Legos are for girls too!

Legos are for girls too!

Even my own niece gave me a hard time once about browsing through the Lego aisle at the toystore. “Can we please go look at the girls’ toys now?” she said. The girls’ toys are, as we all know, so pink you can spot the pink from space. I have nothing against pink, but I have nothing against Star Wars Legos, either. And frankly, I think a lot of the “cute” faces on girls toys are kind of horrifying. There’s a limit to how big you make eyes before it’s just plain creepy.

Anyway, Lego has completely lost its mind and created a cute, girly, not-actually-lego playset for girls. It’s awful. The environments are pre-assembled so you don’t actually build anything. And it’s super stereotyped – the Lego girls have a hair salon, and a vet’s clinic, but nothing historical, like Vikings or Wild West, and nothing movie-based, like the Lord of the Rings. The girl figurines are structurally incompatible with the regular Lego sets, so it’s not like you can combine them.

I’m all in favor of Lego marketing to girls more. I’ve been feeling the lack most keenly! But why didn’t they just add more environments to the regular Lego system? Maybe boys would like a Lego vet clinic too. Or a hair salon, for that matter.

Best blog coverage I found for this was on the MarySue – which is now my latest favorite blog. (For those unfamiliar, “MarySue” is a literary term used to describe a completely unrealistically fabulous heroine, usually in fan-fiction. It comes from an actual Star Trek fan-fiction piece notorious for Ensign MarySue, who was perfect in every way and painfully, even pathetically unaware of her own wonderfulness. Remember Ayla from Clan of the Cave Bear? She’s a MarySue. ) Anyway, the blog is “a guide to girl geek culture;” it’s kickin’ and it actually cites research properly.


Click on the awesome ad from the 80’s to read the article.

(MarySue also has a wonderful link to a funny spoof of the Hobbit trailer, which made me smile. You might also note their coverage of Lego’s student science awards, which happened to go to girls for all three age categories.)