In Mourning for the Lego of yeasteryear

I never wanted to be the sort of parent who told their child who could and couldn't be their friend but there are five friends I do not want my daughter playing with. She will not be playing with Mia and her pets, getting her hair done with Emma, drink smoothies with Andrea, go to one of Stephanie's parties or even play in Olivia's tree house or dream up great inventions with her in her workshop. (http://friends.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx)


Lego how far you have wandered from what is beautiful. The Lego I remember as a kid was probably beginning to become dominated by male characters  but there was at least still space for my imagination to believe it had permission to be there, to create and to explore.

Lego being the amazing, brilliant toy that it is, has a unique opportunity to offer play spaces for children that allow their creativity to flourish and their sociological imaginations to run riot dreaming about what life could be like.

A family in a house that turns into a boat, a spaceship or a dragon.

The new 'Friends' theme fundamentally constrains children's play and sends some very clear messages:

1.) Friends are the remit of girls - not boys; and girls are friends with girls only.

2.) The activities girls do are limited to domestic and caring functions. If they are going to step out of these roles (Olivia's inventor workshop) then that is the exception not the rule and they must plaster all such activities in pink or lilac lest they compromise their femininity.

3.) The website very clearly lets you know that you must conform to one of these types of femininity. You can take an on-line quiz where you have to choose between fairly obtuse objects. This detailed and well-researched psychometric test will then tell you which type you are like, because apparently there are 5 types of girl in the world.

4.) This is clearly and obviously marketed at girls so what about the rest of the Lego world? Clearly it becomes 'for boys' and there is indeed a dearth of female characters in the rest of Lego's universe. The message is clear: boys and girls are fundamentally different. What is male is normative.

5.) The message is no longer 'discover something very, very, special: themself'. Instead it is clearly: don't you dare get out of the box. But try conformity, stick with the pattern, don't invent, you mustn't have a go or create. Keep 'you' very very quiet.

It also sends out some not so clear messages:

How old are Mia, Emma, Andrea, Stephanie and Olivia? Their clothing, interests and language would suggest that they are children (especially as Olivia's house clearly has a Mum and Dad). However, they are physically very developed to be children, and very skinny. In proportion to the average woman's waist they have very large breasts, probably not quiet as bad as Barbie but not far off. This mixing of adult  body images (and unhealthy ones at that) with children's themes contributes very directly to the sexualisation of children.

There's a great short history of Lego's marketing and gender over at feminist frequency (http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/01/lego-gender-part-1-lego-friends/).

For my part I am one very sad mother worried about the pink universe my daughter may have no choice but to grow up in. The glimmer of hope is represented by the Lego my mother has stashed away in the attic and then there is that prayer that the world might change and that this ridiculous notion of deterministic binary gender could be dropped. One day.