Friends "Controversy"

[slovakiasteph]

Thank you so much for translating that article, L@go! An interesting read!

[Gryphon Ink]

If it had worked, Lego wouldn't have been considered a "boys" toys, that should be reasonably self-evident.

But it's not just a question of how effective Lego's advertising was. There are a myriad of factors that shaped the landscape of children's toys between 1981 and today. Girls' and boys' toys were not nearly as polarized in the early Eighties. Many things were much more unisex. Elementary-age girls' clothing in the Eighties was nothing like it is today - the kid in the "What It Is" ad wasn't a tomboy, those were totally normal clothes for girls her age at that time. Disney Princesses and Disney Fairies, two of the most powerful brands in the children's market, hadn't been invented yet. Marketing campaigns did, of course, target boys and girls separately, but the segregation was not nearly as complete or as relentless as it is now. Starting sometime in the Nineties, EVERYTHING has been split into "blue" vs. "pink".

[Trent]

I do take your point, but Clikits weren't introduced until 2003, Scala was dormant through the 80s and only resurrected in the late 90s and Paradisa and Belville were both 90s efforts - so maybe the 1981 advert worked during the 80s and there were other reasons as to why Lego took a different approach in the 90s...or maybe the sales during the 80s weren't as good as they'd hoped, so they did something "girlier" in the 90s. I'm just trying to say that it's misleading to draw conclusions when we don't have the evidence why something happened.

I think your comments about the girl in the advert are interesting, though. I'd quite like to have seen a range of adverts in the same style, both genders used and all of the kids having very different appearances....so rather than a tomboyish girl, there's also a girly girl - and their counterparts for the boys...really showing that Lego is for everyone.

Edit:

Many things were much more unisex. Elementary-age girls' clothing in the Eighties was nothing like it is today - the kid in the "What It Is" ad wasn't a tomboy, those were totally normal clothes for girls her age at that time.

This is a really good point - I was going to write something along those lines (about her clothes) but I couldn't recall if my own clothes being like that was down to me being a tomboy, or the way society was at the time. I definitely don't remember the explosion of pink like it is now...

Edited January 29, 2012 by Trent

[lightningtiger]

Blue for boys, pink for girls dates back more than a few years, in fact way before even our own parents were born.....so sadly this debate will rage like it has for decades but a different toy or product line will be under attack.

As I wrote weeks ago I was able to ask two sister's in the target age group and their dad what they thought, one wasn't interested and would like the new forest police station instead while her sister didn't care....to her Lego is Lego.

What is needed is a huge display of boys and girls building/playing with all different kinds of Lego, give it to the media and thumb our noses at the detractors of Lego Freind's....it shouldn't really matter if it's minifig or minidoll or whatever...it's a child's imagination that Lego comes into it's own....Play Well.

[def]

What is needed is a huge display of boys and girls building/playing with all different kinds of Lego, give it to the media and thumb our noses at the detractors of Lego Freind's....

This is exactly the opposite of what LEGO is doing, which is much of the reason for this discussion in the first place.

I reread that petition last night, and while they have a few points blatantly wrong (saying the sets are dumbed down, or pre-built), they do have some things right. So many defenders of the Friends line manage to say that everyone should be able to equally play with any type of LEGO, ignoring the fact that that is not the marketing stance LEGO has taken. LEGO has categorically stated which sets are meant for girls, that being, NOT all different kinds of LEGO. Right? You can see that LEGO doesn't agree with you on this point, right? That's clear, lightningtiger?

It's difficult to ascertain why it didn't really succeed without considerable research, but all the surrounding evidence strongly indicates that it didn't.

I would call that all conjecture. Truth is, most ad campaigns from 1981 were discontinued by 1982. "Where's the beef?" was a wildly successful ad campaign, and it is no longer with us, so no longer existing in 2012 shouldn't be considered a show of failure.

It should be considered that that ad was one of three, and the other two featured a boy alone, and a brother and sister. So, that was a really balanced, progressive ad campaign.

[fallentomato]

To: fallentomato, I referred to the hypocrisy of Goldman's participation in the conversation, since she is a de facto spokesperson for the "no pink" campaigners. I didn't say she harassed anyone -- yet I have read her comments on other sites in regard to Friends, so I am aggregating her overall intent. The campaign fails to realize (as 'the enigma that is badger' pointed out) that Friends is merely one new option. Why should they get to criticize my option, if they don't want their option criticized?

Why is she a de facto spokesperson? She says she has nothing against pink bricks. What do you mean by the "no pink" campaign? Do you mean the SPARK petition and those organizing it? Or do you mean anyone criticizing the Friends sets? You seem to be grouping many people with varying positions into one group with a single position. I fully acknowledge the problems of the SPARK peition (especially the way it spread misinformation), which is all the more reason to be precise about which people are associated with it.

I would further argue that even those in the SPARK campaign are not criticizing the people who buy LEGO friends. Their criticisms and demands primarily revolve around the way the LEGO Group markets along gender lines.

[Ardelon]

This is exactly the opposite of what LEGO is doing, which is much of the reason for this discussion in the first place.

I reread that petition last night, and while they have a few points blatantly wrong (saying the sets are dumbed down, or pre-built), they do have some things right. So many defenders of the Friends line manage to say that everyone should be able to equally play with any type of LEGO, ignoring the fact that that is not the marketing stance LEGO has taken. LEGO has categorically stated which sets are meant for girls, that being, NOT all different kinds of LEGO. Right? You can see that LEGO doesn't agree with you on this point, right? That's clear, lightningtiger?

...

(bold emphasis mine)

Not really, it seems more like they stated which sets (= the Friends sets) aren't "meant" for boys. That isn't much better, but it decreases the problem by an order of magnitude. If anything, it's the boys' advocates that should be complaining about it.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Ardelon

[def]

(bold emphasis mine)

Not really, it seems more like they stated which sets (= the Friends sets) aren't "meant" for boys. That isn't much better, but it decreases the problem by an order of magnitude. If anything, it's the boys' advocates that should be complaining about it.

Yeah, that part you bolded, I should have phrased it a bit different. The company has labeled what is for girls through their advertising. Though they haven't "stated" that girls may only play with one. That was the first post of the day, and a little excessive

But I do think they've managed to do it with both boys and girls. The main issue is what's being done with girls toys, but it's fair to say that the type of advertising they're doing excludes boys from peaceful play.

Of course, progressive parents will allow their boys to play with the purple sets from the "girls" catalog if they so wish. But having it only be in the girls section is a type of discouragement.

[LegoMyMamma]

Why is she a de facto spokesperson? She says she has nothing against pink bricks. What do you mean by the "no pink" campaign? Do you mean the SPARK petition and those organizing it? Or do you mean anyone criticizing the Friends sets? You seem to be grouping many people with varying positions into one group with a single position. I fully acknowledge the problems of the SPARK peition (especially the way it spread misinformation), which is all the more reason to be precise about which people are associated with it.

I would further argue that even those in the SPARK campaign are not criticizing the people who buy LEGO friends. Their criticisms and demands primarily revolve around the way the LEGO Group markets along gender lines.

Any perceived "grouping" in my comments are not arbitrary; just because Goldman says in that one transcript she has nothing against pink bricks does not by default make her not involved with the petitioners. Like I wrote, it's her overall participation in the backlash. The way I even became aware of the NPR session in which she participated, was via the core "No pink aisle, bring back beautiful" campaign partners' sites: Hardy Girls (Lyn Mikel Brown), PBG - Powered by Girls (Lyn Mikel Brown), and SPARK (Lyn Mikel Brown). They had thanked Goldman for her part in the NPR interview and proceeded to promote a link to it.

Before our esteemed fellow-member "the enigma that is badger" posted a link on this thread about the first NPR interview involving Bailey Shoemaker Richards (SPARK, PBG) I had already read & listened to it the day after it aired -- due to the fact she tweeted she was driving in the snow to get to the station. What most concerned me about her interview was the part about her "supposedly" talking with workers who stock the sets and them saying they are not on par with other LEGO sets. Clearly a fabrication or some stock person at a big box store who is clueless.

So, just today, when I was going to gather the link for you, as to how Goldman is a de facto spokesperson for the "No pink aisles, bring back beautiful" campaign, low & behold, she has been congratulated for representing the campaign again: "Thank you to Carrie Goldman for this great explanation of the real issues behind the PBG and SPARK Summit protest of the new LEGO Friends line!" Yet again, except this time in a brand new article. Also once again, an article filled with misleading information -- including false statements, such as Friends being more like DUPLO than other LEGO bricks, etc., etc. Here is a sampling: "Unlike the “boy” sets, the Lego Friends do not require complete assembly of the whole model before girls can begin to play with them, removing the chance for girls to feel a sense of accomplishment at following the building instructions. Parents are left to wonder, why are the Legos for Girls dumbed down?"

But, hey don't take my word for it -- read it yourself!

Without re-creating the entire FFOOLF blog here, I will add a more detailed over-view of what I have followed since Dec 25th:

Before the campaign encouraged spam on the LEGO fan page on FB, Spark reps engaged TLG's twitter account. I say "engaged" when really it was more like "blind-sided" when they first tweeted to TLG an article Stephanie Cole put on Spark's site. Then, having TLG's twitter account's attention, they attempted to extract the actual "research" data TLG concluded. Reluntant, TLG said not for publishing, yet could e-mail some information. Contact e-mails were provided (Dana Edell, Spark) and once they had whatever TLG gave them on the anthropological research, they then went full-steam ahead with their campaign. Bailey wrote her own article, then proceeded to promote spamming the 1981 ad on the LEGO FB page, spreading their "social-media campaign" information (which we now know is filled with misleading information) and networking with other feminist and girl empowerment groups.

The petition was originally created by Dana Edell of Spark (yes, I have that screencap) and I have no idea how they can change sponsor names on petitions. The best place to see who the "no pink" campaign partners are is by viewing the letter they sent to TLG. You might also like to read the foul language one "partner" (Pigtail Pals 'aka' Melissa Atkins Wardy) uses toward TLG in reference to their hard-copy petitions signatures mailed to TLG. (scroll to the FedEx pkg image)

The Mary Sue is another site of those spreading misleading information (not just the one article you link to). This entire situation is alarming to me, as to how these "networks" operate. Part of the reason I began following this campaign is to understand it for myself. I decided to organize it on a blog -- and if anyone else who stops by gains an understanding, then well, gravy.

Although I have tried to be brief on this thread -- since I am past that now -- let me add: I find it a bit confusing that you call yourself a feminist (on your blog post) as my understanding you are a male. I can see how men can be feminist supporters/sympathizers -- yet I do not think (even via a sister) you have experienced life as to what it is like being a girl/woman.

If you don't think marginalizing the Friends sets by calling them created for the "lowest common denominator" is criticizing the people who buy Friends, then what is it? As for the marketing of the theme -- it's all subjective. Opinions on the way it's marketed are as different as each person viewing. Geo-sociological factors, familiarity with construction toy industry, being a parent, not being a parent, occupation, access to TV or Internet, and susceptibility to persuasion, all come into play.

As for me lumping anyone who doesn't like the Friends theme into the "no pink" camp -- nope, I have not done that at all. I think this thread has been enlightening for everyone! Although I don't see it as only a 2-sided-table; it is as multi-faceted as the people who partake.

Also, I already agreed on this very thread about the LEGO Girls magazine probably being better if an opt-in had been provided, rather than opt-out. Yet, the campaigners have spread false information about it too -- saying such things as: girls' photos with their creations are never allowed in the "regular" Club magazine. I know I have seen girls with creations in the Club magazine. Those are unsolicited, user-sent, so it's hardly fair to blame TLG anyway.

At the end of the day, it's another new theme. Buy it or not, it's a choice. However, spreading false information about its aspects is reckless on the Internet, which can have a sound-byte-attention-span.

So here we are full-circle; Goldman's new article contains misleading information, such as Friends being more like DUPLO than other LEGO bricks. The damage is self-evident in readers' comments, which reflect that people are still believing the hyperbole -- even though they could simply go to a local store (in the USA) and look at Olivia's House in a display. Heck, they don't even have to buy Friends to see it's comprised of the same bricks as any other LEGO set or bucket. The house is even Modular. The mini-dolls are barely bigger than a classic MiniFig. They are located at the end of the "construction aisle" in many stores.

In this topic thread, someone points out the backlash will be moot if the Friends theme succeeds; I have personally heard from some LEGO store employees that Friends is selling well -- and that it is filling a long-time void in which customers have been asking for exactly what Friends sets provide: Another option for some girls who may not already build with bricks.

My own personal non-scientific polling at the stores I went to buy my sets resulted in many customers laughing at the notion someone was petitioning TLG regarding Friends. I asked a young woman wearing a pink shirt in the clothing area what she thought about Olivia & Emma's sets -- she thought they were fine, adding if it gets girls to build, then why should anyone complain. An older woman buying for her grand-niece thought they were a nice option, as she was searching for a requested mermaid toy. A mom, who was at the Friends display at the end of the construction toy aisle, buying City & Friends sets for her daughter said her daughter is thrilled with Friends. She added, she loves them, even considering her daughter just built the Robie House (yes, and she's only 8). Finally, the checkout clerk seemed truly annoyed that I even asked if anyone complained about the sets.

My only bias comes from Friends easing me out of my "grey ages" and actually being brave enough to photograph my own creations. I bought sets to see for myself, before projecting any conjecture online. I still am dealing with the mental-to-manipulation conversion of just how small the mini-dolls really are! That Bloomberg photo haunts me. Kinda like the campaigners are haunting the Internet with lies.

[lightningtiger]

Just thought I would post this here.

If the Germans believe in the product.....even beating a Playmobile set in the awards well then ?

[Darkdragon]

My only bias comes from Friends easing me out of my "grey ages" and actually being brave enough to photograph my own creations. I bought sets to see for myself, before projecting any conjecture online. I still am dealing with the mental-to-manipulation conversion of just how small the mini-dolls really are! That Bloomberg photo haunts me. Kinda like the campaigners are haunting the Internet with lies.[/font]

I think that Bloomberg photo will do more damage overall than any of the stupid petitions. Most folks are visual, and they will see that cover many times while out and about (news stands, book stores, doctor offices). It could really turn off a mother to buying these sets because "the dolls are huge compared to what my son plays with".

I agree, even though I'd seen many comparison photos, I was very surprised by how small the minidolls were in my hands when I got one.

[Aanchir]

I reread that petition last night, and while they have a few points blatantly wrong (saying the sets are dumbed down, or pre-built), they do have some things right. So many defenders of the Friends line manage to say that everyone should be able to equally play with any type of LEGO, ignoring the fact that that is not the marketing stance LEGO has taken. LEGO has categorically stated which sets are meant for girls, that being, NOT all different kinds of LEGO. Right? You can see that LEGO doesn't agree with you on this point, right? That's clear, lightningtiger?

LEGO has said that LEGO Friends sets are for girls. That doesn't preclude the possibility that other themes are also acceptable for girls; they just aren't specially-designed for them like LEGO Friends sets are. LEGO's Shop site has a category labeled "For Girls" that includes many sets other than the Friends theme, including almost all licensed themes and AFOL-oriented Direct-to-Consumer sets-- the sets most likely to appeal to an audience of diverse genders.

While there are some girls who can easily recognize the value in TLG's gender-neutral or boy-oriented themes, there are many others who have grown accustomed to companies custom-tailoring toys towards their interests, and this is the audience TLG has so far been largely failing to take advantage of.

It should also be noted that TLG's ad agency, Advance, is the same agency they've been using since the 70s-- and they have taken great pride in the success of the Friends theme.

[fallentomato]

LegoMyMamma, thanks for the long detailed post, even though we don't always agree, I've enjoyed reading all you've written about this and the thoroughness of your documentation. The one ing you and I are in total agreement on is that misinformation is bad and we need to combat it.

I still disagree with you connecting Goldman with th SPARK campaign (despite having read alley articles you linked to). She has a similar viewpoint and obviously believes in it, but as you point out, her name isn't on the SPARK letter to LEGO.

Similarly, I was incensed when I saw the promotional e-mail for the petition filled with so much misinformation. However, that was written by Change.org, not the SPARK petitioners. So that particular piece of misinformation is not of their creation. This may seem like it picking, but it's important to be precise about who exactly is responsible for what. Following the news on this has been a very interesting study of how quickly misinformation can spread, and how little most people seem to fact check what they read. I'm less interested in that aspect of this discussion than you are.

As far as me being a feminist, I deliberately avoided that label until someone called me it in the comments because it's such a divisive word. I am an advocate for gender equality (and equality more broadly) and in that sense I am a feminist. I make no claim to fully understanding the female experience. One can be a feminist regardless of one's sex or gender, just as one can fight for civil rights regardless of skin color or social class.

EDIT: Forgot to mention. I am very happy that Friends brought you out of the grey ages. I enjoy seeing your creations on Flickr!

Edited February 1, 2012 by fallentomato

[vexorian]

If they offend you as an AFOL, well, that is your issue -- because they weren't developed for AFOLs, they were developed for kids.

I don't care, I still need to complain because they are ugly. They are a step backwards in articulation. The visual incompatibility segregates Friends from other themes. They are race-differentiated (and I am dark skinned and I think it was not anecdotally harder for me to identify with yellow figs as a kid than a Caucasian kid, thank you very much. At the very least, even if it was hard for me to identify with a yellow figure, most Friends and SW human figures are peach colored and it would have been harder for me to identify with them). And it worries me that TLG still try to pull these awful non-official figures as if they ever had any success whatsoever trying so. I mean, it is frustrating to see such a beloved company still try the same think over and over again and fail over and over again and demonstrate the definition of insanity. New minifigures made TLG lose so much money and time so many times already that I feel the need to point to show stronger opposition so that this doesn't happen again.

When friends flops and gets canceled (Willing to take bets, it is easy to sell these sets to little girls that are relatives to AFOLs, but they would be getting any other theme anyway and TLG's intention with this theme is to capture some chunk of the girls that were not asking for LEGO before the theme), I hope TLG attribute the failure not to the great designs in the friends line but to the urge to unnovate mini-dolls. And the push to make new figures. The designs of the sets are a great start. I really hope that in their next attempt to make a line that attracts the 50% of the target population they go with great set designs and normal minifigures and non-pink boxes as opposed to worst minifigs, truly duplo-like designs like Bellvile and 100% pink bricks. But for TLG to make a decision they need feedback, and they will use feedback from all sources and views. So what TLG will need is for all of us to keep voicing our opinions.

That you say fallentomato is the first source to pinpoint the source origin of the so-called controversy demonstrates to me you over-looked my posting on December 26th

Yeah I'll admit that I have avoided reading the posts in this 700 pages thread, besides of being too long it is full of quick dismissals of the subject and also some horrendous anti-feminism generalizations and I don't want to be banned. I was talking about official articles and posts which limit themselves to putting controversy between quotes and then go into defending TLG so very much because the sets are not 100% pink and the minifig hair may be reusable in real minifigs.

and the amount of care I have taken to compile & document the sources of the campaign, and their offspring of activity.

In their current actions, they are insisting TLG set up a meeting with them: http://www.sparksummit.com/2012/01/20/our-letter-to-lego/

Besides, in order for you to "figure out if their claim is outrageous," you need to see the contents of the letter sent to change.dot.org members: http://www.paganomation.com/2012/01/the-ongoing-lego-friends-controversy/

Which I also included in the compilation blog, about a week ago. Am I invisible to you?

Yay great. The petition and blog posts are being unfair / ignorant when they say that the sets are simplified. Thanks to your links I can confirm that the SPARK campaign and the petition is wrong and spreading misinformation. (Let me point out though that this is in part LEGO's fault, not in being sexist but in not informing the public correctly. The marketing gimmick to make boxes pink does not help, either. Edit: Neither does TLG's own promotional image to appear in Ruth Davis Konigsberg's article, in which Friends characters are nonsensically tall).

I am keeping my original opinion , however: "Yes, Virginia, LEGO are being sexist". I have come to this conclusion from reading the business week article that shows TLG complete mindset about the topic and confirmed it when LEGO club magazine got split. They "manlyfied" all the other themes and now are bragging for making a theme that has pink boxes. "Boys want mastery", "girls want detail". TLG is basing business decisions and set designs of all themes on research that is brutally sexist. That article made me realize why every set nowadays needs a flick fire missile and detail is getting lost. Why Creator sets are 90% made of cars and why LEGO City has basically become a police state in which policemen and thieves out-populate everything else.

They are not doing something I can endorse. What I would like is for all themes to be a little less about flick fire missiles and a little more about detail and beauty like friends. They can make a theme that is more oriented to topics such as puppies, pop stars and nice houses that have a healthier girl/boy ratio, which is great. But can't all themes have beautiful detailed sets that are also complex to build? Can't minifigs be compatible between all fig themes so that a boy that likes SW and puppies could use both sets? Again, that's just what I would like, and it is just the opinion of a random Bolivian AFOL, but I think TLG needs feedback and I am doing just that.

-------

BTW, whatever happened to: http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/factsfigures/timeline1960.aspx ? It is mentioned in the time.com article and supposedly said something about “10 characteristics of Lego” that included “For girls and for boys.”

Edited February 2, 2012 by vexorian

[def]

LEGO has said that LEGO Friends sets are for girls. That doesn't preclude the possibility that other themes are also acceptable for girls; they just aren't specially-designed for them like LEGO Friends sets are. LEGO's Shop site has a category labeled "For Girls" that includes many sets other than the Friends theme, including almost all licensed themes and AFOL-oriented Direct-to-Consumer sets-- the sets most likely to appeal to an audience of diverse genders.

While there are some girls who can easily recognize the value in TLG's gender-neutral or boy-oriented themes, there are many others who have grown accustomed to companies custom-tailoring toys towards their interests, and this is the audience TLG has so far been largely failing to take advantage of.

It should also be noted that TLG's ad agency, Advance, is the same agency they've been using since the 70s-- and they have taken great pride in the success of the Friends theme.

I don't think other themes are unacceptable for girls at all. When the company specifically labels things as "For Girls," that is the difference. Having a "girls" section on the website, having a girls magazine, this is a conscious effort on TLG's part to differentiate things between boys and girls. There is overlap, as Harry Potter is advertised to both, but they are still dividing things. I don't think they'll complain if a kid takes it upon themselves to cross the gender line they've drawn though.

I agree that LEGO is targeting a different market, and it's been said in this thread and elsewhere that it's (probably) good business. I don't disagree with that fact at all. Whether I like it or not is another thing I didn't like gender-based toys before I was a parent, and I like them less now. That's my thing

I don't see any relevance to the fact that they have the same ad agency though. Ad agencies have internal shifts. LEGO has had more than one internal shift. I'm sure a large number of staff involved in this project were not connected to the things they were doing in 1981.

I do hope this line is successful, and that in the 2013 or 2014 wave, it broadens, even to the point that it isn't just "for girls." We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Elsewhere on the Internet, I read today about DC reviving the Watchmen after 25 years, which, in comic terms, is pretty much sacrilege. Most people don't care, and for the company, it's just business. But a lot of people dislike it. The way some are diffusing things is to say, if you don't like it, you don't have to buy it. That's been said here too, about this topic. I find this to really be unhelpful to discussion, and discussion is one of the great things about the Internet. If I reviewed a set here, and somebody said, "I like that set!" I wouldn't reply to them, "If you like it, buy it." Whether you like or dislike something, there is a value in discussion of it, and a better statement would to be, if you don't like it, don't read it (or reply and explain why you disagree). Not aimed at you Aanchir, just something I was thinking about as I read some Watchmen articles today. I'm impressed that you can make your point and counter an opinion without making things up

[LegoMyMamma]

BTW, whatever happened to: http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/factsfigures/timeline1960.aspx ? It is mentioned in the time.com article and supposedly said something about “10 characteristics of Lego” that included “For girls and for boys.”

Apparently it was re-written (no idea why) and re-posted here: http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/2012/january/lego-group-commentary-on-attracting-more-girls-to-construction-play/

Something else to consider: other than the Bloomberg article being written by a staff writer there -- the vast majority of the other articles, even on reputable news sites -- are written by guest opinion editorials, secondary bloggers being in a "sub-section" of the site, and a few gender and/or lifestyle type of categories of the sites. This includes the time.com article. This too is part of the social media campaign "networking" with any platform writers they can, to add to the blitz. That, plus several people who have sites they want to promote and/or books they want to sell

Not limited to, yet including Goldman, who is writing a book about how her daughter was teased, err, bullied. Friends seems to have spawned a cottage industry of make $$ off the backlash. Even "femfrequency" asks for monetary support after showing Olivia's House on fire.

To: fallentomato, Thank you for the compliments Now I don't have to challenge you to an arm-wrestling duel at high noon!

However, the issue of memberships in groups still is more ambiguous than all us OCD people would like. Many who are part of the "no pink" campaign are not on the letter to TLG. As a matter of fact, one prominent person is Peggy. She is very much a part of the campaign, yet is not on that list for the petition. So, even though Goldman isn't on the list on the petition letter -- she is still part of the "campaign" by process of bringing her (rather late posted) article to the campaign's attention, and their disseminating of it via their platforms.

[Peppermint_M]

Lat night my sister bought a LEGO set. My sister is 13, she is ten years younger than me and merrily worked her way through all the stereotypical phases girls have. Polly Pocket, Barbie, Littlist Petshop (Plush and Plastic toys). Pink, pink and more pink. She was never a fan of LEGO, she only ever wanted it when we were at LEGOLAND Windsor for our annual family trip and even then she was busy arguing for some themed flexi foam rubbish from the castle over actual LEGO sets.

Last night at the supermarket, as I finished paying for my treats and my mother started chequing her groceries my little sister came rushing up begging to get something. I thought it would be some nail varnish or maybe some art supplies (She gave up toys at 11 upon entering secondary school although nail art and watercolours are her new hobbies) while my mum packed and I chatted to my brother about LEGO my sister ran up and proudly presented her latest purchase. The Splash Pool.

My sister, who really only liked to play a bit of LEGO, who made the pinkest figure of herself during a family game and who never ever wanted to buy a set chose one for herself at an age when most are getting out of LEGO.

So give that some thought.

[Aanchir]

I don't think other themes are unacceptable for girls at all. When the company specifically labels things as "For Girls," that is the difference. Having a "girls" section on the website, having a girls magazine, this is a conscious effort on TLG's part to differentiate things between boys and girls. There is overlap, as Harry Potter is advertised to both, but they are still dividing things. I don't think they'll complain if a kid takes it upon themselves to cross the gender line they've drawn though.

Having a "For Girls" category on shop.LEGO.com isn't all that new. While it may seem a bit sexist, I think it's perfectly understandable that TLG would want to try their best and make sure that gift-givers can make an educated guess about what types of toys the recipient will enjoy much. It's the same justification as for the age recommendations on LEGO boxes. It's perfectly possible that a person less than ten years old will enjoy a larger Technic set, or a person older than 14 will enjoy a Ninjago set, or that a girl will enjoy a Hero Factory set. But this sort of differentiation is basically the same kind of broad recommendation that a retail store worker would give if a gift-giver were unsure what their gift's recipient will appreciate best.

I agree that LEGO is targeting a different market, and it's been said in this thread and elsewhere that it's (probably) good business. I don't disagree with that fact at all. Whether I like it or not is another thing I didn't like gender-based toys before I was a parent, and I like them less now. That's my thing

In my case (perhaps because I'm a boy), what always bothered me most during childhood wasn't the fact that gender-based toys existed but that there was a stigma attached to girl-oriented toys that kept boys from enjoying them, and no similar stigma attached to "non-pink" toys that kept girls from enjoying them. I didn't realize until I was older that girls and parents of girls did in fact sometimes avoid boy-oriented toys.

I'm sure the fact that my parents kept "aggressive" toys and media like Power Rangers and Transformers from me is partly to blame for my continued ignorance. What I saw, though, were things like toy cars that girls and boys alike could enjoy, "pink" toys that only girls were allowed to enjoy, and "aggressive" boy-oriented toys that neither boys nor girls should want to enjoy. Of course that didn't stop me from getting Paradisa sets "for Mommy" and then "helping out" by building them for her. I even had a big pink drum of Tyco bricks (gasp) which I have since taken great pains to eradicate from my LEGO collection due to partial incompatibility.

As I grew up, I sort of began to understand that girls and boys did like different things to an extent-- sometimes just because girls didn't want to do something "boyish" and vice-versa. And of course when it comes to toy sales, this factor is amplified by parents who project their own biases onto their kids.

I'm sure TLG is well-aware of these contrasting interests just from focus group studies, where they might notice things that girls tended to agree on that boys did not. Their more recent anthropological research in preparation for the Friends theme certainly reinforced this. Whether girls inherit gender biases by nature or nurture, these biases can become ingrained in girls' interests well before they enter grade school.

Now, as for whether a theme has to be quite as girly as Friends to get a significant amount of sales with young girls, that's up for debate. TLG is already taking a gamble by creating a girl-oriented building toy, seeing as girls have traditionally been a tiny minority in the sales of their more successful themes.

A gender-neutral theme, if possible, would probably be preferable to just having Friends as the only obvious outreach to girls. But the release of the Friends theme is about more than testing the viability of a theme that considers girls' interests more closely. It's also about TLG's image. I've had a close friend confess to me that her own parents would get LEGO bricks for her brother and not her.

In the 80s the company did attempt to paint themselves as gender-neutral, but I think the fact that they made that decision suggests that even then they were having difficulty convincing parents that building toys could be for girls as well as boys. The fact that dedicated girl-oriented themes started to emerge around a decade later suggests to me that this attempt did not have the desired results, and TLG still saw girls as an untapped market in the early- and mid-90s.

Even if the mid-90s were a time of very bad decisions by TLG, there was still reasoning behind those decisions. TLG saw a populace of children who were no longer as interested in building toys as they had been years before. TLG tried to diversify to a wider audience, and of course that is what is often blamed for their economic suffering in the early naughts, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they had the wrong idea with these attempts. That can be seen in the success of video games like LEGO Star Wars after TLG's less-than-stellar attempts at video games in previous years. In my opinion, throughout the 90s and early naughts, TLG had good intentions, but was just going about things the wrong way.

This is part of the reason I hope LEGO Friends is successful-- not because I have any particular reason to want LEGO sets designed for a category of individuals I will never fall under, but because I would like it to be recognized that girls are, in fact, a viable market for building toys. Once that enters the public consciousness, it will be a lot easier for TLG and other companies to create not just girl-oriented toys but also gender-neutral toys that their consumers will be able to readily recognize as such.

On a side note, I think the measure of whether the public recognizes building toys at their core as gender-neutral will be if TLG's competitors begin to release their own successful girl-oriented building toy lines. I've particularly got my fingers crossed for My Little Pony Kre-O.

[lightningtiger]

'Peppermint_M' thank you for post what you wrote today, maybe we should let the children decide what they want to play with.

[def]

Thanks for your reply Aanchir.

My sister, who really only liked to play a bit of LEGO, who made the pinkest figure of herself during a family game and who never ever wanted to buy a set chose one for herself at an age when most are getting out of LEGO.

So give that some thought.

It's great that she was interested in a LEGO set I think it's a bit different than the topic that came up as 'controversy,' which is the meaning and impact of gender marketing. I think most people can agree that gender marketing is often successful.

'Peppermint_M' thank you for post what you wrote today, maybe we should let the children decide what they want to play with.

Same as above. On top of that, you write over and over again to let the kids choose, and before, you wrote that there should be images of all different boys and girls playing with all different LEGO. I wrote a serious reply to you, asking if you understood that gender based marketing does the opposite, it splits boys and girls up. You didn't reply, but you keep on with your refrain. Why is it that advertising for children is restricted in many countries in a way that it isn't for adults? Well, one reason is that kids are more susceptible to it. So, this controversy, and most of the discussion on the Internet about it is mainly about that, and not the set quality.

I think it's great to have options, and to let kids choose their interests, but when the topic of this kind of gender marketing comes up, I don't think that's the argument winner. We all know Barbie and GI Joe are successful. That's not evidence of being quality or of being healthy. I'm really sorry to have posted so many times in this topic, but there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what the 'controversy' is in the first place, and I've tried to set it straight. Still, it comes back to defenses that don't have to do with the complaints made. I will say that it is not about the quality of the sets (although some have said that's a problem too, but not people who've seen the sets) and it's not that girls will not like them.

[Peppermint_M]

But here's the thing. In my household there is 19 years worth of LEGO. 23 years of Duplo (there was a Duplo rattle in the baby kit the hospital gave new mothers when I was born) and she was never bothered with LEGO. She shared a room with me at one point and every weekend afternoon was always a massive LEGO playing time for me and my friends but she didn't want to join in.

Two days ago she bought a LEGO set because it was in a purple box, with a more humanised figure of a girl. Gender based marketing was a success.

The worst people for gender politics are the RadFems... The ones who want to push negativity onto what colour you find most attractive and bemoan the games children want to play.

I just love how these women think that a childrens toy is a more important thing to protest about over countries we happily do business with that will not allow women to drive or do anything with their own lives without a man. Who will without question take the word of a man over that of a woman. But we all happily look the other way because they have lots of money and like to spend it on our products and they will sell us oil. Yeah, noble cuase there Ladies. Children having a choice of toys (that they already have quite honestly, no one is forced at gunpoint to choose one over another) that they may like is soo terrible...

[Itaria No Shintaku]

Mmmh... probably it's me, or this poll has some problems.

I believe that "Friends" is very effeminate as a line, but I don't see any problems with that. I really can't see girls buying DINO or ALIEN CONQUEST... really. I work with children. The male children don't like female figures, they like more fighters, aliens, monsters and the like. On the other hand, the girls like horses, female minifigures that look nice, building houses full of furnitures and accessories, and so on.

The idea that boys and girls should play with the same things is feminist and thus idiot. Feminism, as any sexism, is stupid in 2012. Boys and girls have great difference in brain structure, with a difference in amount in grey matter vs white matter (males have more grey matter, females have more white matter, this is a reason why male homosexuals are nothing of feminine, they are masculine at all, and thinking a gay as a female in a male body is idiot and anachronistic, but this is another story) and this means that they like very different things.

It is true that if a female is raised among males she will have more chances to like male things, but life and science teache that girls will always like jewels more than boys do, and that boys will always like tecnology more than girls do.

It's like that and changing this is really insane, is like trying to force nature in a different way from what it's used to be.

[def]

I think most people can agree that gender marketing is often successful.

Gender based marketing was a success.

[fallentomato]

However, the issue of memberships in groups still is more ambiguous than all us OCD people would like. Many who are part of the "no pink" campaign are not on the letter to TLG. As a matter of fact, one prominent person is Peggy. She is very much a part of the campaign, yet is not on that list for the petition. So, even though Goldman isn't on the list on the petition letter -- she is still part of the "campaign" by process of bringing her (rather late posted) article to the campaign's attention, and their disseminating of it via their platforms.

I will cede Goldman's connection to the campaign since they very explicitly claim her here.

[Gryphon Ink]

The idea that boys and girls should play with the same things is feminist and thus idiot. Feminism, as any sexism, is stupid in 2012.

Big problem there in that you don't know what feminism is. Feminism is not sexism. It's the exact opposite. Feminism is about equality between the sexes. Period, end of story.