Enraged by what they see as gender stereotyping, pressure group SPARK started a petition on web site change.org asking Lego to stop "selling out girls." Thus far it's attracted nearly 3,000 signatures.
"Raising healthy girls and boys is all about creating a wide range of possibilities and options for our children," says SPARK co-founder (and developmental psychologist) Dr. Lyn Mikel Brown in the petition's preamble. "The rainbow of colors and a range of options for young children to create the scenes they are most interested in is much better for them than feeding them a narrow set of stereotypes."
Apparently, "a wide range of possibilities and options" doesn't include pastel colored bricks, eh?
This knee-jerk reaction by annoying activists is amazing.
My son loved Lego when he was little. He especially liked the knights sets. My daughter, seeing her big brother's stuff, would sometimes play with them, too. But she had no interest in really building with them. But the pastel set of bricks she got one year she liked. And the closest I could get to interesting her in building stuff was the Sponge Bob collection. I wish this stuff was available years ago to encourage the skill set that building projects require.
I really don't understand this type of reaction. Lord knows, I want my Lamb to have the option of doing whatever she likes as she grows up. Indeed, we were just at a toy store the other day to use a gift card she had, and she resisted my efforts to steer her to the Lego aisle to see if there were some sets she might like. I explained that even though mostly boys got them there was nothing wrong with her wanting them, too. No sale.
Look, I make sure she has girly stuff in pastels and also science sets that she also likes. I'm all about options. And she has already won 2 first prizes for her science projects in elementary school. And yes, Lamb won them--not me. The school can see through the projects built by the engineer parent. Apparently, my college-level physics has left me with enough residual knowledge to design elementary school project experiments that my daughter does the work on (OK, I still type the results from the notes I make her take while she does them).
But the protests aren't providing little girls with a wide range of possibilities by accusing Lego of stereotyping what little girls want. The protests are about denying little girls a wide range of possibilities because SPARK is stereotyping what they want little girls to like. Nobody is stopping the SPARK parents from buying their daughters the construction, Star Wars, or castle sets that appeal to boys. If those sets were selling to girls, do you think Lego would risk poking a stick in the PC hive as they have? Indeed, the SPARK parents might want to take advantage of the new options and get their sons some of the pastel sets to widen their possibilities (good luck with selling that).
Oh, Lamb finally settled on getting a radio-controlled helicopter. Although she wasn't interested in the feature that allows you to fire rockets from the helicopter. And she complained about the colors of the toy.
Sorry activists, my daughter really does like pastels. Are her tastes wide ranging enough for the toy scolds who don't understand that even though the options that boys and girls have should be equal that boys and girls are--you know--different? Will you really get all worked up if my Lamb grows up, wins a Nobel Prize in physics, but paints her nails and gets her hair done for the award ceremony?
UPDATE: Related (via Transterrestrial Musings). Maybe in a few years you'll see a female-dominated team build a giant My Little Pony model depicting the last tea party of the equine crowd.
