Building the LEGO Harry Potter Knight Bus in less than a minute (and purposely leaving out the unfortunately racist, shrunken head)

FemFreq’s LEGO & Gender Video Series


LEGO & Gender

In part 1 of my two part LEGO and Gender series, I explore how LEGO went terribly wrong with LEGO Friends and provide a brief history of LEGO’s ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls since the late 70′s.

In part 2, I delve into how LEGO shifted their products from their initial relatively, gender neutral building experience to a more male dominated and male identified one. The LEGO group intentionally did this in three ways: 1. Marketing exclusively to boys, 2. Producing male identified and centered themes and sets and 3. Focusing on stereotypical boys play scenarios with an emphasis on combat.

The strong focus on boys has effectively kicked girls out of the LEGO club house. Keep watching until the end where I provide a few suggestions to LEGO on how to fix their gender segregation problem.

Visit FeministFrequency.com for more info, links and a full transcript

Source: feministfrequency.com

In part 1 of my two part LEGO and Gender series, I explored how LEGO went terribly wrong with LEGO Friends and provided a brief history of LEGO’s ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls since the late 70′s.

In part 2, I delve into how LEGO shifted their products from their initial relatively, gender neutral building experience to a more male dominated and male identified one.  The LEGO group intentionally did this in three ways: 1. Marketing exclusively to boys, 2. Producing male identified and centered themes and sets and 3. Focusing on stereotypical boys play scenarios with an emphasis on combat.  The strong focus on boys has effectively kicked girls out of the LEGO club house. Keep watching until the end where I provide a few suggestions to LEGO on how to fix their gender segregation problem.

More information, links and a full transcript available at http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/lego-gender-part-2-the-boys-club/

Source: feministfrequency.com

radicalbytes: So what happens when something in Heartlake City catches on fire? Since there are no fire or medical services in the LEGO Friends theme I guess they’ll just have to call the boys to put it out? This is the kind of absurd situation that arise when toy companies perpetuate ridiculous gender stereotyping. This image was created for Feminist Frequency’s “LEGO and Gender” video web series: www.feministfrequency.com/2012/01/lego-gender-part-1-lego… Here’s the full size graphic of the Heartlake City on Fire image (with box) that I used in my LEGO and Gender Part 1 video.  Big, big thanks to Jonathan McIntosh for making it!
Pop-upView Separately

radicalbytes:

So what happens when something in Heartlake City catches on fire? Since there are no fire or medical services in the LEGO Friends theme I guess they’ll just have to call the boys to put it out? This is the kind of absurd situation that arise when toy companies perpetuate ridiculous gender stereotyping.

This image was created for Feminist Frequency’s “LEGO and Gender” video web series: www.feministfrequency.com/2012/01/lego-gender-part-1-lego…

Here’s the full size graphic of the Heartlake City on Fire image (with box) that I used in my LEGO and Gender Part 1 video.  Big, big thanks to Jonathan McIntosh for making it!

LEGO announced that after 4 years of intensive research, they have finally come up with a LEGO product that fulfills the desires of “how girls naturally build and play.” This new theme is called LEGO Friends and it’s a pink and purple, gender segregated, suburban wasteland populated by Barbie/Bratz style dolls.  Many parents, educators, feminists, and media critics have spoken out against LEGOs attempts to separate girls into their own stereotypical isolated enclave within the LEGO universe.

In part 1 of my two part LEGO and Gender series, I’ll explore how LEGO went terribly wrong with LEGO Friends and provide a brief history of LEGO’s ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls since the late 70′s.  In part 2 I’ll delve into LEGO’s intentional strategy to market almost exclusively to boys since the mid 80′s by developing and marketing sets that are male identified and male centered.  In conclusion, I’ll offer LEGO a couple of suggestions that they can consider when creating and marketing new products.

For more information, links and a full transcript visit Feminist Frequency

Source: feministfrequency.com