Maybe not full gender dysphoria, but toy preferences can make a kid feel like there’s something wrong with them gender-wise if they don’t conform to what they’re “supposed” to like.
I’m weirded out by the girl-specific Legos and I do feel that they reinforce and perpetuate negative ideas, but on the other hand, if they get girls playing with Legos that wouldn’t have touched them otherwise, then that’s a good thing. Maybe they branch out to more complex and gender-neutral Lego activities (great), and even if they don’t, at least they’re building something (better than nothing).
For what it’s worth, they’ve come out with a non-gender-specific Easy Bake Oven. They still make a purple version of the same thing, but it’s a step in the right direction.
So what’s the message? Boys can play with toys that girls prefer but only if they aren’t pastel colored? This is all an attempt to make children’s behavior PC. Girls and boys should feel free to play with whatever toys they like in whatever manner they like, but it’s not necessary to pretend that their preferences won’t tend to be different.
It’s fine for Lego to make many different sorts of sets, to appeal to many different tastes. And it’s fine if some of those sets happen to mostly be preferred by boys, while others happen to mostly be preferred by girls. But sometimes, a girl will happen to prefer the sets which are mostly preferred by boys, or a boy will happen to prefer the sets which are mostly preferred by girls. And that’s fine too, and should not be discouraged.
Nobody is trying to make the kids PC. They’re trying to sell cooking toys that will appeal to the target market, which now includes girls AND boys. That’s just reality.
Or do you somehow think that boys don’t like to bake as much as girls do? Where have you been for the last couple of decades? The “cooking is for girls” thing has largely died out amongst the pre-school and elementary school set. I’m sure there are holdouts, especially if the parents reinforce the idea, but in my experience cooking and food prep is no longer highly gendered. Kids’ play reflects that, as do toys for cooking and food prep play.
It’s well-known that boys shy away from toys that are specifically “girly,” while girls are more flexible on the matter. Yes, kids “should” ignore that in terms of what they choose to play with, but they don’t. If a company wants to sell cooking toys, making them unisex or offering a unisex option only makes sense in terms of the bottom line.
I thought you were advocating for unisex toys for some purpose. As long as it’s just the toy company’s market position it’s fine with me.
Also, I’m a cook, so is my son, my wife doesn’t cook, and no one wants to eat what my mother cooks, so you don’t have to explain that part to me. There was no gender segregation for cooking when I was a kid many decades ago that I noticed. Boys didn’t want to own an Easy Bake oven, but if their sister did they didn’t mind showing me they knew how to use it.
If that’s what that particular boy or girl wants, of course there isn’t. Saying that various toys and such are only for a boy or only for a girl is asinine. Society puts a lot of pressure on kids (well, adults too!) to fit into what is thought of as proper gender roles, regardless of what the individual may actually want.
I agree with these views. They seem very sensible.
For maximum sales: make a variety of toys. But there’s no need to label them–the kids that want a particular type will ask for that particular type. Simple!
This sounds like a man with a lot of personal issues (which, unfortunately, he’s possibly going to pass on to his son).
I appreciate the outrage, but a sentence in a paragraph concerning a note from the design team is hardly labeling. You read the directions - who but an adult (and few of them) would read that page anyway? “For boys” appearing on the box would be more of a cause for concern. The Star Wars boxes don’t seem very gender specific. You can see my and my son-in-laws drool as we think about how cool it would be to win the lottery so we could afford the big Star Destroyer kit.
They have three toys, a boy’s toy, a girl’s toy, and a “under 3” with no parts that can come loose and present a choking hazard. Usually there are not boy/girl versions of the under-3 toy. The “different” toy you saw them give the other family may have been an under-3. Or maybe the father wanted a “boys’ under-3,” which doesn’t exist (or, didn’t when I had an under-3 child, which was just a few years ago).
It also may have been one of those “collect them all!” and the family took the only toy they didn’t already have, which the father somehow perceived as a girl’s toy. The “collect them all!” usually have a movie tie-in, and are something that appeals to both genders-- and probably represents a bigger investment for BK (or McDonald’s, or whomever) with licensing, so they need that scale production to justify the expense, and want to hand them out to as many children as possible.
The general outrage in this thread. At the sexist Danes only letting boys play with Star Wars toys. That outrage. (Also known as CYA - sorry, not really directed totally at you.)
Actually, I don’t think Lego even labeled this toy - since one sentence deep in the doc on a page no one would even read isn’t really labeling IMO.
I agree that reading 140 characters at a time may be considered inscrutible to some. I don’t agree that the* reason why *you are reading 140 characters at a time is inscrutible!
Yours sincerely,
sandra_nz
Vice Chair, Pendantics Society
