This was on NPR a couple of weeks ago - it seems LEGO has introduced some new toys that are aimed at girls, but there are a lot of people who object to this and would prefer to see LEGOs be more gender neutral in thier toys.

Aside from simply promoting archaic sexual and gender stereotypes for girls, the new toys violate the LEGO mission of promoting toys that encourage children's creativity and individuality. 

Gender Controversy Stacks Up Against 'Lego Friends'

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January 18, 2012

 

Lego introduced a new lineup of toys earlier this month meant to appeal to girls. But a petition posted on Change.org is calling on the toy maker to stop distinguishing between toys for girls and those for boys. So far, the petition has amassed over 47 thousand signatures. Host Michel Martin speaks with one of the sponsors of that petition, Bailey Shoemaker Richards.

Here is a little piece of the transcript:

MARTIN: Now, Lego argues that these new toys are the result of four years of research into how to make its toys more appealing to girls and, if this is what girls are saying that they want, what's so terrible?

RICHARDS: Well, I think part of the problem with Lego's marketing is that it's very market research based. I mean, they've looked at what is going to sell to girls, so when you market pink princesses and beauty to girls from the time they're infants, by the time they're in Lego's target market for this line, which is about five and up, they're going to associate pink, pretty, you know, this very specific gender role with what they think they're supposed to be playing with. It's all they've been marketed their entire lives, so of course, that's what Lego's marketing research is going to find.

The problem that we have with that is that it doesn't really mesh with Lego's core values in their mission statement about wanting to create innovative products that help kids develop creativity. I mean, this fails that on all counts.

All they've done is sort of throw in with Barbie and Bratz and that sort of very, very narrow stereotypical type of marketing.

Kim Nagy - Masculinity For Sale

This is from Wild River Review's blog, Wild Finance - very cool blog by the way. Nagy takes an interesting look at "the disturbing nature of mass-produced notions of masculinity." These definitions of masculinity are based solely on exteriors, not on the content of a man's heart or mind. It's a steroid-based view of masculinity, all brawn and bravado. Very destructive.

Masculinity For Sale

by Kim Nagy

Over the past hundred years, the saying “boys will be boys” seems to cover an increasing amount of body mass, blood, and bravado.

Which leads me to the two things I found startling as I watched the 2000 documentary Tough Guise a documentary by Jackson Katz (which I saw as part of a Media Education Series hosted by the Institute for Empowerment headquartered in Rosemount, New Jersey). One, how relevant the film still is— exactly ten years after the Columbine shooting in the United States this month—and the disturbing nature of mass-produced notions of masculinity (based on violence and a tough exterior) that can hurt us all—boys and girls, men and women, mothers and fathers, cousins and friends, alike.

And two, something I hadn’t ever thought about—Barbie isn’t the only doll with some distorted notions of body image.

I guess I never really noticed that as Barbie’s waist got smaller, the slimmer more genteel action figures (remember the old Batman and Robin figures?) seemed to have found themselves an unlimited stash of steroids in the locker room. Note the image below:

Or that the “toy” weapons for boys are getting bigger and looking meaner.

And did you know that there is actually a video game called, “How to Kill a Prostitute”?

Meanwhile, says journalist Sudie Hofmann “toy stores are stubbornly resistant to change and remain entrenched in sex-role stereotypes and the unabashed glorification of war. Boys are still blasting, crushing, striking, and pulverizing their way through playtime, in an article for Rethinking Schools in 2006.

What came first the chicken or the egg, right? I liked that Katz wasn’t satisfied with the “boys will be boys” explanation. He also points out that school shooters are almost always males.

And doesn’t the one-dimensional version of masculinity do great harm to men too?

Well, I leave you with two daunting statistics:

· Males are most often both the victims and the perpetrators in 90% of homicides (U.S. Department of Justice)

· Some 81% of men who beat their wives watched their fathers beat their mothers or were abused themselves. (U.S. Department of Justice)

Over the next few months, I plan to follow up in a series of blogs about finance and gender, hosted by Fred Young, curator of Wild Finance.

Kim Nagy is Executive Editor of Wild River Review.

Tags: Barbie, GI Joe, Kim Nagy, male violence, Masculinity for Sale, Wild Finance, Wild River Review, Tough Guise, Jackson Katz, masculinity, culture, toys, men, boys