Lego Friends

The Lego Group
2011

Rating: N (G)

Lego is about to release a new product line: Lego Friends. Though their website currently shows only a "come back December 26" message with purple butterflies and a girl's face peeking from behind the screen, plenty of other people are talking about the new toys.

According to Businessweek, Lego did extensive market research to find out that girls don't like their toys because they aren't aesthetically pleasing and don't fit with the way they tend to play. In response, they are releasing Lego Friends, a series that follows five girls in their daily lives. It features many pink and purple blocks, and it also features a redesign of the blocky Lego man in favor of curvier physiques for the girls.

The Good


Gender
As neuroscientist Lise Eliot points out in the Businessweek article, playing with blocks is good for children's brains, so if marketing them to girls increases the chances that girls will play with them, then that might be worth it.

Race
Andrea, the only person of color in the line, appears to have natural hair, and it is positively portrayed as beautiful.

The Bad


Gender
While it may be true that changing the marketing will promote girls playing with the Legos, the new designs (which you can see described in more detail here and here) fall squarely into gender stereotypes. The characters will come with backstories and pre-set identities, promoting less creativity in the play. The girls are characterized by one-dimensional qualities (e.g. Mia the animal lover and Emma the beautician).

The aesthetic change to the boxy Lego man also added breasts and hips to the doll's bodies, making them one more place where girls are exposed to subtle messages about the need to be sexy and the importance of their bodies.

Race
The only doll of the primary five characters that is a person of color is Andrea the singer. I find it troublesome that the black girl's primary identification is one of performer. Black bodies have traditionally been used as spectacle and entertainment, and it's unfortunate that the only person of color in the set gets stereotyped in that way.

Bottom Line
Lego's motivation for jumping on the gender binary bandwagon is profit-driven, and I can't say that I blame them. Their market research or even just a casual visit to a toy store throws it in everyone's faces that little girls love pink. What they need to realize is (as Reel Girl points out in her letter to Lego) that all the market research really reveals is the pervasiveness of gender-based marketing practices. It's up to companies to have better practices, and it's up to us as consumers to make those practices worthwhile. I won't be buying Lego Friends for my daughter because I prefer to spend my money on toys that don't promote gender biases. Lego, once upon a time, understood this, too, as this 1981 ad demonstrates.

Fisher Price Brilliant Basics

Fisher Price Brilliant Basics
Rating: N (G)

Fisher Price has a series of toys marketed as their "Brilliant Basics." These are infant and toddler toys that are brightly colored and perfectly shaped for little hands.

The Good
These toys are marketed as the "basics" for a reason. They are fun, interactive, and durable. Take the Brilliant Basics Hammer, for instance.

In bright primary colors, this hammer acts as a rattle (the beads inside make it satisfying to shake), a mobile roller (the handle is equipped with a ball that acts as a wheel), and a . . . well, hammer. It stands up to the general tossing and beating that any infant toy must accept, and it is a generally inviting toy. 

The Bad

The problem? This hammer is part of a marketing strategy that is promoted for "busy little boys." In fact, it says so right on the package of the individually-sold hammer. The Fisher-Price website has a page about this set (the Fun to Fix Gift Set) that explains "Baby boys are so adorable! Keep him busy with these fun tools—each with very practical teethable features."

The girl-marketed equivalent is the Little Glamour Gift Set. 

The individually-packaged purse declares it's for a "Sweet Baby Girl." This message is repeated on Fisher-Price's website for the set: "Baby girls are oh-so sweet! Give her a little glam and—just to be practical—teethable, easy-to-grasp features."

So, little boys are "busy" while little girls are "sweet." Little boys need to learn to fix things with a hammer, saw, and wrench that are molded in bright primary colors. Little girls need to learn to make themselves "glam" with a diamond ring rattle, a purse, and a bracelet teething ring molded in pink and purple. 

Infants will play with anything, and they're probably not making many conscious decisions about how the toys they're using are shaping their identities. However, the blatant marketing of these toys as entrenched in gender is over the top. Putting that the toys are "for" a girl or a boy right on the package aims to steer parents into choosing the "right" set based on gender norms. Even if parents go against those directives for their own children, are they likely to buy a set of toys for their friend's baby girl that says "For A Busy Baby Boy" on the package? 

Furthermore, sending a message that boys "fix" things while girls "glam" themselves further promotes the stereotype that men are more useful than women. It starts sending messages to little girls that their job is to be pretty and that being pretty requires purchasing objects.The diamond ring rattle is particularly disturbing because the marketing surrounding engagement rings is already so aggressively gendered; starting it in infancy definitely feels like overkill. It starts sending messages to little boys that their job is to be productive and that production is based in their physicality.

Bottom Line- 

While these toys could be given to children outside of this gendered context, the way these toys are marketed is insulting to the idea of gender equality and purchasing them rewards that strategy. Gendered marketing is pervasive, and infancy should be a time free from such blatant messages.