hrhprincessconsuela:

theriotmag:

If you thought that the “LEGOs for girls” endeavor might not be that bad?  Think again.  Looks like LEGO is planning to offer girls the exact same thing most other toys aimed at them are already saying: look pretty, be social and don’t you worry your pretty little head about actually having to think or build anything!

LEGO Friends, as the new line is called, creates a place called Heartlake City which thus far consists of a beauty parlor, a café, a bakery, a clothing design school, a vet’s office, a sound stage, and, thankfully, an inventor’s workshop. (So much for municipal services.) There are no men in Heartlake City, except for the father of Olivia, one of the five core “friends” who are not minifigs at all but redesigned mini-dolls that come with the following accessories: a purse, a hair brush, a hair drier, four lipsticks and two barrettes; a spatula, an electric mixer and two cupcakes; and for when they’re not primping or baking, a puppy dog and a pink book with butterflies on it. Is this message — with its emphasis on physical appearance and limited career choices — really any different from that of Disney’s princesses?

What’s worse, LEGO Friends doesn’t give girls the same sense of mastery and accomplishment that it gives boys. Usually, when you open a LEGO set you will find several smaller bags numerically labeled in the order in which to build, along with a booklet of diagrams of the steps. But LEGO Friends has dispensed with this system, so that girls can begin playing without completing the whole model first. So much for learning how to follow instructions, or finishing what you started, or just getting those damn pieces off the floor so I won’t step on them.

As a girl who played with regular LEGOs, I’m extremely sad to see THIS as the angle the company is taking, especially the part where you’re not encouraged to build things.  They’re LEGOS.  That’s what you DO with them.

I also played with Lego back in the 90s and if this had been available when I was a kid, I would’ve thought it was the most boring shit ever.  The whole fun of Lego is to construct and deconstruct buildings (and try not to step on the individual Lego pieces with bare feet - you have not known pain if you haven’t experienced that ;) I hate toy companies for the very reason that they segregate toys and stores and tell people that ‘boys should play with cars’ and ‘girls should play with dolls’ without stopping to think that maybe girls would like to play with cars, or boys with dolls.

Honestly, in this case, I’m willing to overlook stereotype if it means Legos won’t get even more ridiculously expensive. The price of oil has done enough damage as it is. I want to actually be able to buy them for my kids. Call me selfish. I probably am. But honestly, I don’t care.

Plus, I won’t be getting my kids sets until they’re in their teens and want them for display purposes anyway. They’re getting buckets of loose Legos, mountains of blocks, piles of unique pieces, and a little later, idea books and diagrams of structural techniques. These kids are going to fucking love imagination and creativity.

So the stereotyping won’t affect me or my kids.

I encourage other people to do the same. Shift the demand. Maybe they’ll go back to their old ways and lose the focus on sets altogether. (Again, further decreasing the god-awful price.)