- New LEGO figurines “for girls” – Ugh. From Narvi.
- Why aren’t more women who loved the Dragon Tattoo book planning to see the movie? – The author of this article attributes it to the brutal sexual violence against women, however, if that were true why are so many women fans of the books? From Stacey.
- Southern Baptist publisher recalls pink bibles – Because the Komen foundation gave some of the funds raised from the bibles to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings.
- Vermont frat suspended over rape survey – From Brad.
- And now, Cute Animal Friday, which is really needed today. I want this baby seal to break into MY house! (From jes3ica.) The HTTP status cats are here for all of your loltech needs. And from Callan, baby grey tree frogs.
Do the Vermont frat boys want to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo then?
Yeah, it does bugs me that LEGO thinks they have to split the genders that horribly. Boys get firemen and policemen. Girls get boobs and pink.
The good news is that Friends is a little bit less stereotypical than previous attempts. I think set: http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=3933-1 is the first time the girl LEGO theme has a robot.
Here’s an article that explains LEGO’s ‘reasons’ for this: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-girls-12142011.html
Regarding the last quote, in reality I think most AFOLs would keep the new minifig’s hair and try to sell the rest. It is always very useful to have new hair styles for real female minifigures as they are scarce.
What is really horrible about the Lego thing is that they think because it make marketing sense it excuses this type of stereotyping.
An aweful lot of repugnant things can, and are, justified every day.
Slavery, for example, makes very good economic sense (if you are the slave owner) but that doesn’t mean it is any less reprehensible.
So true, I was going to say something about LEGO myself, being an AFOL (adult fan of lego). I really, really have mixed feelings about this new line. On one hand, it is so much better than their past offerings. See: http://thebrickblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/The-LEGO-Girl-Graveyard-by-Bloomberg-500×175.jpg On the other hand, it’s not nearly as progressive as it could be and still “others” girls.
But is that bad if it gets girls to play with LEGOs, and explore building? I just don’t know.
No hotlinking. Sorry. The pic is in this article: http://thebrickblogger.com/2011/12/lego-friends-bloomberg/
It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s like lego are making an effort they just don’t fully understand the problem.
Maybe they don’t understand the problem because they don’t higher enough women and/or the women that are there aren’t taken seriously and don’t have the power to direct things. If they don’t understand, it’s their own fault for excluding the voices they need to hear. I’m not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
Each time that LEGO does this, it flops. Past a certain age, girls want to play with the same LEGO sets that the boys play with. That’s why LEGO Belleville was such a commercial failure here in the U.S. I know this because I sold the toys for five years at the old Chicago location of New York’s signature toy store.
Hmm. Kinda surprised LEGO would do this. I keep hearing that LEGOs are the most popular non gendered toy in psych studies with small children.
Amanda,
Those Lego figurines for girls actually look kind of nice, better than the other ones. They should make some more of them like that, for boys, as well as both girls and boys. I’m a guy, and I play with Sims 3 all the time. That’s kind of like playing with dolls, in a way.
I don’t even know why they felt they needed lego for girls. Has that been a problem before, that girls don’t want to play with lego?
I don’t really have a problem with pink lego in and of itself. If they want to market that, go for it. But it’s the whole “for girls” bit, insinuating that there’s something wrong with the girls that play with the regular lego (or with boys that want to play with the new, more realistic ones). I really don’t get why that’s a problem for toymakers to understand.
I think it’s easier to read about sexual violence (or if it really bugs you you can skip that chapter) than see it happen.