Lego and Gender

[ysabetwordsmith]

 peoriapeoriawhereart has a post about Lego and gender.  Separate is usually not equal.  Children need toys that encourage imagination, not bottleneck it.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Lego's present attitude is so frustrating as it was always the perfect genderless toy!

[(Anonymous)]

Lego does offer the option to buy lego brick by brick on their site…

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I do like that. I couldn't find a way to buy packages by color, though, and I had thought they did that. :/

Re: Yes...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

They used to, and around Halloween they tend to have some Jack O'lantern for the elusive orange. I thought they had expansion packs of arches and some others, but I didn't see them. Also don't offer that convex slope from Robie.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Stuff may cycle in and out of availability, which is not a bad idea.

Re: Yes...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

They do have a couple of sets towards the higher end that will provide the rainbow (almost) but they do seem to have made some changes. I didn't see if they still support the create your own kit (that would bag pull so while you might end up with X+N of some parts when X was all you needed, I think it would get you non Pick A Brick access)

It would be nice if they'd expand the non-themed options to a nice constellation so people could work up.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> They do have a couple of sets towards the higher end that will provide the rainbow (almost) but they do seem to have made some changes. <<

Better than nothing, but they really need to have cheap starter kit with flexible potential.

>> I didn't see if they still support the create your own kit (that would bag pull so while you might end up with X+N of some parts when X was all you needed, I think it would get you non Pick A Brick access). <<

That would be good.

>> It would be nice if they'd expand the non-themed options to a nice constellation so people could work up. <<

I agree. I love the themes, but they should be occasional add-ons, not the core of the system. Too much focus on kits is changing the nature of the toy in counterproductive ways.

Re: Yes...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I like the flexible nature of the various cardboard boxed kits that ranged down to twenty pieces and went up to 200. They gave you some instructions, but then you could make anything with the parts and other parts you had.

I've got some more threads up on LEGO.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

The basic kits in multiple sizes were really helpful for general creative play.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I found another article referencing the same original ad. I also spent some more time digging through the LEGO site and I'm not best pleased with most of the sets there either on a building POV. (The replacement of adventure with overt armed conflict or MacGuffin raiding is sad too.) Bellevue seems to have been replaced with a Disney Princesses theme. I'd have loved it if they could have done that with the regular minifigs, with a selection of chromatic female heads and various hair. Castles, towers, staircases.

Wow, I'd buy some sets just to have the heads to use with my astronauts (and the bows, arches, slopes...)

[brushwolf]

I am pretty sure that this is an effect of stuff with Lego in general - since the basic bricks (which you can't make gendered no matter what!) are no longer exclusive everything becomes a specialty. I assume the company's marketing strategy now is that, you'll order the generalized let's build stuff bricks as well as buying specific sets. If I'm right the ugly sexism is a side effect of trying to make more specific sets.

It's sort of like how the Lego figures used to be just kinda general people who had adventures and lives (heck, they could just as easily have been women under the helmets if you're talking space and knight sets) and now they're really specific dudes with frowny faces presumably for frowny angry adventures.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

You know what I'd really like to see? More diversity in minifigs. More female heads. Bring out a set of mix-and-match multicultural minifigs with different skin tones, different hair styles/colors, diverse outfits. Because then you could take those faces and put them on ANY other minifig of the same construction class. Black pirates. Hispanic knights. Female everything.

One thing I like about modern children's supplies is the multicultural support. With a little digging you can find a set of 4-6 dollhouse dollies in light, medium, or dark skintones. You can find crayons or construction paper in 8-12 human skin tones. And that's just all kinds of awesome for imaginative play.

*chuckle* When I was little, the Lego people were pretty much all yellow. And in my head, Legoland looked kind of like Firefly: it was basically Asian. That was one of the things I rather liked about it.

Re: Hmm...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

The people were yellow as colorblind casting. You'll notice that some of the movie tie-ins printed the minifigs on standard bases. This changed first with the basketball set and has since become the norm. I don't think there are any not lightly complexioned lipstick heads. That is to say, men are (slightly) chromatic in the tied franchises, but the women aren't.