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Lego accused of sexist advertising
Filed under: Big Kids, Tweens, In The News, Decor, Toys, Shopping
If you were to walk into my eight-year-old's bedroom right now, it would not be immediately apparent that it is a girl's room. There walls are bluish, there are Hot wheels strewn across the floor, a soccer ball in the corner and a book about underwater exploration on the bed. But upon closer inspection, you would also notice a bin full of Barbie dolls, a box of jewelry and a poster of Nick Jonas on the wall - pretty good clues that a girl lives there. I've tried to instill in her the idea that there is no such thing as a 'boy' toy and a 'girl' toy. If it is fun to play with, then by all means play with it. Even though boys and girls do tend to gravitate towards different types of play, I see no reason to limit her. But according to Sweden's Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK), Danish toymaker Lego has no problem promoting outdated gender stereotypes by blatantly separating the boys from the girls.
ERK has blasted Lego for a recent catalog that features a photo of a girl playing in her pink room and a boy in his blue room. The girl's picture is captioned "Everything a princess could wish for..." and features a pony, a princess and a castle. On another page, a boy is pictured playing with a fire station, fire trucks, a police station, and an airplane with the caption "Tons of blocks for slightly older boys." According to ERK, this type of portrayal promotes a stereotype that is degrading to boys and girls alike. Lego defends the catalog, pointing out that other photos in the catalog show boys and girls playing together.
With the holidays approaching, I have no doubt that we will soon be bombarded with toy catalogs featuring similarly stereotypical images. Arguing against this type of marketing may seem like much ado about nothing to some, but I agree that these types of images send a message to young children about what they should and should not be playing with.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-22-2008 @ 8:55AM
Terry said...I believe that kids aren't even paying attention to who is playing with what or what color the room is that they are playing in. It comes down to kids liking whatever toy they like no matter if it for boys or for girls.
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10-22-2008 @ 1:01AM
c_rousseau05 said...It's the parents, not the kids who give kids messages about what they should and should not be playing with. I've seen many parents give their boys "boy toys" and get angry at the boy if their boy is seen playing with his sisters dolls. The other way around too, many girls are raised to play with certain toys and if they want to go climb a tree or play with Hot Wheels they are told that "those aren't for little ladies to play with". I grew up playing with whatever, dolls, cars, legos, but mostly played outside. I never even gave anything much thought until one day my uncle says to me "how come your playing with your brothers toys?" and I was so confused and told him, no they were my toys and he laughed at me and called me a liar. He told me I should be playing with dolls not cars. I went crying to my mom about what he said and she told me not to think anything of it and that I could play with what I wanted. Then she went and yelled at him lol.
I think people just want something to be mad about. It's a toy, it's a silly pink room and blue room that happens to have a boy in the blue one and a girl in the pink one. What would happen if they showed the boy playing with his cars in a pink room? Other people would then have something to cry over. People need to lighten up and quit thinking that kids are even noticing these things because chances are, they are not. I remember looking through magazines of toys before christmas and I was looking at the toys, not who was playing with them and whether they were in a pink or blue room.
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10-22-2008 @ 10:07AM
Jenn said...On a related noted, I went to ToysOrElse a few weeks ago, and was looking for the Legos. I was told "Oh, they're in the Boys section." I looked at them like "What?"
I don't go in there very often or I suppose I would have noticed -- they have the non-baby toys segregated into "Boys" and "Girls." It's one thing to group like with like (all building toys in one section, all dolls together, etc etc)...but they have painted one section of the store blue, and one section pink, and designated certain toys as "Boys" and others as "Girls."
I have written a letter to their management, as I think that is completely ridiculous. There is no reason to group by gender, especially when it's a completely artificial designation.
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10-22-2008 @ 10:15AM
noreen said...I like the color pink. I had a pink and green bedroom as a child... I was not a princess. But what I find upsetting is taking a toy that is inherently sexless, making a pink version of it, and marketing it just to girls.
Am I happy that Lego got in trouble? No, I think Lego is a great company. But I've spent more time in ToysRUs in the past month than I have in the past several years, and I find myself getting a little upset with marketing to girls.
I spent time in only two parts of the store: the Lego aisle, and the game aisle, and the proliferation of special "pink" editions of things got me very bothered. If a game like Monopoly has a special pink edition for girls, does that mean that regular monopoly is for boys? What about pink Scrabble, pink Jenga, pink Dominoes and pink Life?
Perhaps, if next to the pink version there was also a blue version, I wouldn't be as unhappy. Then it becomes a color preference. But I can't help but feel that the message being given is "normal" is for boys, and pink is for girls.
Lego, to some extent, is guilty of the same thing in their aisle of the store. On the pink tub of blocks, there was a girl, a lego house and a lego cat. On the blue tub of blocks there was a boy, a lego car, a lego snail. There is an entire line of Lego -- Belleville -- marketed to girls.
The ToysRUs website makes me even crazier. If you search for Lego you get 245 items. On the left is a navigation bar that lets you sort by gender. For "both" it lists one item (which is actually the Nintendo Lego Star Wars game). For "girls" 47 items. And for "boys" 239 items. Could someone please tell me how a box of Lego bricks becomes gender specific? Oddly, the one box of Lego I was tempted to purchase for myself was a Creator set that built three different dinosaurs. According to ToysRUs, this is not an appropriate toy for my gender.
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10-22-2008 @ 10:48AM
thegoddessanna said...I think the pink editions are not for girls, but to benefit the various breast cancer groups out there. This time of year (October), everything turns pink as companies link up with such charities as Susan G. Komen and the like. You can buy everything in pink nowadays, from KitchenAid standmixers to t-shirts to board games.
Now, when I was a girl, I played with Legos. I had the castles, the pirates, and yes, the beach houses. My mother raised me as a tomboy, and you know what? I enjoyed being able to play with something girlie and feminine every once in a while. It's not going to damage kids to play with toys traditionally associated with their gender. And there are many of us out there who don't mind boys and girls sections - it makes it easier when you're running out for a last-minute gift! Just because a toy is labelled a certain way, or marketed a certain way, does not make the individual consumer slave to the label/marketing. And if it peeves you off that much, shop elsewhere.
10-22-2008 @ 1:50PM
noreen said...Oh, I own plenty of October pink stuff! I stock up on pink m&m's in October so I can use them throughout the year. And heaven knows when they put out the pink breast cancer edition of Risk and Battleship, I'll be first in line to buy them. But these aren't breast cancer tie ins -- these are just pink editions of standard games aimed specifically at girls.
You even said it yourself, that dividing the store into "girls" and "boys" makes it easier when you are running out for a last minute gift. So gender is the most important quality to contemplate when purchasing a gift for a child? Better store divisions, in my mind, would be: indoor toys and outdoor toys, creative toys and passive toys, or even to divide the store up by age.
I know this really has nothing to do with Lego at this point, and my peevishness really is directed at marketing divisions around the world. Kids should be allowed to play with whatever the heck they want to play with and you can't escape advertising... but sometimes it just makes my head hurt, you know?
10-22-2008 @ 11:52AM
CSR said...I just stumbled across this article & comments.
I have to tell you... I hate pink. I requested no pink for my first daughter. I have three girls (8,6,2) in a blue & yellow Tintin room. I have presented them with ALL kinds of toys.
My oldest daughter LOVES pink. Probably more than half of her clothing is pink. She is girly. I have learned that's just how some girls are. (Hence the adjective, I guess.) She told me at age 3 that the TRU section on the "other side" is for boys and she didn't want any of it.
My 6-year-old loves pirates, thinks she's a boy sometimes, and is wild and bossy. She loves anything pink. She plays with Polly Pockets.
In other words: It's okay to love being a girl.
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10-22-2008 @ 1:31PM
SKL said...I was little in the 1960s-1970s, and I played with every kind of toy. Legos didn't come in pink, but as far as I was concerned, blue, red, yellow, and green weren't boy colors - they were lego colors. Who cares? If I feel sorry for anyone, it's boys who have to pretend they don't like pink even if they do - but then again, is the world really gonna come to a screeching halt over the color pink? Really.
If you don't like the ads, vote with your pocketbook. Don't take your kids to ToysRUs. Tell your kids they aren't allowed to have legos or most dolls because you are offended by those companies' sexism. Find an Amish wooden toy maker or get Grandpa (or Grandma) to make some home-made toys. Whatever makes you happy. Fact is, the toy companies sell more toys if they engage in certain gender-based advertising, and that's their prerogative. I don't believe it really has any effect on the strength of our country or our daughters or sons. What does matter is how parents talk to their kids and model behavior.
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10-22-2008 @ 7:02PM
Stezton said...I am talking as a mother of a 19 month old boy and I have to say what makes me ill is how Fisher-Price has being making pink versions of a lot of their toys. I am a diehard fan of Fisher-Price toys but it's ridiculous. That brown and white pull dog toy they made...why God forbid a girl play with a realistically colored toy! There on the shelf next to the regular version is a pink one. Doctor kit? School Bus? Plane? All of them have the regular and the pink version. To me having pink girly toys makes sense for those girls that are really girly, but to have pink versions of toys that looks the same as the "boy" ones is just silly.
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11-01-2008 @ 10:29PM
N. said...No, there's nothing wrong with loving the colour pink or even being a girl AND loving the colour pink. What's wrong is that companies, such as Lego are sending the message out to kids and parents that they are to be pigeon-holed and stereotyped. Girls play with horses and princesses and houses while boys gets to build all sorts of fantastical contraptions. The Lego sets that are (very much so) marketed towards girls are so close-ended and specific in how they are meant to be played with.
The media bombards kids with these insidious messages all day long and from all angles. It's not just a matter of if a kid likes a toy, s/he's going to play with it no matter if it's pink or blue. Making a pink version and a blue version is a company's easy way to hook yet more kids into buying their toys and in doing so, they send out a very powerful message to kids.
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