? The boy aisle! So it’s no wonder LEGO’s market research showed girls want pink, already-assembled toys that don’t do anything. It’s the environment and the message marketers have bombarded girls with for over a decade because, of course, stereotypes make marketing products so much easier. But we remember playing with and loving LEGO when we were little girls.

If you’re not familiar with these new Lego sets, check out this ad. It is not a SNL spoof.

If you haven’t yet signed the petition yet and would like to, please visit Change.org.

Though the petition has received an enormous amount of support, here’s a summary of some responses I’ve gotten in defense of the dumbed-down Lego sets:

Girls don’t have to buy this set; they can buy any set they want. These new sets are just for girls who aren’t buying Lego yet to turn them on to the product.

Lego Friends are aggressively marketed to girls in a 40 million dollar media roll out. All kids see and get influenced by these ridiculous commercials that welcome them to “beautiful Heartlake City” where Stephanie goes to a party at the new cafe to “chill with the girls” or the “beauty shop where Emma gets styled and ready to go.” If Lego wants to attract girls to its product, why doesn’t it aggressively market its other sets to them? Why does Lego show boys on most of its packages, boys in its commercials, boys on its Facebook Welcome page, and sell mostly male figs? Obviously, this is a much bigger issue than just Lego. I recently posted When Hollywood excludes girls, how can Lego market to them? The solution to this sexism marketed to little kids is not for another company to cave into it, turning its once creative toy into Disney princess clones.

The new Legos aren’t as bad as Monster High or Barbie.

Is that the bar we want to measure against? Really? Monster High?

What’s wrong with dolls or “girly” things?

It’s the dominance of this type of toy and how aggressively and relentlessly it’s marketed to girls that is the problem. Girls are taught literally from birth by toys, games, and media aimed at them that first and foremost, what is most important is how they look.

Lego, are you listening to us now? 35,000 customers hope that you are.

“There’s no law that they can’t go in the store and buy the Frank Lloyd Wright line” –Matt Lauer on girl Legos

Posted on by
20

Thank God for Star Jones.

Yesterday, on “The Today Show,” Matt Lauer, Nancy Snyderman, Donnie Deutsch, and Star discussed the Legos for girls. Everyone seemed to think selling girls out was pretty hilarious. I transcribed the segment below ( It may not be perfect but it’s very close. The version I found on the Today site missed words and didn’t attribute them.) My comments are in italics. You can watch the segment here.

Matt Lauer: Lego has a brand new line of products coming out marketed specifically to girls, but some are arguing it’s sexist and stereotypical because the lady Legos work in places like beauty salons, cupcake factories, and vet offices.

Would Matt say “gentleman Legos”? Or is he adopting Lego’s “ladyfig” term? Or, is he being facetious in which case: ha ha

Star Jones: And they give you little electric mixers and brushes and combs and purses.

Thank you, Star. Well said.

Donnie Deutsch: Perfect, perfect.

Ha ha?

Matt Lauer: You’re sounding down on this.

Ha?

Jones: When you’re a little girl, you want to build bridges also. You want to put them on top of each other. You don’t want–

Lauer: So go out and buy the architectural Lego.

(Nancy Snyderman laughs.)

Jones: Which is exactly the way my three year old goddaughter does. She has the architectural one. The big yellow ones.

Thank you Star for trying to explain.

Nancy Snyderman: These are perfectly okay. The reality is there is a gender difference. Girls like playing with girl’s things, and you’re still constructing things. If the cupcake girl can still do calculus, I have no issue.

If the cupcake girl knows calculus, it’s not because of Friends Lego. The focus of the Friends sets is not  construction or imagination. Everyone chant together now: Girls like playing with girl things! Girls like playing with girl things! If we say it enough, it will come true!

Deutsch: By the way, an example yesterday, I took my little girls to a craft studio where you paint and draw. They picked the cupcakes and the girl things. They were still learning to draw but they were doing it their way. Having said that though, where I do have a problem is when you separate the 50 most powerful business women. The more you separate men and women, that’s keeping the distinction, so there’s a double edged sword.

And the difference is? That’s not a double edge, dude, it’s an edge. One more time: Girls like playing with girl things!

Jones: They put those Legos in the girls section.

Star tries again. Thank you, Star.

Lauer: Here’s a response from Lego: We’re typically acknowledged as a toy for boys. Currently only 9% of American girls are building. The Lego Friends line is the result of four year of global research to understand what would attract more girls to building.

At this point I would’ve said: “Of course Lego said that. They’re trying to sell toys to parents.” But instead everyone except for Star leaps on Lego’s statement as if it’s Gospel.

Deutsch: You’re teaching them to build!

Snyderman: It gets girls into architecture and math and design, I’m all for it!

Jones: Give them some alternatives for goodness sake.

Lauer: There’s no law that says they can’t go to the store and buy the Frank Lloyd Wright line.

There’s no law, Matt. It’s called marketing. Isn’t this segment about Lego marketing to girls?

Jones: They put the Legos in the girls sections.

Star tries a fourth time to discuss how corporations market gender.

Deutsch: Little Girls do like princesses and things like that. I like princesses.

When princesses are practically the only way girls get represented or are allowed to be the center of attention, or stars, in movies, games, toys, and TV, of course, they’re going to like them. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Snyderman: And will parents buy this for boys? (Laughs)

Deutsch: No they won’t.

Lauer: That’s probably not going to happen

(Everyone laughs)

To me, that’s the lowlight of this whole segment. Parents wouldn’t be caught dead buying Friends Legos for their sons. Why? First, it’s a stupid toy. Look how early it starts: boy stuff is cool and girl stuff has cooties. Parents feel comfortable when their kids fall neatly into gender norms and corporations play to that.  If a boy tries on a barrette, the parent pays little attention, but if he picks up a train, “He’s such a boy! Look at him go!” Of course, it goes way beyond that. As I keep writing about this issue, kids learn through play. Play is supposed to challenge children out of their comfort zones to help their brains grow. Parents, please challenge your kids.


Letter from 14 yr old girl to Lego

Posted on by
135

Ann Garth sent Reel Girl a copy of her excellent letter. Here it is:

Dear Lego,
My name is Ann Garth, I am 14 years old, and I love Legos. Some of my fondest memories of preschool are of the giant “Lego pit,” which was basically a container the size of a small table completely filled with Legos. Whenever we had free time I would rush over to the table and start constructing something, usually a spaceship or some sort of vessel, because you had all those little ladders and hoods and flippy things that I didn’t quite know what to do with but could make into windows, doors, and windshields. I would carefully construct walls, making sure to stagger the edges like real bricks so they wouldn’t fall apart, and when I was done I would set my creation carefully aside, making sure that no one else touched the masterpiece. Legos inspired me, helped me become more creative, and gave me something fun to do on countless long afternoons.

This is why I was so disappointed when I recently heard of Lego’s horrible, totally misguided decision to make and market a line of (very pink) Legos for girls, complete with a girl brushing her hair in the mirror, a bottle of perfume, and more. This is problematic for only two or three MILLION reasons, but let me pick the first, broadest, and most obvious: the idea that if you want to market a line to girls, it cannot involve any movement, adventure, or activity.

Quite honestly, I don’t have that much of a problem with you painting your new Legos pink. Lots of girls like pink, and while that fact is an inditement of our popular culture in itself, it’s not your fault. In addition, adding pink might encourage some girls to try Legos. My problem is with the theme of the collection, and the ideas it enshrines. You are telling girls that they can do, or should do, nothing more than sit and prink. You are telling girls that the boys get to have all the fun, while they have to stay home and be bored. You are saying that all girls care about is makeup and how they look, when in reality there is so much more.

I promise you, girls are do more. Girls ARE more. As a kid, my favorite things to do were read and write (incidentally, I’m not seeing any library Lego sets coming out lately), but what I loved almost as much were building forts and climbing trees. There is nothing as nice as sitting in the crook of a big green tree with your book and listening as the leaves flutter in the passing breeze on a quieter day, or scaling the heights and climbing out far past what your parents would be okay with on an an adventurous one. And, of course, there is always the fun of piling up the pillows for a fort, figuring out a way to hold the sheets up (I devised a complicated system involving three of my dad’s spring clips, our yard stick, and the space between the headboard and the wall, which worked fantastically), and then settling down with a book, bowl of popcorn, or even a set of Legos to relax after my labors.

And I am not the only one. Ask your daughter(s), Mr. Knudstorp. Or, if you’ve raised her (them) to play with only girly toys, as any one of the girls subscribing to New Moon Girls magazine. Ask those affiliated with Pigtail Pals or Reel Girl, be they parents or kids. Ask Lise Elliot, whose research has shown almost no differential in the play styles of boys and girls when they are young, but a substantial difference as they get older- a result of your company and others playing up stereotypes. Ask Peggy Orenstein, who wrote an incredible book about the “girly-girl culture,” Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Ask Jennifer Shewmaker, Amy Siskind, or any of the other incredible mothers, fathers, scientists, and doctors who are helping shape the movement to take back our girls.

I am sure that by now others have shown you your own company’s 1981 ad, the one with the adorable little girl in the overalls with the red braids holding up something she has made all herself, no pre-fab mirrors and perfume bottles needed, with the slogan “What it is is beautiful.” I am sure that someone (likely millions of someones) have brought your attention to the sick, horrible irony of what you gave that girl back then- the same as the boys, the same as everyone- and what you are giving her today- six new shades of lavender and pink; dolls who do nothing but sit by the pool; bottles of perfume and beauty parlors. More telling to me, though, is what you are not giving her today- tools, weapons, trees to climb, or spaceships, boats, and houses to make. Back when your first ad was made all of those things had to be made with blocks; there were endless opportunities. Now, there is nothing to do except climb in the pre-made tree house, shop in the store that is already there, and drive around in the car built by machine.

Please, Mr. Knudstorp. Please bring back real Legos. If you want to appeal to girls, create more sets. Expand your horizons. But instead of expanding into stereotypical girl territory, try hooking a bunch of boys as well by creating a library set, a computer room set, or a boat set. What about one with a soccer field, or a pool? Or- and I know that this may be shocking- what about simply giving kids the same old blocks in the same old colors and letting us make beautiful?

I think you might be surprised at the results.

Sincerely,
Ann Garth

P.S. If you take your current sexist set off the market, or even just market your new sets to boys and girls, I promise I will go buy some of your regular Legos.

Update: See this letter to LEGO from a 10 yr old girl and read LEGO’s dimwitted response.

Hi Lego, here are some more great ideas for you

Posted on by
2

On Lego’s multi-million-dollar-marketing blitz rolling out its new girly toy, Shaping Youth’s Amy Jussel blogs:

How can we finally be tossing aside ‘hardwired’ corpus calossum theories on differences in boys/girls, acknowledging brain plasticity and realizing this play pattern/edu deficit stuff is NOT ‘set in stone’ and yet simultaneously standby to see Lego spend $40 million in mega-marketing bucks to proceed to SET it in stone.

Here are some of Jussel’s suggestions:

…We begin early on building new fluencies by shifting rather than reinforcing play patterns to stop gap educational chasms that seep out in early years of ‘testing’ after exposure to repeated environmental influences?

…We focus on using those thousands of hours of practice in play purposely veering toward more verbal prowess for boys and spatial ability for girls to close the whole reading/math gender stereotype gap?

… We redirect that $40 million of Lego marketing money toward cross-training childrens’ brains via play to amp up their mind muscles and fill learning gaps in BOTH genders?

…We cease to amplify the same ol’ gendered strengths and weaknesses as faux marketing ‘givens’ until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? (and then shake our heads at why boys and girls are just ‘different’ in learning styles)

Please read Jussel’s whole post. It’s great and has many excellent references to books and articles.

OpEd on gendered toys in Sunday’s New York Times

Posted on by
4

The New York Times is reporting on it! It must be a serious issue, right?

From Cinderella Ate My Daughter’s awesome author Peggy Orenstein:

Every experience, every interaction, every activity — when they laugh, cry, learn, play — strengthens some neural circuits at the expense of others, and the younger the child the greater the effect. Consider: boys from more egalitarian homes are more nurturing toward babies. Meanwhile, in a study of more than 5,000 3-year-olds, girls with older brothers had stronger spatial skills than both girls and boys with older sisters.

At issue, then, is not nature or nurture but how nurture becomes nature: the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose them. So blithely indulging — let alone exploiting — stereotypically gendered play patterns may have a more negative long-term impact on kids’ potential than parents imagine. And promoting, without forcing, cross-sex friendships as well as a breadth of play styles may be more beneficial. There is even evidence that children who have opposite-sex friendships during their early years have healthier romantic relationships as teenagers.

Read the rest here.

When Hollywood excludes girls, how can Lego market to them?

Posted on by
12

You’ve probably heard about Lego’s sexist new Friends sets just for girls that hits stores next week. But do you know about the other new Legos coming out in 2012? The Journal Inquirer reports: “The Lego Group has inked a deal with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to create building sets based on ‘The Lord of the Rings’ movie trilogy and two new films based on ‘The Hobbit,’ scheduled for release in 2012.”

Check out this link to the Journal Inquirer that pictures Lego’s new toy. It won’t let me copy the photo, but the Lego figs pictured look so much cooler than the Friends for girls and guess what: they’re all male.

Of course they are. That makes sense right? Think about “Lord of the Rings.” How many females were in that high grossing, Academy Award-winning series?

Other best-selling Lego sets are based on the “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars” movie series.

Do you see the sexism chain reaction here? (Serial reaction?) When girl characters are excluded from movies, they’re left out of the toys and branding on all kinds of kids clothing and products as well. Please take a look at Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing from Kids’ Movies in 2011. These movies predominantly star males, feature multiple males in the cast, and often highlight the names of males in their titles. This kind of blatant sexism repeatedly teaches kids that males are more important than females, and that’s a horrible lesson for both genders to learn.

Of course The Hobbit was a book long before it was a movie. J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic came out in 1937. But it’s Hollywood’s appropriation of the story that makes it massively popular with a new generation, grounding it in pop culture and inciting the creation of a slew of toys timed to hit stores around the same time the movie hits theaters.

Hollywood shows our kids animals who talk, rats who cook, toys who come to life, and singing lions who befriend warthogs. Is it too much to ask to see imaginary worlds where girls and boys get equal representation? How long do we have to wait?

Anyone see “Arthur Christmas” this year?

As long as Hollywood restricts female characters to a tiny minority in its films, it’s going to be challenging to convince toy companies to represent heroic females in their toys. It’s asking them to use a lot more imagination.

Of course, toy companies should be imaginative. Lego markets itself as a learning toy, one that is good for “fostering creative play.” It’s unfortunate that Lego chose to spend its time (4 years) and money “researching” the best way to copy Disney, finally coming out with a product that turns its once special toy into princess clones. Maybe Lego should do some real research on how to encourage girls to “foster creative play.” How?

Here’s one great idea from Nancy Gruver of New Moon Girls:

Here’s a suggestion, Lego:  Take the Here’s some video of them winning the N.A. competition. All this, and a little , show how easy it is to encourage girls to do creative problem-solving with Legos – inspiration, pure and simple.

This winning team of girls should lead development of Lego’s next set for girls. I’m more than glad to help Lego learn how to share power with girls in developing great products for them without reducing to lowest-common-denominator stereotypes.  It can be done and sustained, as we’ve done at New Moon Girls for nearly 20 years now.

What do you think, Lego?

PBG has started a petition against the Lego for girls sets that has over 2,000 signatures. Go to Change.org to sign.

People upset about the sexist sets are also going to Lego’s Facebook page and posting the 1981 pic shown below, asking Lego to bring beautiful back.

Is 4 year old Riley ‘brainwashed’ by her dad?

Posted on by

By now, you’ve probably seen the video that’s gone viral of four year old Riley complaining about the genderfication of toys.

Commenters all over the internet and Facebook are crying foul, protesting that Riley is brainwashed and being coached as she’s filmed by her father. Here’s one comment I got on SFGate:

Riley’s video would be alot more moving if her Dad wasn’t audibly coaching her from behind the lense. She’s parroting what he’s been pushing on her.

Even alternative sites like this one suspiciously speculate on the behind the scenes, manipulative influence of Riley’s father.

So often, if people witness a parent stray from social norms, buying her daughter a superhero costume or her son a toy stroller, they conclude that parent is “brainwashing,” “programming,” or “coaching” her kid away from “natural” behavior.

I won’t repeat it here, but if you think the color pink or baby dolls are “natural” for girls, please see this post.

This Christmas, my two-year-old daughter was devastated when her slightly younger two-year-old cousin received a super cool, light up, noisy truck. Oh, how she wanted that truck. What two-year-old wouldn’t? Do you think any one gave her one for Christmas? No, that would be “brainwashing.” It would be making some kind of statement.

Guess what? Parents are supposed to “brainwash” their kids. It’s called parenting. It’s our job to instill values and beliefs in our children and give our kids positive reinforcement when they show behavior we want them to practice. Obviously, kids rebel and figure out their own way, but it’s our role to give them a structure to work with. I don’t know why when it comes to toys or movies, people think we’re supposed to suddenly abdicate that responsibility. Kids learn through play. Doesn’t everyone know that by now? Everything they watch on the screen is “programming” them. That’s what a program is.

If Riley’s father is brainwashing her, if he is giving her attention, filming her for the camera, letting her be a star as she goes along on her diatribe, he’s being a good dad; he’s “brainwashing” his daughter to be open, consciously encouraging her to allow more experiences to come into her world, not less. Isn’t that the best kind of brainwashing? Isn’t it preferable to the limiting, reflex, “positive” reinforcement my daughters, and daughters all over the world, get everyday when people beam at them and say: “I love your dress, shirt, shoes, pretty girl/ princess!”

When people argue that Riley’s father, the one who is supposed to bringing her up, is manipulating her, but that standing in a chain store’s pink aisle full of dolls created and marketed by multinational companies is somehow “natural,” it shows just how backward and twisted kidworld has become.

How do you explain to your 5 yr old why Monster High is inappropriate?

Posted on by
91

That question was asked of Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals on her FB page. Here’s her excellent reply:

What I said to my 5yo was that Monster High dolls were dressed in a way that I felt was inappropriate for children, that their faces looked mean not nice, and that their bodies sent our hearts unhealthy messages. We talked about different colors of hair and skin being really cool, but that these dolls made little girls focus too much on being pretty for other people and being too grown-up and that is not what kids need to do.

A few months down the road when she asked for more info, I told her that Monster High dolls have the kind of bodies that can make girls sick, because a real person could never have a body like that, and that I loved my little girl’s healthy body so much I would never want her to have something that would make her think her body wasn’t amazing.

And when she kept pushing about the clothing, I told her that girls who dress like that often don’t have full and happy hearts, and they use clothing like that to get attention and make themselves feel full. Then I took it a step further, and had her come upstairs to her dress up drawer, and picked out clothing I knew was way too small and tight for her. She put it on, and I told her to go play. Amelia said she couldn’t move because of her clothes. I then asked if she thought Monster High was silly, because how could those girls move and be teenagers who do fun things and play sports. She said she thought maybe they just stood around and looked pretty.

I told her she was absolutely right. And then we talked about other toys she had, how different they looked, and what kinds of things those dolls could do instead. I hope to grow the idea of full and happy hearts as Amelia (and Benny) age, to help her make good and healthy decisions about all kinds of things: healthy eating and exercise, drugs and alcohol, sex and relationships, good behavior in school, etc. If that is our baseline, I think the things that fall so far outside of that, whether it is Monster High or music lyrics or friends who are a bad influence, my kids will see it for what it is and be that much more equipped to make good choices for themselves.

I want to teach them to use their intuition and common sense when it comes to hard decisions. It is what I do when I tell myself there is no way in hell that dolls like Monster High or Bratz or hooker Barbies will end up in my home. I respect my children far too much to feed them a diet of garbage like that.

I love the idea of asking her daughter dress up in too small, uncomfortable clothing and asking her to try playing. Talk about showing not telling. Brilliant. Read Melissa’s blogposte here.