Photo from Flickr user Moose Greebles
This ad was sent by a reader a while back, and I understood their nostalgia for it. It's a Lego ad from 1981.
The text reads: Have you ever seen anything like it? Not just what she's made, but how proud it's made her. It's a look you'll see whenever children build something all by themselves. No matter what they've created.
In comparison, check out the lego's advertising now that is targeted towards girls. By the way, I found that Lego site by typing "girls" into the search box.
While we usually post vintage ads to highlight their sexism, this time it's the other way around. Advertising for girl's toys has become a pink explosion, with some of the worst gender stereotyping out there.
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wouldn't it be awesome if that little cute redhead girl has grown up to be a feminist... and maybe even reads this blog?!
Maaaaan. I love that! That kid is so cute and happy. And it's a pet peeve of mine that it's so hard to find regular old Lego these days that requires you to use your imagination, rather than build-three-things, and it's really expensive if you find it!
My father and I spent hours building nothing in particular with our giant box of mismatched Lego.
As for the "girls" Lego website... what the HELL? I honestly didn't think Lego was that bad. O_O
I Loooooove the "build three things" sets, though I do miss the way they'd have pictures of other things you could build on the box with no accompanying instructions so that you had to figure it out (I have no imagination).
I quite liked some of the "girls" sets too because they were the only sets that you could get a decent number of female minifigs from. Seriously toy companies, get your act together. Even as a little kid I knew that the world didn't only have girls or boys in it...
It's funny that you post this, because my fiance and I just had our anniversary and I asked him for Legos for my gift, and he definitely just got me the "boy" set of regular Legos. So glad he knows me better than to get that pink nightmare that is the "girl" set.
I went to the lego site and I was asked to take a survey, so I submitted the following comment.
"Stop pinkwashing everything for girls. Legos are good for all children, regardless of color. Stop contributing to the gender binary."
Good god, please put an NSFW on links like that.
Thank you for posting this.
A recent conversation I (22) had with a coworker (about 40) was about how when we were kids, we remember toys being primary colors, even for girls. This ridculousness of pink and purple explosion and Disney princesses is out of control.
I take issue specifically with Legos because the binary is not just "pink is for girls and blue is for boys" it is "pink is for girls, only girls, and girls may have no other color and all other colors are reserved only for boys."
*puke*
I didn't see anything on the website that implied that Belville sets were the only sets for girls and everything else is for boys. The pink stuff is listed as just one option among three pages of Lego set themes.
I've always thought that the problem with Legos is that the vast majority of the Lego people are always male.
What I've usually seen is that when a sub-set of an otherwise gender-neutral product is targeted at girls, especially when nothing is explicitly targeted at boys, stores (and people in general) wind up treating everything that isn't marked For-Girls as being Not-For-Girls (See: stores that put all of the "gender neutral" lego on the side of the store they have clearly designated as being "For Boys"). And the things that are marketed as For-Girls obviously can't be For-Boys too.
Lego is explicitly targeting the pink and purple Belville line of toys only at girls:
"Pretty ponies, royal palaces and pink LEGO landscapes – it can only mean one thing: You’ve arrived in BELVILLE™. Browse our range of pink toys for your little girl and inspire her imagination with all the magical fairies and happy endings she can dream of."
To me, this is telling people what sort of imaginative play children are "allowed" to engage in based on their gender. And that's just sad.
ugh, the pink and purple bullshit.
I loved "regular" legos as a kid and I really think building is good for a child's development.
Even as a young child, I recognized the sexism with building toys. The "girl" Lego set we looked at had bigger pieces and it was a dream house or something. I chose the regular legos with the boat and the shark!
I love this ad!
I remember recognizing the sexism in toy advertising even when I was very young.
As early as age 8, when McDonald's was doing the HotWheels/Barbie promotion and asked us if we wanted "a boy toy or a girl toy," my mom had to stop me from giving the employee a lecture on sexism. I remember also being really disappointed, oddly enough, when they just said "Hot Wheels or Barbie" because I couldn't trumpet the cause of feminism to some random McDonald's employee.
I was noticing how sexist Legos are when shopping for my nephews for Christmas. One of the set descriptions noted that there was a princess included "to save." It actually specified that she was to save. Unfuckingbelievable.
As the dad of a little girl who just wants to DO things all the time (not "girl" things or "boy" things, just things) for the fun of it, this melts my heart. Wish there was more encouragement for kids to just do what the hell ever, as the girl in this ad clearly has.
I used to love playing with Legos. The red, blue, and yellow kind.
And what's with the birds chirping and those godawful sparkly sounds?
As a child of the 90's I had
played with legos of diff
colors, none of them pink or
lavender. What the hell is
up with toymakers now? In
Toys R Us I've seen the
pinked up Twister, Jenga,
and more beloved games. What
the hell do they think of us!
Does anyone else dress EXACTLY like that little girl? Anyway, what a great ad. I wish there were more like it today.
And I agree - the pink stuff pisses me off.
And that Belville site already encourages girls to hate one another. "Which Belville girl do you like the most?" Who fucking cares? How about "What do you like to build the most?" That's what Legos are for.
As much as I like the ad, I kinda feel her outfit screams tomboy rather than girly girl, which to me, still codes legos as a boy toy--or for "masculine" girls.
My brothers loved legos so I played with both the "boy" legos and the "girl" legos when I was growing up. Our female babysitter was the lego master. I've really never thought of legos as a boy toy.
Wow, that really is a regression. Sad.
I used to play with Playmobil, and I don't remember them being gendered, but check out this new pink section:
http://store.playmobilusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-US-Site/en_US/Search-Show?cgid=S_ARTIKEL