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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

If your nieces weren't interested in the sets Lego should have focused on better sets that were still gender-neutral. That doesn't exclude zoos, camping, or pet orientation.

Near as I can tell, the pet shop is gender neutral, and the "Lego Friends" sets don't appear particularly gendered:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pet-Shop-10218

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Friends-Mias-Skateboard?icmp...

Similarly, Farnsworth House (http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Farnsworth-House-21009), the 4x4 crawler (http://technic.lego.com/en-us/Products/default.aspx#9398) and mindstorms (http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/products/default.aspx).

The fundamental difference between Friends and the rest of lego seems to be that Friends is about people, whereas the rest of lego is about building stuff.

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> "Lego Friends" sets don't appear particularly gendered:

> The fundamental difference between Friends and the rest of lego seems to be that Friends is about people, whereas the rest of lego is about building stuff.

You can't say that Lego Friends marketing isn't seriously targeted at girls.

http://friends.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

It's only targeted at girls if you believe that girls (but not boys) respond to female characters and themes of friendship. Similarly, regular lego is only targeted at boys if you believe boys (but not girls) respond to building stuff.

I have no trouble accepting the belief that boys and girls are different, and that building products which disproportionately provide utility to girls is beneficial. But if you disagree with this latter claim (as bonaldi seems to), then Lego is not actually targeting girls - they are merely targeting people who like friendship more than building stuff.

I understand what you mean but there is a lot of cliché in this homepage, pinky stuff, girls, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that friendship is for girl and construction is for boys.

I'm just saying that Lego Friends universe use some stereotype marketing

I would have been much less negative, if they included boys, girls, because, boys likes animals friends, pink as well as girl likes blue.

Lego: Please skip the stereotypes

It's targeted at girls because it uses all the signifiers of traditional stereotyped toy advertising, features only female characters and comes up via a special Lego For Girls page via the first Google hit on "Girls Lego" (for me, at least).

Lego may have a perception problem that it is "for boys" as mentioned upthread, but this is the worst way to redress that.

It is only natural that lego would have a "for girls" page that emphasizes product lines that they think girls may like. A lot of criticism has been leveled at Lego for being for boys only recently; I don't think an attempt to refute those allegations can fairly be said to mean that those product lines are therefore only for girls.

If I google "McDonalds communities" I get a corporate site that highlights to good McDonalds does for communities. Should I then conclude the chain is a community outreach program?

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