Why has the Lego Friends (for girls) line prompted outrage while Legos intended for boys didn't?

I never knew that they had started marketing explicitly for boys. In my (my kids’) day, they were gender neutral – although kind of assumed to be for boys mainly. This seems to be more publicized and also a new line of toys so it has caught attention.

The girl that wrote the letter to Lego articulated it best (IMO)...Outer beauty is marketed to the females, while building and structure was the main product intent when it is marketed to males.

Lego received a letter from an outraged 14 year old girl. She articulated it best when describing a Lego girl with a mirror and a hairbrush. If you see the 1981 ad she included in her letter, it shows how far backwards Lego’s marketing has gone.

I think mainly there are people annoyed by the way they designed the girly Legos. The boys get all kinds of space ships and cars and adventure games and Lego ninja combat arenas, while the girls get ovens and things some people see as belittling social programming rather than giving girls what they naturally want or that celebrate possibilities for women.

@Zaku (and everyone else), you remind me of an important point: What if girls want ovens, or hair brushes, or pretty things? Supposing that’s the case, does society have an obligation to tell them, no, you are supposed to not want to play with these, and instead care more about buildings and structures?

@nikipedia I have zero issue with personal choice. My own son mostly chooses toys and books that are marketed for 9–12yr old girls. We (as a family) do personally wish that some of the girl toys wouldn’t be pink or blinged out. An oven to me, is gender neutral. It’s too bad they don’t market the kids toy ovens toward girls and boys.

It’s when companies do the choosing for the girls or boys that I have an issue with. In this case, Lego clearly began gender neutral. Then, they marketed toward girls (see link above) with a “brains are beautiful”...now 31yrs later they’re making a clear distinction between the genders. Girls=outer beauty/Boys=building

I don’t care about the toy itself, but the marketing strategy leaves a bad taste in my mouth. For the non-Friends lego collections, you aren’t going to find a new marketing strategy for girls. You aren’t going to see many pictures of girls playing with Lego Star Wars in the Toys ‘R’ Us catalogue. And you are never going to see a boy playing with the Lego Friends toys. Ever. If a boy wants one of those for Christmas, all the indicators from advertisements are going to say “Nope. This is a girl toy. Lego made this for girls so that boys can play with boy toys.”

If they’re going to have a Friend line with cutesier characters, why are all the settings so… gender-biased? Hair salons? Vanities? Houses with picket fences? The City line of toys is much more interesting. And you could just as easily have a female firefighter or police officer than a male with a swap of hairstyles.

It just bugs me. The marketing toward children in general bugs me.

@nikipedia I agree with @SpatzieLover completely. Any child should be able to choose any toy but the companies so clearly skew toys for either boys or girls. Go into any toy store. If you were a Martian you could still pick out which toys are intended for girls and which for boys. Marlo Thomas sang “Free to be…you and me” thirty years ago. Still hasn’t happened!

I completely agree that the companies are choosing to skew toward girls and boys—and they would agree too. In each case it was a conscious marketing decision. But the companies are reflecting what boys and girls gravitate toward. These were developed after years of research to try to find something that actually appeals to girls after many failed attempts to market to them.

Or is it that because they began marketing in this manner, now children are pressured into choosing toys that reflect this marketing?

Heck, I see parents giving in to the marketing more than kids. “My daughter loves pink” says a mom/friend of ours. When her daughter is over, she doesn’t gravitate toward pink toys at all. She also tells my son that she prefers plain toys (What we’d consider neutral in our home.) She has zero neutral toys in her home.

I’ve taken care of a lot of children in my lifetime. When children play together in sibling groups, there is shared interest in toys that are generally marketed toward one gender or the other. No one thinks anything of a brother playing baby dolls with his sister. But, heaven forbid you parent one boy and he plays with dolls.

Why do toy companies do this anyway? Does really splitting the product into two different styles – marketed at girls and boys – really earn them so much more money that they are forced to throw moral obligations out the window?

I was at a family Christmas party once and my cousin’s daughter received these huge, pink wrapped presents. One was a kitchen and cooking set. It was all pink. She is 3 years old and was 10 times more interested in playing with the cardboard box. Why are we giving money to these companies again?

I remember first hearing about the Lego friends over the Christmas break. My daughter (age 8) was watching cartoons and she yelled for me to come take a look at the tv. It was a commercial for the product. She told me she really wanted Lego friends for Christmas. I thought they were cute. Then I went online and started to hear about the outrage. I’ll be honest, the outrage confused me.

Children aren’t given enough credit. They are smart. Well, maybe not all, but many of them are ;). My daughter will often ask for the boy toy when I take her to McDonalds every once in a blue moon. My sons played with a blue kitchen I bought for them when they were toddlers. My daughter loves to skateboard and she was going to play hockey before we moved to an area without a skating rink. My youngest son was the only boy who played flute in the band at school, and he was first chair. My sons played with a toy nurses kit. Kids play with what they want to play with. It’s up to the parent to let their children choose what they want to play with. The pink aisle and the blue aisle in the store makes it easier to find the toys you are looking for. No one ever said no girls are allowed in the boy section.

It’s the parents that are making the most noise over this. No one is forcing these children to go buy pretty pink stuff, but you know what, some girls do like that stuff. and I really hate it that a girl can’t like pink one minute and the next minute go make mud pies in the dirt. when did liking pink become a bad thing?

@nikipedia I’m not sure we have the unculturated controls to determine which toys children would naturally gravitate toward. Although I do agree there are some general gender tendencies, they are way too reinforced by society and the toy companies and should not limit specific children’s choices.

I think because a Lego campaign targeting boys would be virtually unnoticeable by consumers. If Lego marketed sets to boys, I would have assumed (as a girl) that those were toys for me, too. Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to be prevented from buying or playing with “girly” Legos by their parents or their peers.

^ it’s true, marketing to boys is less exclusive than marketing to girls since people are more accepting of girls taking part in “boy” things where as the same is not true of “girl” things. I suppose this is an example of male privilege as the “boy” version is ubiquitous and consumable by all (ie normal), but the “girl” version is only for people that meet certain gender expectations.

I think the Lego company is just trying to expand their market to a population of people that aren’t buying their product. I think it will flop, personally.

The problem is this: Girls who play with Legos right now, want to play with the space ships and ninjas and they won’t be into the “girly” stuff. Girls who are into doll houses are not likely to branch out into other lego products – and they’d likely like dollhouse products that look less Lego-y.

This reminds me of the 1950s Lionel train set for girls that totally flopped. They made a pastel train set that they thought would entice girls to buy. The problem was that girls into trains didn’t want a fake-y girly train set, and the girls who weren’t into trains weren’t falling for the pink pastel colors.

@keobooks I know my daughter is only one example, but she enjoys playing with Legos and she enjoys playing with dollhouses. She’s really interested in getting the Lego friends. I’d get them for her if I didn’t already pay $150 for a Nintendo DSi for her recent birthday.

I agree entirely with @SpatzieLover.

My nearly 11 yr. old daughter is our biggest Lego fan in the family. She enjoys building structures and vehicles – and she is absolutely repulsed at the “girl” Lego products. The same goes for many of her peers (5th and 6th grade girls)—many of whom are on the Lego Team at school.

Many of these girls see Legos as a fun, creative toy that allows them to imagine how, when they grow up, they might learn to build REAL things (in fields like engineering or architecture, for example). Many of the girls who like Legos do not identify as “girly girls” and therefore don’t understand why Lego would market to someone of their gender a girl holding a microphone wearing all pink. It’s offensive to them.

I liken it to a young Marie Curie being told: “Oh no honey.. don’t play with that microscope. Here, use this pretty pink hairbrush. That’s more your speed.”

@jonsblond I do think there is some crossover, but I don’t think overall it’s going to do well. The theme doesn’t really fit in with other lego sets—the people aren’t even remotely the same size. The colors don’t match from the Friends and the regular sets. That means that most of the customers who buy the regular legos won’t likely want to mix the Friends sets into their collection nor is it likely to go the other way around.

One of the things about Legos that is really cool is that all of the parts from all of the sets are interchangeable. You can mix them up almost seamlessly. You can have Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Ninja characters all mixed up and playing together to make neat hybrids.

You can’t do that with the Lego family, they don’t mix in and you can’t have some giant girl with a comb mirror stomping all over a tiny little yellow Indiana Jones that could fit in the palm of her hand.

@keobooks Well, girls need bigger pieces because they don’t have as much manual dexterity. (The tilde is implied.)

@keobooks You do make some good points, but is it really a bad thing for Lego to reach out to some potential customers who might not use Legos? It is a business and they are trying to reach out to everyone. Girls who find it offensive don’t need to buy the product. I just hate it when some people try to ruin it for those who do enjoy the “girly” stuff. Just because a girl likes “girly” stuff doesn’t mean they don’t like “guy” stuff too. Why can’t girls like both? And who says you can’t have some giant girl stomp all over a tiny Indiana Jones? A guy? ;)

It remains a difficult question, just as it was in the 1950’s when I was growing up.

My sister and I were polar opposites. I was called a Tom Boy because of my interests. I didn’t like dressing dolls up and pretending they were real (talking to each other and such), but I loved designing and making their clothes. This was true of paper dolls as well as the toy kind.

I loved climbing trees and playing cowboys and indians, and shooting guns. I also loved all kinds of crafts, including cooking. My sister loved wearing make-up and doing her hair.

@nikipedia Yeah, it’s interesting, and I haven’t been interested enough to really look at the new girly Legos in detail, and perhaps it’d even be semi-irrelevant since I’m a guy. If the toys are good and fun, then that’s cool. My Grandma has some awesome old miniature kitchen units which companies used to give out, with little plastic pans and food and stuff, that I have always thought were first-rate… though I don’t suppose I would’ve asked for them as gifts myself as a kid. And one of the most strong and independent women I know is crazy about miniature kitchen toys.

One thing too that tends to throw me off about sexism is that many women seem deeply interested in handbags and shoes and makeup and other details that are actually about some sort of style competition with each other, or something. What throws me is that one could think that competing for looks would be about attracting men, I find those things uninteresting or even a turn-off. But I’m clearly wrong that they’re about attracting men. I guess guys have looking cool and tough and macho to each other in ways that are turn-offs for most women, too.

All three of my boys are huge fans of Lego. We have enough bricks to take over the world and they build with them constantly. When we watch my husband’s granddaughters the boys play Lego with them as well and help them build their own creations. I was excited and disappointed when I saw the Lego Friends. I knew instantly that I wanted to get a set for each girl, but I was bummed by all but one of the four small sets marketed to girls. I ended up Olivia’s Invention Workshop – which I thought was really cool and sent a great message to girls – and Mia’s Puppy House which was the least annoying of the others. The girls were quite excited to have Lego’s of their own and have thoroughly enjoyed them, but the gender bias in the career choices for these characters bugs me.

Probably because I have all boys and my oldest was interested in mostly toys that are traditionally considered “boy” toys, we have never had much pink in the house. That being said, I agree with those who say that there is really no reason to label a toy as being for a boy or girl. I honestly have a huge problem with many of the toys marketed to girls, from Barbie and her ridiculously large rack to Disney princesses and Hannah Montana placed on every article of clothing one can imagine. I am just not interested in the way these things objectify women and the way seemingly liberated, rational women pay money to promote the objectification.

God though, wouldn’t it be awesome to have a coffee cut that could click to your desk like that one in the fourth set you posted? Talk about spill proof!

But what I see from those sets kind of takes away the point of legos. There isn’t anything cool to build. Those sets kind of look like if they didn’t have a few parts that locked together, they wouldn’t really need to be Legos at all. AND you can’t really connect the 4 sets together. There aren’t enough pieces to do that. The sets look like they were designed by a team that didn’t really play with Legos.

DUD.

@keobooks another thing that really disappoints me is that the people are nothing like regular Lego people! The minifigures are the kids’ favorite thing about Lego and they are truly uniquely Lego. Maybe the creators thought they weren’t feminine enough for these sets. There were a couple things to build with each set, and the typical small set really doesn’t consist of much more than those sets.

@SuperMouse I’m curious why you would find the fashion design set annoying for girls when most of the leading fashion designers in the world are men. Is there something wrong with women wanting to be a fashion designer?

I think the only thing I don’t like about the sets you linked to is that they aren’t big enough. A larger set would be nice. I can tell you my daughter would love Andrea’s Stage. She’s been singing and dancing since she could walk and talk and I don’t see anything wrong with a young girl aspiring to be a singer or dancer. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to be in the chorus at school. Acting out the fantasy with dolls and Legos is fine by me.

@jonsblond it just seems so “girly”. It reminded me of my sister’s Barbie Fashion Plates. Girls see so much about being pretty and feminine and all that stuff, why not make it something less tied to looks and style?

@SuperMouse I get what you’re saying, but the fashion industry is male dominated (at least with the designers). Why not let girls be exposed to it more. Maybe our fashion models wouldn’t be stick thin but “real” women if more women had control of the industry. My daughter is exposed to all this girly stuff, but it’s up to me and my husband to let her know that looks aren’t the most important thing in life. That being said, if it’s something she’s interested in I’m not going to discourage her. I’ve had this ongoing battle with her lately about her wanting to wear skirts over her jeans. I gave in and decided it’s time for her to develop her own style and if that’s what she wants to wear, so be it. It doesn’t make her any less of a person because it may make her look more “girly”.

And what is wrong with being girly anyway? Can’t a girl be pretty and kick butt at the same time? Saying something is “girly” is equivalent to saying “being like a girl is bad, you need to be more like the guys”. Isn’t something wrong with this picture?

sorry for derailing a bit @nikipedia.

I am not saying girls should be more like boys, I just think there is more to being a girl then just being pretty. There is more to being a girl then just looking cute and being skinny. Girls get enough of that from the media and so many other toys, why not take a toy that is meant to use to build and design and do something so hands on be more about kicking ass then walking dogs. Boys get really cool spaceships and such, and girls get a beauty parlor. Just rubs me the wrong way.

I still think the product is a poor one by Lego standards, and the more I look at the product, the more disappointed I am with it.

1. @jonsblond I know you think maybe it might be cool that the girls are much bigger than all the other Lego sets, but that’s a novelty that would quickly wear off for any real Lego fan and it wouldn’t get the girls into playing with other lego towns. You might get a few hours of playing time and godzilla goofiness, but you can’t really build a “serious” town you might be working on with your lego village with it’s fire and police department, the school, the hospital, the Indiana Jones adventure cave, the space port and ninja lair hideout. Then you have the fashion designer that destroys the town by walking out her front door.

I’d admit, there is a little bit of novelty appeal there, but Lego customers like that all the Lego people are the same size. If you don’t get this already, I don’t know if I can explain it. There’s a reason people don’t really mix the action figures and the Barbies up. It’s a few giggles to play with giant Barbie vs tiny Darth Vader, but for serious long term play, most people—including kids—like everything to be the same scale.

2. The sets are close ended. Once you get tired of being a dog washer or a fashion designer, there isn’t much you can do with the sets. The pieces are very heavy with specific artwork that clearly marks their purpose. This limits creativity in playing—but it also doesn’t make the toy appealing in a long term lego way. With other Lego sets, if you get bored with it, you can just mix all the parts into your general Lego pool. Yesterdays death star become part of today’s house and tomorrows sports car. It’s because most of the parts are generic looking and about the same color. there are a few specialty parts in the kits that add little authentic touches. But most of the blocks in most kids are generic Lego colored Legos. And a big selling point of Legos is the ability to play with them in many different ways.

3. They are too separate from the other sets. Despite the fact that your daughter wants to buy one or two isn’t an issue to Lego. They don’t want their customers to buy one or two (or even 4) lego sets. They want customers hooked on Lego for life and pouring money into them. I have many family members who are lifelong devotees of Legos. Their kids are as well. They buy huge tubs of Legos and are constantly getting more. They are downloading blueprints to make Lego monstrosities. Schools have Lego clubs and the kids are building space ships and robots with motors and stuff.

And none of those people are likely going to buy into the girly Legos. Not because they are girly, but because they don’t work like regular Legos. For the reasons I’ve stated before, those girly Lego toys go against the spirit of what Legos are all about. Not for their girlishness—but the way they are designed to not match up with the other legos and their lack of replayability.

It also really does send a message that is not pleasant. Not that girly stuff is bad—but girls need more direction in play. They need things to be less ambiguous and more concrete—otherwise they can’t appreciate Legos. Boys can handle the wide variety of playing and creative options—girls—need only to have a special hole in the dog’s head so you can stick bows on it.

@keobooks All great points. Looking at the links, they are really poorly designed and focused toys without many creative or constructive opportunities. Attack of the 50 Foot Fashion Designer anyone?

@keobooks, I think it’s interesting that a lot of the points you bring up were actually conscious design decisions, but for very different reasons. The designers changed the figures to be more human-like and larger because their research showed that girls preferred them that way (they wanted dolls that were more human-like and felt more like an avatar for themselves).

The sets are intended to be close ended because they found that when girls play, their preference is to build to the point where they can create story lines around the figures. So, they created sets that would work together to enable that. The Friends line is all supposed to be based around a fictional town, and each figure has a back story.

So their intended message is that girls play differently, and their version of creativity is more about how the characters interact with one another than building something new.

I was thinking of that while I was driving my daughter to my mother in laws. There are problems with the dolls themselves as dolls.

You can’t change their clothes. You can’t brush their hair. They don’t look like they can bend very well. They aren’t on scale with any other dolls so you can’t have a huge neighborhood of buddies that can play together and there aren’t many dolls in the current Lego universe now.

Another selling point of dolls is adult collectors. These dolls aren’t classy looking enough to appeal to adults who wouldn’t mind that they can’t do all those things. They just want them standing on a shelf looking pretty.

Their only “selling” point is that they have Lego holes in their feet so you can bolt them to the floor. But if you watch girls play with dolls, they usually hold them and make them walk around. Barbies can’t stand. American Girl dolls don’t stand very well – but the way girls play with them it doesn’t matter.

The ability for a doll to stand motionless without falling over isn’t going to be a big hit. But being able to dress your dolls, brush their hair, give them a bajilionty friends to go on adventures with and have them bendable all are selling points. A doll doesn’t need to have ALL of these selling points, but the legos have NONE of those selling points.

So instead of cool Legos or cool dolls, you have a crappy hybrid that is either a lame lego set you can’t do much with or a really boring doll you’ll get bored with after a few hours of play.

@keobooks You don’t have to explain Legos to me. I get it. I have two sons (17 and 19) who grew up with Legos. We have tons of Legos too and my daughter loves to play with them. I just think the whole outrage about being “too girly” is silly because no one is stopping girls from buying all the other cool sets that are available. I never considered Legos to be a “guy” thing.

Lego is trying to reach out to a new market, that is all, and it may not work, but to be offended by it is silly imo.

I just now read your last link that you provided in your details @nikipedia. Los Angeles Times

The writer expresses exactly how I feel about this “controversy”. I am one of the few people that answered this question who has a daughter in the age group that these toys are marketed to. My daughter is confident and knows she can do anything if she is willing to work hard for it. My husband and I encourage her to try anything, even if society labels it as something just for boys. A silly toy isn’t going to turn her into a future anorexic hairstylist. Many of the young girls I know do enjoy role playing and I believe that’s what these Lego sets are intended for. Just as you mentioned in your last statement. That doesn’t mean girls don’t have other interests, but it is one interest for many young girls.

The outrage most likely comes from people who hate gender stereotypes. Personally, I don’t care. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. The less people buy it, the less they’ll make it… if they continue making it at all. Seems like a simple enough solution to me. Getting mad about it just gives it more publicity. Actually, I’m not sure if I would have even heard about it if I didn’t hear about this outrage. Now, I’m curious to go buy a set for myself to try it out… because of the outrage! If I do, I won’t be surprised if my two nephews and my niece who spend time here often all want to try it out at some point or other. They are very open-minded children.

I’m not outraged by either. I didn’t know about specific Lego for girls or boys until I read about the products on Fluther.

My response to ‘boy’ lego is the same as it was to ‘girl’ lego. Why do we need gender specific lego? Why can’t we just give kids Lego and let them use their imagination and their minds to take them wherever their minds want to go. Play is about imagination. Do our kids really need gender specific blocks, with diagrams of what they are supposed to use them to make, and in specific colours? I remember my middle daughter asking for a present for her birthday. All she wanted was a robot. Not really a ‘girl’ toy but then I didn’t raise them to be girls. I raised them to be individuals.

I don’t see why companies want to pigeonhole our kids. Don’t really care whether it be as a girl or a boy. I just don’t think it’s necessary. Let them be KIDS.

I think @dappled_leaves and @fundevogel hit the nail on the head as to why it bothers me. I had no idea Lego was marketing specifically to boys, and have always seen them as a gender-neutral toy. To (seemingly) all of a sudden come out with such ‘girly-girl’ sets just seemed… icky. The lack of diversity in the career choices bothers me, too.

I would much rather have seen more girl figures added to the standard Lego sets.

I just stubbled on this question and didn’t read the whole thing. IMO I think it would had been cooler of LEGO to have sophisticated construction of things most girls actually want. This would teach girls that they can be engineers/designers too, but instead of building a space-ship with laser blasters, maybe they would make a cool hamster wheel thing that powers a light, or something that could automatically braid hair. Those probably aren’t the best examples, but hopefully you get what I’m trying to communicate: useful to girls, and not “dumbed down.”

@gorillapaws – Actually, Lego does have their new tech series and Creator series that are exactly as you describe..clearly targeted towards future engineers. We just spent the day before yesterday at Legoland and my nearly 11yr. old daughter spent her whole time walking between the Creator series shelves and the new Tech series.
We noticed that there was just one small pillar with just two sad looking boxes of the “Girl” targeted “Lego Friends” sets. The store was packed with hundreds of families with children and honestly, I saw NO ONE looking at them or buying them. I think Lego is getting the message quite clearly.. girls who like Legos don’t want them in a purple or pink gender stereotyped box. They want to build the cool robotic kits or City scenes or Hogwarts buildings.

(And my daughter ended up buying 2 kits from the City series. A police car and crossing gate and the Ambulance. My 7 yr. old son got a Ninjago foam sword. <sigh> )

@geeky_mama I think we went to the same mall :) My daughter noticed that the display there had 3 Lego “friends” at a pink and purple mansion: one female was cooking on a grill, one female was behind her on a swing set and the lone guy character was off to the side lounging on a lounger with what looks exactly like a strawberry daquiri in his hand. I didn’t notice—she did!

My daughter then looked at the display and asked me, with no prompting from me, “So… vet… cafe… mansion… that’s it? What in the world can I do with that?! I can’t build something from something that’s already built!”

@geeky_mama Those were the sets I was thinking of. I just seems like the things you build with them tend to be more male-oriented. I think it would be cool if they had creator sets that built thing that had more appeal and were cool to girls instead of trucks and the like (yes I realize some girls like trucks and that’s totally ok). The architecture series with Hogwarts sounds exactly like the thing I’m talking about—sophisticated and still “cool” to girls.

More and more when I encounter men and women or boys and girls adopting things classed as belonging to the other gender I stop and ask myself why I consider something to be masculine or feminine. Overwhelmingly it’s because I have been taught that it is gendered and for no other reason. Let me tell you it takes the mick out of “wacky” gender reversal type comedy when you start thinking “why shouldn’t a man wear nylons if he wants?” And I’m fine with that, that sort of comedy was always pretty lame anyways.