Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

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I'm having trouble understanding the backlash against the new Lego for girls initiative. As the father of a couple of pre-school girls, I'm loving the new initiative.

It appears to consist of 3 things:

- realistic looking minifigs. Not square and not oversexed.

- additional brick colors, and not just pink.

- sets not based on movie tie-ins, but in real-world locations like an inventor's workshop, a café, an animal hospital and a beauty salon

These look like the perfect toys for young girls -- they encourage both creativity and role-playing. And as the latest science-based parenting books (Welcome to Your Child's Brain, etc) tell you, role-playing is the best way to develop self-control, which is the most valuable skill that can be imparted into a pre-schooler by a parent.

Sure, they're girly. So what? I want my girls to grow up proud to be girls, and aware that they can be whatever they want to be.

But to my mind, they seem better than most of the "boy" Lego sets out there, which appear to be much less repurposable, and are blatant commercial tie-ins or weapons of war.

It's the hard gender division. Why are there "girl legos," and "boy legos"? And it also seems like they're offering the same "girl themed" play sets that all the other toys offer, except you have to put it together first. Who plays with lego that way?

I think my 4 year old girl is going to greatly prefer their new legos. Right now, she plays with Duplos, and all is well. However, I can see a day when legos are "too boy". That's just what they reported happening in the Lego studies. Duplo works, and then the girls doen't make the transition to regular lego.

We have an older boy as well, and so our house has every lego you can imagine, plus lots of really cool vehicles, trucks, etc. Our daughter never goes near them. If this can make them more attractive to her, that's fantastic.

Interesting. We have a 9yo boy, and twin 2 yo girls. So we have all the lego stuff, plus lego designer on the computer, etc. The girls LOVE getting into their brother's stuff, and one of them sleeps with a toy garbage truck (she also sleeps with a bus pass, a collection of stuffed puppies, and an Olivia board book...) It may be because I'm interested in this stuff, too, because they're too young to have "girl" vs "boy" divisions, or because they're just different. It's hard to tell. I do know that when I was a girl, I loved lego, and had a huge collection of matchbox cars (also my little ponies...).

  > And it also seems like they're offering the same "girl
  > themed" play sets that all the other toys offer, except
  > you have to put it together first. Who plays with lego
  > that way?

You could easily describe all the boy-targeted movie tie-in Lego sets that same way. Heck you can describe any Lego set that way. I had a Lego train set and a freighter with a dock as a kid (as an example). You could easily claim that these were no different than "an HO train set that you have to put together first" and "a toy boat that you have to put together first."

Who plays with lego that way?

Little girls do.

But why would you want two different products? It sounds like you like the "girl" lego much better than the "boy" version. Why not make it accessible to all kids?

This new set does seem to be relatively accessible to all kids. Perhaps not on it's own, but certainly as a mix-in with other sets.

For instance, on it's own you'd probably guess that the power drill and robot came from a boy's set rather than a girl's set.

Outside of the box packaging, lego's are gender neutral in terms of red/blue/black/white snap together boxes. My daughters built play houses and towers until they were 12. We (society) have missed the point if all we do is encourage building what the 'set' advertises ... In my generation it was Tinkertoys and I built lots of interesting creations using my imagination instead of using directions.

This is one of the big reasons I grew to like the lego technic sets (and the train sets before harry potter). The entire point of them was to be resused in new ways, along with letting you build robots.

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