User:Jessie Na/sandbox

Gender
Lego made attempts to market products based on gender, and released “girls only” themes based on femininity, which brought a lot of controversy to the gender disparity in toy marketing. Lego clearly distinguishes which sets are aimed at boys or girls, showing how children think of colors on the packaging and placement of the toys through cultural lens.

Lego asserts their status as the distributors to create fun and engaging experiences for children. These experiences help children to develop social, emotional and intellectual skills which makes the foundation of their life. However, there are issues about gender stereotyping and sexism which are influential to children development. Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter states to Lego that “They might as well have a No Girls Allowed sign” while she investigates about the toy industry’s multibillion-dollar exploitation of the “princess phase” that was for girls at age 3 or 4. Lego bricks were initially marketed as toys for both boys and girls. The 60s marketing images from this era was for boys and girls equally. Rachel Giordano, the girl from 1981 Lego’s advertisement who is now a naturopathic doctor in Seattle recalls her memories about Lego. She mentions that Lego was for boys and girls which were supposed to foster creativity for all children. However nowadays, it seems like many toys in market already have messages inside of them before children opens the pink or blue package which limits creativity of a child. In 1981, Lego were simpler and gender-neutral compared to today’s Lego where creativity of the child produced the message. It’s been reversed in these days where the toys deliver messages to the children, and the message is about gender.

Effect on Children
Lego claims that play experiences are essential for child education therefore as a provider, they make sure that their behaviors and actions are responsible enough. Due to their educational influence on children, Lego has the power to create prejudice thoughts towards gender and preconceived idea of sex. Susan Linn, executive director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School states that “Children use toys to try on new roles, experiment, and explore interests”. Also she explains that “rigidly gendered toy marketing tells kids who they should be, how they should behave, and what they should be interested in”.

Lego is the second-largest toy manufacturer in the world therefore the gender stereotype matters in a product that is consumed and loved by so many children. Lego became one of the biggest toy manufacturer and it is implicitly educational to many children as toys always acted as a tool for educating children. Lego offers many collections which present freedom and creativity where children can make anything with the plastic bricks. However the theme related to femininity is leading to the stereotypical idea built inside of toys. Toys have different fantasies created by children where they all have separate dreams, expectations and self-identities. Toy manufacturers including Lego have idea that making differences in girls and boys are successful which promotes gender idea to children. Even though children have choices to choose their toys, toy market is leading to the idea of “institutionalized gender” where gender is a constrained choice.

Social Construction of Gender
The advertisement, media and the packaging of Lego is suggesting the customers into certain gender roles and identity. Mass media function as cultural imagination that is integrated with the production of gendered identities. Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher explains that “Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing”. It is certainly judging people into particular gender according to the biological sex which is ignoring the fact that people have choice to perform either gender roles. Media develops the idea of gender relations that designates masculinities and feminities. The gender bias has many problems that must be solved starting with the idea that girls are related to the color pink. “One is not born a woman” and gender shows the social division between men and women thus understood as social creation rather than naturally made. In many toy stores, children will inevitably face a stark set of choices: for boys, it’s comics, sports, trucks and trains; and for girls, it’s princesses, fairies, dollhouses and dresses. Even the building blocks are colored by gender: Lego have, despite heavy criticism, taken to selling pink play sets marketed to girls.

Advertisements for the Lego friends are noticeably more feminized starting with the color choices, duties and objects around the characters. The boxes of the Lego Friends and the bricks themselves are all covered with particular colors. Lego is a big part of our culture which effects children vastly and culture is a significant way of reproducing gender inequalities. Mass media is a crucial tool for gender socialization which is the reason why media should be accountable of what they produce.

Feminized Themes
Lego launched themes of femininity targeted specifically for girls. According to Hanne Groth, Lego’s market research manager, “The greatest concern for girls really was beauty”. Unlike various colors applied to other Lego series, the color for girls Lego theme is primarily pink or purple. Lego was promoting gendered products. While the Lego is famously known for their minifigures that is seemingly gender neutral, Lego separates the toys for girls by creating lady figures. The feminized theme began with Homemaker line (1971-1982) which was designed to appeal mainly to girls. Introduced in 1971, the theme centered on domestic and suburban life based settings aspects. Lego’s homemaker sets show that the house is the domain of the feminine and the housekeeping is a job for women.

Scala
Scala (1979) theme was a major deviation from the main Lego product line with jewelry and beauty accessories instead of building cities. Scala had special bricks and tiles with images of birds and flowers. This theme was further developed when Lego relaunched Scala Dolls (1997-2001) which focused on Scala figures with more detail aspects of their house and interests rather than construction.

Paradisa
Paradisa (1991-1997) comes next with a country club, lifeguard stand, and “dolphin point” rounded out the desert island theme. The beachy models lacked the detail of standard Lego. In Paradisa theme, building experience is simplified compared to other Lego products released the same year (compare the Sand Dollar Cafe with Wolf Pack Tower). Also it represents men as active job holders (butlers, chefs, ice cream men, and life guards) while the women mostly relax, surf, and go horseback riding.

Belville
In 1994, Belville was released with distinct color scheme which introduce beauty accessories for the fairy tales and fantasy princesses overshadowing the building experience in Lego. This theme is the longest running “girls only” sets and also the pinkest and most gender stereotype reinforcing. The regular Lego building experience is barely presented. Belville figures are different from the typical mini-figures with slightly larger size.

Clikits
Clikits (2003-2006) was another theme that was designed for girls. It deals with jewellery line including bracelets and necklaces. Clikits contains a lot of elements for girls to customize jewelleries which is practically unrecognizable as Lego products.

Lego Friends
Finally, in 2012, Lego came up with Lego Friends (2012-present) which was aimed specifically at girls. Lego company was heavily criticized for Lego Friend. The Lego Friends sets brings every female stereotype, with lots of pink colors, handbags aplenty and oodles of lipstick which was an improvement over the previous “girls only” themes. In order to capture the girls market, Lego created the alternate world of Heartlake City for Friends instead of incorporating more female characters into existing Lego sets. This Lego collection features 23 sets focused on the lives of 5 female friends: Mia, Emma, Andrea, Stephanie and Olivia. In Lego friends, the female mini figures are located in pink beauty salons and cupcake bakeries around Heartlake City. Lego Friends line created specific Friends figures with more realism and style instead of the regular Lego mini-figures.

These feminized themes send message to children about gender clearly that certain things are for girls only. For example, fairy tales, equestrianism, the color pink, vanity, and being a homemaker.