My daughter grew up with LEGO and still plays with them. She doesn't need pink or purple blocks or over-sized female figures. All she wants different is a few female minifigs once in a while. I don't think there is a single one in either advent calendar. There are almost none anymore except Hermione in the Harry Potter licensed sets. Somewhat ironically, one of the few we have is the female doctor from last season's FIRST LEGO League competition set.
I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
131–140 of 289 posts
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#132When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…
"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give peo…
What you're shown and what you want is undeniably a continuum.
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#133When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…
I blame companies instead of consumers because they market the shit out this stuff. No one is born with an innate desire for that specific Barbie or Lego set. The companies market to you, make you feel like you want it. The companies may not be able to change the entire macro environment, but they actively profit and exploit it. So yea, they are way more to blame than what 11 year old girls think their place in the w…
What about the role of parenting?
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#134This is offensive, I will just have to stick with my computer engineer barbie instead: http://gizmodo.com/5470587/computer-engineer-barbie-has-a-ph...
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#135When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…
I blame companies instead of consumers because they market the shit out this stuff. No one is born with an innate desire for that specific Barbie or Lego set. The companies market to you, make you feel like you want it. The companies may not be able to change the entire macro environment, but they actively profit and exploit it. So yea, they are way more to blame than what 11 year old girls think their place in the w…
> No one is born with an innate desire for that specific Barbie or Lego set. The companies market to you, make you feel like you want it.
True, but it's the fault of both companies and consumers at the same time. It's a feedback loop. Marketing strategies are based on what people are willing to buy, which is based on what companies market. The system feeds on itself.
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#136in america this is called having a niche
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I take massive issue with this. We start the training with regard to gender so early that it's hard to tell what's "nature" and what's "nurture". I'm watching the choices my sister makes during her pregnancy with fascination. Gender is the earliest thing we bombard them with -- painting rooms pink, buying gendered clothes, choosing certain toys.. we don't even thinking about it because it's so normal until, for insta…
I expected people would take issue with it. Unfortunately some people really really want it to be the case that girls and boys are only different because of their environment. Given the way evolution works, doesn't that seem ridiculously unlikely? Given the way we evolved to have clearly defined roles, and how we have obvious physical differences to enable that, doesn't it seem pretty obvious that we evolved our brai…
Is it not possible that it's a bit of both? Given this scenario, which is clearly very likely, enforcing gender stereotypes could dissuade a child from walking a certain road down which their nature would have led them.
Boys and girls are naturally different, yes, but as demonstrated by the many women in science, that doesn't mean that all females want to grow up to become hairdressers or models.
Stereotypes do affect a child's development. Please don't limit their potential.
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#138s/LEGO/toy manufacturers/ (There, I fixed it for you!) The trend towards highly gendered media-tie in toys that are designed to generate follow-on sales opportunities for accessories rather than to encourage kids to develop their imagination through semi-structured but open-ended play nauseates me. I am doubtless betraying my personal bias here, but the corporate discovery that the quickest way to a parent's wallet i…
BS @ trend. Go back 50 years and it was dolls and toy guns. Nothing has changed, boys still like building and destroying, and girls still like caring about things and craft things. You can try all you want to make boys play with dolls, and girls play at killing each other, but they won't in general, because it's not in their biological makeup to do so.
"boys still like building"
"girls still ... craft things."
I think this says everything that needs to be said: children like making things!
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#139I Made Things with LEGO blocks growing up. I loved the kits and the space themes. But I would always end up creating my own spaceship.
My young sisters build… but they mostly just build very simple props and then play with the LEGO people like dolls, inventing dramas and friendships and the like.
It’s the same set of LEGO bricks I used.
Is it evil to recognize this?
Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil
#140I've been a Lego fan for, what, 45, 50 years? I've never in that time bought a single "kit" from them. You buy bricks. And other parts. But kits? Why would I want to build someone else's design. The whole idea behind Lego, as I've understood since I was 5 years old, is that you make your own cool stuff.
I've built space ships and air planes and monsters. I think I even built a Starship Enterprise once. But designing the things yourself is part of the process.
When my nieces were prime Lego age, at the advice of their mother, I did look at some kits, but was horrified at the prices. The bricks are pricy enough. I converted my money into tubs of bulk bricks. You can never have enough bricks.
(Now I did make some Tinker-Toy machines from company plans, but only enough to understand the principle. I then adapted them to my own nefarious purposes. I did the same with balsa wood flying model airplanes later.)