More response from Lego

[ailbhe]

Dear Ailbhe,

Thanks for getting back in touch with us.

LEGO® sets are sold in 130 countries, so we try really hard to make sure there are LEGO toys suitable for all children (both girls and boys) of every age and from every culture. We try to show this in our adverts and catalogues by using pictures of both boys and girls playing.

Actually, Ailbhle, our research shows that boys like construction toys more than girls, so we do sometimes work with more boys than girls: but we also know that girls are now really enjoying LEGO sets. So things are changing!

Listening to what LEGO fans have to say helps us get better and better so I'm going to pass your comments on to the team in charge of Products and Promotions.

Please get in touch again on our freephone number 00800 5346 5555 if you need anything else (you'll need to remind me of the following reference number 030231524A).

Happy building!

Moira
LEGO Direct Consumer Services


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I don't think they see the change everyone else does, the not-so-gradual removal of girls from where we were clearly visible before. Hmph.

Comments

[mollydot]

"but we also know that girls are now really enjoying LEGO sets. So things are changing!"

But...but... girls liked Lego when I was a kid. It seems to have changed in the meantime. How much due to their changing marketing, and how much due to the general pinkification, I don't know, but it's a strange thing for them to say.

[mollydot]

"by using pictures of both boys and girls playing."

I wonder what they'd say if asked about the blogger who was told that any pictures of her daughter sent in would appear in the girls mag, not the "regular" one, no matter which set/theme she was playing with.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering how old Moira is... She seems to assume that things are changing in the right direction, whereas I, and apparently many others, see a *more* gender-constrained world for children than the one I grew up in.

Is there a good, accessible but scholarly, sociological account of the change? I wonder whether there has been some such process as:

~1950s? construction toys are for boys; why would we show girls?

~1960s/1970s construction toys are mostly for boys, but there's the odd tomboy among the girls; let's show the odd one, obviously doing exactly the same things as the boys, because that's what tomboys do

... then some time when I wasn't paying attention ...

~2000s: construction toys are for children. Children come in two flavours, the ones who like war and *actually* like our product and the ones who like pink and dollies and playing house and who we have to be seen to appeal to, but who won't actually bring us much profit; so show them accordingly, but don't worry too much about the latter, just make the odd thing for them.

IOW, while your group is seen as being mostly irrelevant, you can get treated as an individual by detaching yourself from it. Once your group is seen as a group, it is vulnerable to stereotyping and you can no longer get treated as an individual.

It would not surprise me at all if Lego have figures going back many decades showing that a higher proportion of lego purchases are for girls now than were for girls in my childhood - but this is, curiously, consistent with the observation that girls who really like lego are now worse off.

Does that make any sense? It's not compatible, of course, with the idea that there was a golden age in which just as many girls as boys played with lego, and I've seen some comments suggesting that idea - but that's not how I remember the late 60s/early 70s.

[ailbhe]

In the late 70s / early 80s, where I was, it was only Teknik (I think that's what it was called) that was for boys, and girls got ALL the other stuff, subject to socioeconomic status. Lots of it was handmedown, mind you. In 2004 when Linnea was new, toys in general were more strongly gendered than they had been when I was growing up, but it's worse now.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I am pondering writing a followup letter to them with your case number included, citing the Sociological Images page, and noting that their reputation amongst parents who are concerned with gendering issues is dropping precipitously, such that your letter is not from an isolated wacko, but the spearhead of a much larger public sentiment?

[ailbhe]

yes please!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Oh, the whooshing sound of points being missed! So dispiriting :-(

A billion points to you for engaging with them, though.

You know what we need, actually? A sort of ... Feminist Bureau of Investigation - you get embroiled in a dialogue like this, and you call in the Fems, and they do research and run analyses and come back to you with the specific hard facts and stats you need to support your argument. Then you could show Moira why what she thinks of as "pictures of boys and girls playing" are anything but straightforward.

Harrumph.

Edited because I just saw the "Actually, Ailbhle" bit. Bwahaha!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I came back this morning to read your post again because it was still very fresh in my mind.

Suggested response:

Actually, Moria, I think you'll find that "research" "showing" that "boys" "like" construction toys "more" than "girls" is no more reliable than any of the rest of the kyriarchal codswallop we've all been fed since the cradle.

Yours,
Ailbhe, Actually

[baratron.livejournal.com]

"Actually, Ailbhle, our research shows that boys like construction toys more than girls, so we do sometimes work with more boys than girls: but we also know that girls are now really enjoying LEGO sets. So things are changing!"

So. Fucking. Patronising. Not even managing to spell your name right is the icing on the cake!

HELLO? When I was a little girl in the 1980s, Lego was a toy for girls and boys. Then something went abruptly wrong in the 90s.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

Oh my God. They replied to your complaint that "girly Lego" was excluding girls from regular Lego by saying "we try really hard to make sure there are LEGO toys suitable for all children (both girls and boys)" and "our research shows that boys like construction toys more than girls, we also know that girls are now really enjoying LEGO sets"?

They're trying to claim the problem is their solution?

[ailbhe]

Calm down, dear.

[etoile-violet.livejournal.com]

I...do not know what to say.

[ailbhe]

Me neither. I can think of lots of short words but I'm not allowed to put any of them in an email.

[bubs.livejournal.com]

How strange for them to only notice girls enjoy lego recently. I'm a seventies kid and lego was for everyone then! Ask to see this research of theirs. Of course it will need to be printed on pink paper first but I am sure Moira already has a pink copy herself. ;)