Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.There's something basically unsettling about the phrase "Lego for girls."
It feels a little like "malt liquor for girls" or "democracy for girls" — like you've taken something that fundamentally shouldn't be gendered and forced it into a patronizing pink box.
When Lego announced its new "for girls" line — Lego Friends, coming to toy aisles next week — I found myself nodding along with the backlash.
Wouldn't you think that in 2011, Lego would be phasing out gender-specific toys, not introducing them?
It makes it worse that the new Lego line is so stereotypically girly. The figures are larger, the bricks are Easter-egg colors; instead of airplanes and pirate ships, the playsets are vet's offices and beauty shops.
It all feels so dumbed-down and sexist. Check out Lego's Facebook page to see how hacked off people are about this.
There already was Lego for girls, goes one popular complaint. It was called 'Lego.'
"Hear, hear," I thought the first time I read that. After a few more times, I stopped nodding. It sounds good, but it isn't true.
The truth is Lego has been making gender-specific playsets for a long time — gender specific for boys.
They might not call them "Lego for boys," but most Lego playsets are clearly meant that way. Spaceships. Ninja arenas. Dragons.
The company has been openly courting boys since 2005, a move that saved its business. But hasn't Lego been more of a boy toy all along?
When I was a kid in the '70s, Lego didn't have deals with "Star Wars" or "Prince of Persia." When you bought a Lego set, you got a box of primary-colored blocks, and you built what you wanted. Totally non-franchised and gender neutral.
I was never a Lego kid. None of my girlfriends were. Personally, I didn't like the way you had to build the toy before you could play with it.
I'm sure there were girls my age who loved those gender-neutral Lego sets, but I associate Lego with boy cousins and people's little brothers. Every Lego maniac I knew was a boy.
Making Lego (that's the plural, by the way) even more specifically for boys has been wildly successful for the company. You can't really blame them for targeting girls next.
You'll blame Lego even less if you read Bloomberg Businessweek's awesome in-depth story about how Lego Friends came to be.
Just looking at the new playsets, you might assume somebody at Lego said, "Let's make something for girls. You know, with pink and puppies and purses and stuff." But the company actually spent the last four years researching little girls, how they play, what they like, how their brains work.
One of the company's findings goes back to my own childhood disinterest in Lego: girls want to start playing and telling stories as soon as they open a toy. They don't want to wait until it's built. That doesn't make girls less imaginative, by the way, just different.
There's lots more interesting stuff (really, read that Businessweek article), but basically all of Lego's discoveries boil down to this: boys and girls are different.
Boys and girls are different.
It doesn't matter whether toys are gender neutral; children are not.
As much as I hate stereotypical toys that train little girls to be shallow and docile, and train little boys to be aggressive and violent — the solution isn't to pretend that boys and girls are the same.
Besides, if we're going to argue against pretty, pink Lego, are we also going to argue against wickedly cool "Star Wars" Lego?
After thinking about this for a week, I'm most offended by the idea that something gender-neutral is inherently better than something girlish.
Gender neutrality is a myth that isn't worth fighting for — in the future, we don't all wear androgynous silver jumpsuits — but gender equality, gender flexibility, gender acceptance .
I'd like my own sons to believe that being a boy isn't any better than being a girl.
That some boys like girlish toys sometimes, and vice versa, and that's all okay. That you can be as masculine as you want on any given day, or as feminine as you want.
Because no matter who or what you are, no one should make you feel stupid if you want to play with something pink.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1149, rainbow.rowell@owh.com
twitter.com/rainbowrowel
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