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Cautiously Optimistic

LEGO Seems Committed to Change, According to Concerned Creators of Anti-Lego Friends Petition

by Susana Polo | 11:18 am, April 26th, 2012


There have been a lot of words spilled about LEGO’s controversial Friends line, designed, according to the company, as an attempt to pull in the girl demographic to the construction toy. A reasoning that rang jarringly to observers who pointed out that the company in fact had a completely gender neutral toy, that they had once marketed in that way, but for the past couple of decades had marketed it exclusively to boys, rarely building any female figurines for use with its sets or featuring any girls playing with the toys in their ads. Despite that, many women who grew up during those decades have fond memories of playing with LEGOS. It seemed like a change in overall product wasn’t so much warranted as a change in how it was marketed. On top of that, the Friends toys that LEGO actually produced smacked of stereotypical representations of femininity and the marketing de-emphasized the construction capabilities of the toys in favor of emphasizing those aspects. In addition, the entire line was presented as separate and incompatible (literally, in terms of the new “ladyfigs”) with the rest of LEGO’s line, tacitly implying that only Friends was for girls, and the rest of LEGO was only for boys.

But as Bust Magazine reports, about a week go the founders of SPARK, an women’s rights organization that advocates against the sexualization and stereotyping of women in media, met with several senior employees of LEGO to talk about how the company can improve its line over all to become more appealing to girls while at the same time not appropriating tired stereotypes, restrictive gender roles, and or unnecessarily dumbing its product down.

According to SPARK, LEGO was motivated to invite its founders Bailey Shoemaker Richards and Stephanie Cole to discus the LEGO Friends line after the group created a petition 55 thousand names long, requesting that LEGO improve its marking towards young girls and boys by promoting less stereotypical gender roles. SPARK volunteered to give LEGO any advice that was requested, and LEGO made that request. SPARK’s four representatives met with Brand Relations Director Michael McNally, Senior Director Laura Post, and Senior Creative Director Nanna Ulrich Gudum.

From SPARK:

McNally made it clear at the beginning of the meeting that their role as LEGO’s ambassadors was to be active listeners and take our concerns into account. We were thrilled that they were so willing to engage with the research and information we had prepared.

The advice they planned to offer to LEGO during the hour long meeting (which apparently went so well they actually spend an hour and a half speaking with the directors) was threefold:

First, we want to see more girls and women characters across all LEGO lines…

Second, we want to see girls featured in more LEGO ads, and we want to see boys featured in ads for the LEGO Friends…

And finally, as LEGO expands the Friends line, we want to see the inclusion of sets designed around non-stereotyped activities for girls: spaceships, politics, firefighting, architecture, teaching and business.

And, much to SPARK’s satisfaction (and ours!) LEGO seemed very receptive.

One of the most encouraging parts of the meeting with LEGO was that the individuals sitting around the table shared many of our concerns, and were able to see why SPARK sees the Friends as a problematic addition to the LEGO suite of products.

The directors said that the company had already done an internal audit of all its available minifigures and was planning to roll out an increased number of female minifigures across all lines this year, they’re “working on their communication to and about girls across the company,” and affirmed that Friends was intended as a “ramp” into the wider LEGO world. One that is not entirely finished, with work going on to make sure that it isn’t the beginning and end of girls in LEGO.

As with most corporate steps in the right direction, actions speak louder than words, but, that being said: words can be very nice to hear, and at the very least are great at fostering hope! You can read SPARK’s entire article on how the meeting went down here.

(Spark via Bust via Geekmom.)

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  • Anonymous

    That is great to hear!  I wrote to LEGO expressing my own personal dissatisfaction with their marketing trends and use of stereotypes (as I’m sure a lot of folks did) and I’m gad to hear that they’re taking the concerns of so many of their fans seriously.  It gets me excited to buy LEGO toys for all my sibling-children again!

  • Anonymous

    Really, really, really great news. It’s refreshing to see a company that’s receptive to critique and willing to change for the better. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=711423351 Sarah Wolcott

    This is so good to see.  I stopped dead in my tracks when I first saw them in the store.  I’m glad they’re actually listening. 

  • Anonymous

    My Niece has all my Technical and Space Lego now and loves Lego. 
    “Did you have Superman and Wonder Woman Lego when you were a little boy,” she asked on opening my gift.”No, he didn’t” said Mummy, “I think that’s why you’ve just got some.”

    Lego is about what you want it to be – but it’s great to see a company willing to listen when it takes a misstep.

  • http://twitter.com/EmberDione Kim Pittman

    The first time I saw them, I had that reaction, until I saw the Olivia’s Workshop set. They *are* trying to do this. They likely just need more direction other than the one person on the marketing team trying to tell them how to do it. This seems like a good start.

    (And Brothers Brick will show you, the boys have no problem taking these and making awesome stuff with it.)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R7GVNIKWG3S2UTHEQOMSZXT4M4 Anna B

    I’m very glad to hear this.  As a child, I admit without shame to love dolls, but I loved legos, action figures, and robots as much as I did my dolls. I integrated my toys a lot, and by far, legos were the most diverse.  Barbies missing furniture and fixtures? I created them from my lego. Transformers need a fort?  Lego.  Rainbow Bright needs a chair?  Lego.  GI Joes needed a base? Lego. 

  • http://twitter.com/archasa Åsa M Larsson

    Glad to hear it – and I hope they actually listen and take it to heart. As the mother of a 9 y old girl I can honestly say it’s the marketing that’s the problem not the product. She LOVES Lego, builds all sort of stuff and make up amazing stories. Just as I did. If anything, she’s even more into lego than her 2 years younger brother.
    I would love to see more female figures than aren’t dressed in the Leia slave outfit…

  • JoAnne Pope

    Glad to hear it.  My 13-year old son himself said that the “friends” line was one of the dumbest ideas ever, while the girls on his Lego robotics team were horrified, then highly irritated when they saw the ads.  These girls kick some serious patootie building robots with Lego Mindstorm sets, yet were somehow supposed to want the “friends” Legos instead?  Not likely.

  • http://twitter.com/Super_Widget Joanna

    I’d definitely like to see a few male Lego figurines in the kitchen.  You know, patty cake bakers MAN and all that.  

  • http://www.justplainsomething.com JustPlainSomething

     That’s great news. Legos were one of my favorite toys as a kid and I would hate for young girls to feel pushed into the girlier toys because the advertising is telling them that’s where they solely belong.

  • Kellee Richards

    The one reason (well, one of maybe three reasons) I refused to completely hate the Friends line was that I was hoping LEGO was going to use it to ease their way back into being a gender-neutral toy. I’m so glad to see it wasn’t a pipe dream

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sarah-J-Case/1242560954 Sarah J Case

    Politics? Children interested in politics is a niche market. I’d replace that with superheroes! Who wouldn’t go gaga over a Batgirl minifig?
    (For the rest of it: oh thank goodness!)

  • http://twitter.com/mightbeatranny hemightbeatrannyif

    you people are wack.  this is their company, not yours.  build your own damn product if you don’t like this one.  let them have pick legos, and glow in the dark legos and dotted legos.  these are play things.  for kids.  don’t like it?  don’t buy them!

  • Anonymous

    This their website, not yours. Go make your own website if you don’t like it. Let us have our website with critical thought, and conscientious consumerism. Don’t like it, don’t read it.

  • http://farseer-lolotea.livejournal.com/ Farseer Lolotea

    I’m not sure how many people will agree with me, but I disagree that LEGO Friends is necessarily a bad idea in its own right. 

    However, there is the fact that it’s not really mechanically compatible with the main toy line.  And let’s not forget that said main toy line has been exclusively marketed to boys for a while now.   I’d argue that those are poor choices. 

    With that in mind?  It’s good to see that they may be reconsidering said choices.

  • R.O.U.S.

    Why can’t they just make a set of regular blocks in pink and purple and call it a day? The point of Legos is to be creative, not use pre-formed pieces to just build a little vignette. I STILL have my giant Lego collection from when I was a kid, and I’ll give it to mine. Best. Toy. Ever. (and that’s even in the ‘boy’ colors)

  • http://www.facebook.com/laurie.sf Laurie Peterson

    I for one was delighted to see the new Lego line. I am glad to hear improvements are being made, but its about time girls are no longer ignored by lego. Been to a lego store lately? Its Very gender specific with all the legos looking very boy like. It doesn’t work to say that girls dont need their own line, when the legos scream at them “not for you’!” I did my college dissertation on toys for girls, and concluded that the best solution is to offer a range of products, including a healthy dose of gender neutral options. That doesn’t mean a girly option is wrong. We just shouldn’t limit kids to that. 

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