LEGO Ideas: 21110 Research Institute/Female Minifigure Set

[craiggrannell]

"I certainly expect sets with male minifigures to be played with by my daughter so don't see the inclusion of female minifigures as a reason the set must be played with by girls alone."

+1. That's been a key part of 'activism' regarding children's toys for some time now. It's not about female figures for girls and male figures for boys, but a bigger range for everyone and normalising diversity where possible (in general—that's not a pop specifically at Lego). And the only way that'll happen regarding the RI is if there are enough to go round, which clearly isn't the case right now.

[rollermonkey]

That kind of rubbed me the wrong way too. Why is it only for daughters? Why not get it for our sons and ourselves? Why can't our sons enjoy the dinosaur skeleton? I certainly expect sets with male minifigures to be played with by my daughter so don't see the inclusion of female minifigures as a reason the set must be played with by girls alone.

Not just you specifically, but why does it have to be so black and white? The lady who designed the set is on record that she did so at least partially to improve the visibility of STEM fields to girls as a viable option. Just because that is a target market, that doesn't mean that TLG, a business before all else, should only sell the set to girls, or that boys can't play with it.

As for how Lego scalpers get so many sets? I don't know or care to speculate much on the matter. I wouldn't want to help anyone get in the habit of doing it. I'm sure that at least some are Lego store employees or associates of the same, or people who use software tricks to circumvent the online store's software imposed limits.

Edited August 12, 2014 by rollermonkey

[KringlesBricks]

Got lucky with my latest Lego Store visit! Scored one of these sets while a lady had to put one back for buying "too many" at the register. I was like bam!! Score!

Even though I am not totally thrilled about the set, the reason I picked it up was an investment and to keep my IDEAS collection going. Too bad I totally missed out on the first 2 that came out.

[Faefrost]

"I certainly expect sets with male minifigures to be played with by my daughter so don't see the inclusion of female minifigures as a reason the set must be played with by girls alone."

+1. That's been a key part of 'activism' regarding children's toys for some time now. It's not about female figures for girls and male figures for boys, but a bigger range for everyone and normalising diversity where possible (in general—that's not a pop specifically at Lego). And the only way that'll happen regarding the RI is if there are enough to go round, which clearly isn't the case right now.

The only problem with this "activism" is it tends to somewhat ignore the actual tendencies of children. At a certain age boys tend to drift into a "girls are yuchy" phase, during which they mainly seem to feel that way about all girls and tend not to play much with toys representing them. Whereas girls seem to go through an "actual real life boys are yuchy" phase, which has less of an impact on their choice of plaything. Honestly I think it shows from pretty early on that men are morons.

[fred67]

That kind of rubbed me the wrong way too. Why is it only for daughters? Why not get it for our sons and ourselves? Why can't our sons enjoy the dinosaur skeleton? I certainly expect sets with male minifigures to be played with by my daughter so don't see the inclusion of female minifigures as a reason the set must be played with by girls alone.

Completely agree! I supported this set simply because I liked it, and I bought it for the same reason. My daughter was not interested - she thinks it's cool, but doesn't have a LEGO collection and doesn't want one (although I did get her the architecture Eiffel tower because she's into the Eiffel tower for some reason). She likes the occasional family build of a modular, but wouldn't want it in her room. I bought it for me.

The only problem with this "activism" is it tends to somewhat ignore the actual tendencies of children. At a certain age boys tend to drift into a "girls are yuchy" phase, during which they mainly seem to feel that way about all girls and tend not to play much with toys representing them. Whereas girls seem to go through an "actual real life boys are yuchy" phase, which has less of an impact on their choice of plaything. Honestly I think it shows from pretty early on that men are morons.

Thanks for insulting my gender... but I agree with your point. TLG knows what it's doing. It's busy now trying to reconcile all the whines it's getting from special interests with making sets they can actually sell.

I will say this... what I wrote about my daughter aside, when she was younger she was more interested in LEGO. She's moving on into her teens and is not all that enthused about it anymore, although like I said earlier, she does like building things with me that will go on display.

But years ago, we'd go to the LEGO Store and I might get a PAB cup or two while she (and my wife and son) would look around. The ONE TIME she wanted to fill a pick a brick cup was when they had pink and purple bricks on the wall. Lest we be accused of gender stereotyping, we'd been trying to convince her to go into martial arts like her brother... but she insisted on gymnastics and dance (and now solely dance). It's what she picked. I'd feel better about her dating years if she picked martial arts.

The fact is that, by and large, girls like what they like, and boys like what they like. I think they both like building things and being creative, and if TLG made a mistake, it was moving away from generic sets to action oriented themes... but I think we have the cart following the horse there, as I think they knew that, even when it was just building sets, boys were more often the recipients. That led them to target boys, competing with other toys.

It was part of TLG's dark ages... trying to compete with "lesser" toys. As we've seen, they still like licenses, but they've also done a lot of changing in the past decade. In addition to a multitude of other changes, we got things like modulars and architecture. Many of the licenses should have appealed to girls, too... why would only boys be interested in Harry Potter? Toy Story? Discovery? Dora? Spongebob? Not to mention all the just plain brick packs/buckets you could get?

[Dorayaki]

I personally thought the reason why female characters are the major group in girls-oriented themes is that girls focus more on dressing characters. Male characters from the two girls' themes (Friends and Disney) so far are mostly positive, so I don't think they digust real world girls.

On boys' side (which are majorly represented by minifigures), I assume it's more about stereotypes. Boys not only tends to use male figures to represent them, but may also think there shouldn't be too many girls involving in crime scenes or action scenes. This isn't a fact, but yes, commercial reasons force LEGO to do things activists don't like.

I think it's correct for TLG to change the name into a generic, less activism-like one. This set could simply be a useful display for children to learn the professions, not for children to learn gender role only (again, boys may put their sigfigs into the scenes, there have been male scientists in LEGO world.).

If this project was just meant for activism, a single product wouldn't make an end to the whole debate. This set should be a role model for more future Lego products.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Dorayaki

[Oederland]

I feel I have to comment on this gender issue as well. The original idea for the set was to have more female minifigs. People have been complaining about the high male : female ratio in Lego sets for a long time, which has improved to some extent in the last few years, including "non-traditional" female minifigs. Think of the female garbage collector, female workers in 60052 and 60020, female construction worker in the Movie series. It's still far away from 50 : 50, but we also have to keep in mind that Lego products cover a limited range of the real world with a strong focus on police/fireworks/construction in which there might well be an advantage for males (I've seen many construction sites, and most of the time it's "hard working guys" ;-) Lego simply does not cover the regular employee sitting in some office, or shop assistants, ... Nonetheless, adding more female figures is certainly a good idea for the children, but "female only" sets are no solution (assuming you think there's a problem to solve), it's just the opposite extreme. So far people often have gone like "the minifigs are male, girls don't want to play with them". Now you can go "minifigs are female, boys don't want to play with them". Besides, it's just a single set attracting lots of attention and PR, but what then? If you really wanted to improve the situation they should go on adding female minifigs to regular sets and further increase the ratio. And especially if you want to show that both girls and boys can become researchers (or take any other job), why not sets with one female and one male researcher? Or use some unisex body and two heads or a unisex head plus two different hair pieces. Actually there are several faces which can be regarded male or female, but most of them are regarded as male probably because 1) they appear with a male hair piece 2) females always wear lipsticks in Lego world. It's especially vexing to see three lipstick heads in this set. Well, anyway.

Turning to the set, honestly speaking, I'm surprised that so many people seem to like it (maybe just for political correctness?). The set as such doesn't make much sense to me. Throw in three completely unrelated minifigs plus some equipment. And that's a "research institute"? Well, come on There's not much to interact between the three scientists, is there. In my opinion they should better have released three small sets, similar to previous regular sets like 5610 Builder, 5611 Public Works, 5612 Police Officer, 5613 Firefighter, 5620 Street Cleaner, 8398 BBQ Stand, 7566 Farmer, 7567 Traveller, probably a little more expensive, so rather in the range of 3177 Small Car, 3365 Space Moon Buggy, 4641 Speedboat, 4427 Fire ATV or maybe 60000 Fire Motorcycle, 60006 Police ATV, 60011 Surfer Rescue, 60032 Arctic Snowmobile when adding a second minifig and/or more useful equipment. Then anyone could choose the scientist he/she wants to play with. 20 € for this set seems to be way too much. Take 4201 for example, you get two minifigs plus two small vehicles for 15 €.

Looking at it more closely, the astronomer rather fits into an observatory, guiding visitors around, than into a proper "research institute". The telescope looks really, really old-fashioned due to the wooden rack. They should have gone with the original version with three black or grey legs. That way you could also have interacted with other sets, e.g. imagine that your Lego minifigs go out onto a short trip with their camping van / car, putting up their telescope somewhere outside the city and watching the stars (which some of you might want to do with your kids). The paleontologist is also somewhat boring. It would have been a nice idea to give her some outdoor clothing and some equipment like shovel, brush plus maybe a screwdriver (faking some sort of putty knife), so you could have imagined that your minifig is on an archaeological excavation. Turning back into the lab she could still put up the sceleton. Now you have her just standing next to a complete sceleton, looking at it with a magnifying glass, and another unrelated bone under the microscope. So all in all, I'm somewhat disappointed, except for the chemist, who really has nice equipment.

[Sarah]

I personally thought the reason why female characters are the major group in girls-oriented themes is that girls focus more on dressing characters. Male characters from the two girls' themes (Friends and Disney) so far are mostly positive, so I don't think they digust real world girls.

On boys' side (which are majorly represented by minifigures), I assume it's more about stereotypes. Boys not only tends to use male figures to represent them, but may also think there shouldn't be too many girls involving in crime scenes or action scenes. This isn't a fact, but yes, commercial reasons force LEGO to do things activists don't like.

Boys also don't prefer too many girls in their sets, unfortunately.

I've seen my son (7 years old) be deciding between two Lego sets and choose the one that doesn't have any girls in it. When he does get a girl minifig here and there he gives it to me. (probably eventually his little sister). About the only time I see him playing with girl figures are his sister's snap and style princess dolls -- and I think the main draw there is the mechanism to dress and undress them. Oh and he wants girls when he makes dioramas -- trying to recreate a real scene from history or such.

His best friends are girls and he has no problem playing with girls in RL. But when it comes to LEgos, Imaginext, other such figures, he only plays with the boy figures. Very surprisingly.

Turning to the set, honestly speaking, I'm surprised that so many people seem to like it (maybe just for political correctness?). The set as such doesn't make much sense to me. Throw in three completely unrelated minifigs plus some equipment. And that's a "research institute"? Well, come on

1) Absolutely NOT for political correctness on my part. In fact the PC part almost made me NOT buy a set that I otherwise loved because I was afraid it would be taken as some sort of "statement" How many scientists do we have in any recent Lego set? I've got the Olivia's workshop and am buying the new Treehouse with a science lab. But I can't think of any in City. Maybe there's a lab in the current Arctic stuff? But its a small part of a more expensive set. In this ONE set we get a dinosaur skeleton! (haven't seen that ANYWHERE). And a telescope! And a science covered chalkboard. And three scientists (Which I might be replacing those lipstick heads because I'm not real fond of lipstick. We'll have to see how they look in RL)

2) You do realize this is a Lego Ideas set? Lego can't just take the idea and create something completely new with it. The voted on idea was 3 vignettes VERY similar to what was actually produced. Voted on. Chosen. And they made it.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Sarah

[Faefrost]

Boys also don't prefer too many girls in their sets, unfortunately.

I've seen my son (7 years old) be deciding between two Lego sets and choose the one that doesn't have any girls in it. When he does get a girl minifig here and there he gives it to me. (probably eventually his little sister). About the only time I see him playing with girl figures are his sister's snap and style princess dolls -- and I think the main draw there is the mechanism to dress and undress them. Oh and he wants girls when he makes dioramas -- trying to recreate a real scene from history or such.

His best friends are girls and he has no problem playing with girls in RL. But when it comes to LEgos, Imaginext, other such figures, he only plays with the boy figures. Very surprisingly.

1) Absolutely NOT for political correctness on my part. In fact the PC part almost made me NOT buy a set that I otherwise loved because I was afraid it would be taken as some sort of "statement" How many scientists do we have in any recent Lego set? I've got the Olivia's workshop and am buying the new Treehouse with a science lab. But I can't think of any in City. Maybe there's a lab in the current Arctic stuff? But its a small part of a more expensive set. In this ONE set we get a dinosaur skeleton! (haven't seen that ANYWHERE). And a telescope! And a science covered chalkboard. And three scientists (Which I might be replacing those lipstick heads because I'm not real fond of lipstick. We'll have to see how they look in RL)

2) You do realize this is a Lego Ideas set? Lego can't just take the idea and create something completely new with it. The voted on idea was 3 vignettes VERY similar to what was actually produced. Voted on. Chosen. And they made it.

There are quite a few scientists floating around recently. There are two in Arctic meant for the indoor labs. (I think mainly bearded dudes) There are 2 in Ultra Agents, a girl in regular lab clothes and a guy in a clean suit. There was the mad scientist in the Monster Fighters line. A really great one in Alien Conquest, doc Brown in BttF, a CMF mad Scientist and female scientist. If you want to stretch things a bit there's also TMNT Baxter Stockman and Super Heroes Doc Oc and Harleen Quinzel.

[Sarah]

Do all of those scientists come with lab equipment? I'm looking more at the telescope/skeleton/etc. Than the figures. (which are pretty plain)

[Oederland]

How many scientists do we have in any recent Lego set? I've got the Olivia's workshop and am buying the new Treehouse with a science lab. But I can't think of any in City.

Yes. But as I stated, I think the scientists are somewhat lame. You could have added some more equipment, you could have used three new bodies or at least less common and generic bodies. The dinosaur sceleton is a nice feature, but it's just regular parts as far as I can see. And then there are 33 pieces = 20% of the set just for the "astronomer's plate". It's really just a plate but increases the price of course . If they had given three legs to the telescope you could place it anywhere...

2) You do realize this is a Lego Ideas set? Lego can't just take the idea and create something completely new with it. The voted on idea was 3 vignettes VERY similar to what was actually produced. Voted on. Chosen. And they made it.

Not really. They could have released them separately, which would have made much more sense to me. A research institute needs some building IMO to be considered as an institute, not three small plates (leaving aside that I don't see any direct relationship, an institute typically implies collaboration between different workgroups, which is rather difficult to imagine with the current three minifigs). And here one of the main limitations of LEGO shows up, the lack of buildings (okay, you could turn one of the police stations into a office building / research institute of course).

Besides, if there's some nice idea which does not focus on a construct like Ghostbusters or a particular satellite, I don't really see the necessity to release it as a single (or three small) Ideas set and then discontinue the whole story. The original idea focused on small vignettes featuring female minifigs. We've already had these small vignette sets in the past, as stated above (maybe there were a little smaller / less pieces), so it would have been great if TLC had reintroduced sets like that, so focus on tradition a little again instead of new police sets every year and tons of small helicopters... For example the postman would also have been a great set, or the construction worker - simple equipment but effective. It seems we have the polybag sets nowadays for that purpose, but I have the feeling they are not available everywhere. And you could easily imagine various other settings featuring male or female minifigs for maybe 5€, e.g. ice cream vendor / ice cream cart, gas pumps, windsurfer, astronaut, to mention a few sets that have already been released in the past.

[Faefrost]

Do all of those scientists come with lab equipment? I'm looking more at the telescope/skeleton/etc. Than the figures. (which are pretty plain)

It depends. Many of them are from sets that have some form of lab area in them. As an example the two Agents Scientists. One has a rather nice lab workstation inside the Mobile Command Center, with microscope, and screens. The other comes with a rather elaborate structure involving a clean hazmat/radiation room and using robot arms to manipulate materials through a window. Baxter Stockman and Doc Oc have more comic book gear. Giant killer robot for one, and at best a brain swapping machine. The Monster Fighters mad scientist set has a ton of lab gear. The Two City arctic sets have small labs in their buildings. The Alien Conquest Scientist has what looks like a CT machine in the back of his truck. The CMF's mostly have flasks.

[m0dulo]

I have to quote my own post in this thread from a few days ago:

Just imagine being the guy who can't unload 30 $20 sets because they end up being manufactured and available for a few years. :)

Here is what I just posted in the ExoSuit thread:

To make a long story short, a store employee told me today that they are getting more ExoSuits and Research Institutes but they don't know when.

[jonwil]

I think using totally new torsos for all 3 figs would have been stupid, it would have defeated the purpose of showing that scientists dont generally wear special gear (chemists being an exception since they need the lab coat for obvious reasons)

I do wish they had used torsos that are less common (but then again which female torsos does TLG have that are both less common than those 2 AND suitable for the set?)

[Darth Punk]

I have to quote my own post in this thread from a few days ago:

Here is what I just posted in the ExoSuit thread:

Now all their minecraft sets wouldn't be so lonely.

More on the way. https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/1-blog/post/17

[Oederland]

I think using totally new torsos for all 3 figs would have been stupid, it would have defeated the purpose of showing that scientists dont generally wear special gear (chemists being an exception since they need the lab coat for obvious reasons)

Why would three new torsos have been stupid? They could have made new torsos with casual clothes, couldn't they. It's not that there are that many different female torsos in workaday clothes around. The light-blue torso has been used in almost any set with "normal" female minifigs for a while.

[Blakstone]

Oederland, I don't think three new prints would be stupid. But LEGO did not anticipate this demand when they made the initial print run. They wanted to keep their change budget very low and I suspect that they determined that the astronomy chart was more important.

I think LEGO would do well to introduce a lot more new minifigure prints but unless it is for a large line where they expect to move a lot of units, it just doesn't happen very often.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Blakstone

[VintageLegoEra]

Hi Guys!,

Any idea where can these 3 projects be fit nicely in a modular?

[rollermonkey]

The modulars as released by lego? Nowhere that would make any sense without MODding.

[m0dulo]

MODulars. :) You could take any of them and build a secret door that leads to an underground lab. This probably only works for the chemist, though. :D

[Faefrost]

Hi Guys!,

Any idea where can these 3 projects be fit nicely in a modular?

You could probably mod GE into a museum. Or turn TH into some sort of a University building?

[fred67]

Two Ideas projects that I'm currently supporting are interesting...

This one is "Fossil Museum," which fits the palaeontologist into it, although it's not a building unto itself.

Better is: This one is an entire building that could probably squeeze all of the research institute vignettes into it.

Since I want to eventually build a city display, opening up modulars and playing inside is not my primary concern, but I'd like a decent way to display all three, too.

[m0dulo]

Better is: This one is an entire building that could probably squeeze all of the research institute vignettes into it.

Thanks for mentioning this. I hadn't seen it yet. It could fit into the modulars nicely.

Edited August 24, 2014 by m0dulo

[VintageLegoEra]

Two Ideas projects that I'm currently supporting are interesting...

This one is "Fossil Museum," which fits the palaeontologist into it, although it's not a building unto itself.

Better is: This one is an entire building that could probably squeeze all of the research institute vignettes into it.

Since I want to eventually build a city display, opening up modulars and playing inside is not my primary concern, but I'd like a decent way to display all three, too.

I am already supporting these. Hope they get approved by LEGO..:-)

Thanks guys for the tips.....

I think the chemist and the Astronaut areveasily to fit in a modular. The fossil section needs a specific place...

[Gomek]

For those of you who think Lego should do the right thing and make these sets available to everyone..

close to 5,000 supporters here:

https://www.change.org/p/lego-lego-make-empowered-female-minifigs-permanent