Lego now has a Lego Club Girls Magazine, which according to a mom whose kids are members, is the only place where Lego will feature pictures that girls send in of themselves with their “builds.” They no longer plan to put pictures of girls in their other magazine, which is both the defacto “boy magazine,” but will continue to be called the Lego Club Jr. Magazine. This segregates girls’ play. Boys should see girls building, and girls should see boys building. For boys, the one place where they might have previously seen girls in official Lego marketing, is now a boys-only space.
Tell me what you know.
Update: From the comments I’ve gotten here and on FB, it seems to me– and this is a guess– that Lego is in the process of deciding, Look at the comments and see what you think. Here is the comment I got back from LEGO on its FB page:
FROM LEGO: Hi Reel Girl! The pages in the magazines displaying children’s builds will feature pictures from girls and boys in both magazines. Thanks for clarifying with us! 🙂
I left LEGO more questions clarifying the clarifying. Will there be girls in Lego Jr Club? Why 2 magazines? Are you going for pretty much equal representation of genders in each or is your goal to primarily have boys reading one and girls reading the other?
It’s a well know fact that Scorsese made Hugo for his 12 year old daughter!! He mentioned it again last night in his speech.
So what? The movie also has a strong female character, but it’s yet another movie centered on the quest of the male main character: five out of five nominated.
Shouldn’t the lack of females not be a problem for you if you’d considered men and women really equal? if you could really identify yourself to a man, and a man to a woman?
So maybe the problem is that men will not identify to women, not the other way around. My point is: the lack of female character is not the problem, the problem is the abundance of women in stupid roles
Huh? Sorry, I identified with females as a child (when I loved Charlie’s Angels because it was one of the few shows on TV where girls actually got to do stuff) and I do now. Those are my choices? No females or females in stupid roles? Really?
People, I don’t know how to write this more clearly. The females in kids’ movies have gone missing. Kids movies. Is “Adventures of Tintin”– created by a misogynist who believed women have no place in his imaginary world– going to win the Academy Award now for best animated film? Is that OK with you? Yes, the animation is spectacular, but would anyone EVER even consider making a kids’ movie based on a series created by a female artist who believed males didn’t belong in her movie? Can you even imagine that movie? If that movie were made, do you think people might notice that males were missing from it?
Every weekend day, while my two-year-old naps, the older two kids get to watch a movie. We just got a flat screen TV and can stream Netflix. So exciting for movie lovers. Wow. Have you all been doing this for years? My husband starts going through the options, and the photos come up of all the movies. My kids shout: “Thumbelina! Tangled!”
We say: “Look! “Howl’s Moving Castle!” Miyazaki. I bet that’s great.”
Kids: “No, no, no!”
Grown-ups: “It’ll be so good!”
Kids: “NO!”
One kid bursts into tears. The other sulks.
This is the point where you give in, right? It’s a movie for God’s sake. Who cares? Let them choose. Just as long as they stay quiet so the little one can sleep. They hardly get to pick anything in life. Why not a movie? What’s the big deal?
But this is where you need to resist. What they watch is really important, and kids are going to choose what they are familiar with. They love routine. So pick for them. Get them to try something new.
This is how our story ends:
We put on “Howl’s Moving Castle.” They keep crying and sulking. We leave the room. Not a word came out of those kids for the next two hours. They loved it. Today, they asked to see it again. They just need a little push, the same way with everything else, to try something new. Give it to them. It’s worth it.
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?
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.
Last night, “Adventures of Tintin” won the Golden Globe for best animated film. Director Steven Spielberg thanked the studio for taking a chance on an “80 year old comic book series;” he didn’t add a series whose creator believed females didn’t belong in his imaginary world.
Other nominations in the best animation category? Rango, Puss In Boots, Arthur Christmas, and Cars 2. Out of five nominations, four were named for the male star of the movie. This after Disney switched the movie title from “Rapunzel” to “Tangled” to hide its female star. Not a single clip shown in the animated film category during the Golden Globes ceremony featured a female voice.
Best Director win? Martin Scorsese for “Hugo,” yet another kids film titled for its male star.
My agent suggested that I read The Lightning Thief because I’m writing a Middle Grade book and the pacing in this MG series is considered perfect.
The books are exciting page turners. I also adore this series because it’s all about the gods and goddesses from the Greek myths (existing above modern day Manhattan.) I loved the Greek myths as a kid and love them now. I’ve heard the Greek myths described as the narratives of the patriarchy taking over the matriarchy. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can see why the theory exists. There are many strong, cool females in those myths– many more than we have in books or movies that dominate the culture in 2012. The women of the Greek myths are also beautiful and smart and strong– a combination pretty forbidden nowadays. But the men rule. That is true in this series as well.
Our hero is Percy. He is the son of Poseidon, the sea god. Percy, like all heroes, is a half-blood: half god and half human. I like this kid. He’s smart, funny, resourceful, sweet, and humble. He, like many modern day heroes in kidworld, has a smart, strong girl sidekick: Annabeth, daughter of Athena. She helps him along on his quest. There’s quite a lot of talk in this book about “the big three:” Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Those are the three most powerful gods whose children are the most powerful heroes. If you read this series with your kids, I suggest discussing with them why the goddesses aren’t allowed to be in the big three and why that’s not fair, beyond their specific roles in the myths.
Besides Annabeth, there are other strong females in this series.
I recommend reading it to your sons and daughters. I’d love to recommend many more companion books where the boys help the girls along on their quests.
My eight year daughter tore through this series and said she liked it better than Harry Potter (but that could’ve been because she was done with HP– she lives in the present.)
We’ve been cycling through the the stomach flu at my house, so I’ve been spending a lot of time reading to bedridden kids. We’re all loving the Ramona series.
The writing is wonderful, the characters are complex and realistic, and the books are funny. Cleary does a great job going into the mind of Ramona: her jealousy over Beezus, her fears about school, her anxiety when her parents fight. Ramona has a great relationship with Howie, and it’s fascinating to read about their adventures together.
These books have no boring or slow parts. My five year old and my eight year old are riveted. Even my two year old is or pretends to be, begging for the Wamona book at bedtime.
If I have one tiny bone to pick: the way the narrator seems to pity Ramona because she has boring brown hair. This comes up several times in the series. I have two blonds and a brunette, and I skip that part when I read. Being a brunette myself, I remember being annoyed by the ubiquitous golden locks of heroines.
I highly recommend these books. Please remember to read them to your sons. Get excited about the book, and they will love it too. A great time to start the series is if you’re talking about kindergarten, because that’s what the first book is all about.
Which new movie do you think this line comes from?
Could it possibly be in an animated film where the intended audience is little girls? Little girls who probably love to pillow fight? Who are probably awesome at it? Yep, it’s in the new “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.”
Why would kids need to hear a line making fun of how girls fight? What writer or producer or director could possibly think perpetuating that stereotype would be funny for girls to hear? Or were they, more likely, not thinking about little girls at all?
“Madagascar 3,” by the way, features the same 4 main characters as in 1 and 2. Guess how many are female? One, Gloria the Hippo. She has hardly any lines in this preview. There is a female villain played by Frances McDormand who is featured prominently in the preview. I hope she has a big part in the movie as well.
This frat boy mentality that looms over kids movies has to end. Hollywood, please stop programming sexism to kids. It’s not funny.
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.
When I posted yesterday that The Little Engine That Could would probably not find a publisher in today’s segregated pink/ blue kidworld, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t posting the original art. Apparently, Little Engine has been sent off to a make up artist and a plastic surgeon. She now sports mascara, blush, and a brow lift. Comparatively, she looks kind of like a grandma. Nothing wrong with grandmas, of course, but the Little Engine seems more like a youthful character to me. I suppose a grandmotherly/ motherly hero is more compatible and less threatening to the standard male one.
