Back when we were kids there was only one type of Lego, the type that was meant for everybody. Now they have their own line for girls, Lego Friends. And Lego Friends is just stupid http://seasonaldepressioncomic.com/2014/12/06/lego-friends/
Apparently the desire. Toddlers pick gendered products on their own (for some forms of them). There was some studies about this behavior.
But it is true that kids even make gendered toys out of practically nothing. For instance, a local kindergarten here: three-year-old boys were forbidden to have toy guns. So the kids took some flat crispbread at the midday meal and chewed edges off to make it gun-shaped, and then started playing cops and robbers. Bang bang.
A gendered toy would be a toy gun packaged in a blue box with only images of boys on the packaging.
I don't care if more boys buy guns and more girls buy toy horses. I do care if those toys are packaged in rigidly gendered packaging and stocked in gendered sections of the toy store.
I would probably first try with a "normal" Nerf gun, but if that doesn't stick, why not try the girl variant.
Do you reckon socialism does a better job with providing individualistic toys? Or what alternative to free markets would you propose?
And you can have things custom made. For items like suits or furniture it's not that much more expensive than quality pre-made lines.
We know that toy manufacturers spend a lot of money on research.
So, it's possible that they have a bunch of gently flawed research, and the flaws are magnified through poor reporting, poor understanding, and then implementation into product.
And now we're here, with toyshops segregrated into pink aisles and blue aisles there's no way back.
As for the truth of the cartoon: there are more "neutral" Lego kits than any average kid could possibly afford to buy. Presumably girls weren't buying, that's why Lego made "friends".
I'd prefer my daughter to play with "friends" than no playing with Lego at all, although to be honest I am not really worried.
A web search tells me that whether this is actually true depends on your age in a somewhat odd, nonlinear way. Lego has tried having a product range specifically for girls on and off since the late '70s. Their first attempt didn't last very long but the followups did better. Apparently Lego Friends is the most successful one yet.
Of course that meant that there was a large untapped market of girls, and Lego have tried various approaches (mostly failures) to get at better hold in that market.
Lego homemaker predates Lego City. Since there have been Lego themes there were some that were some who were preferred by one gender over another.