Girls' Legos Are A Hit, But Why Do Girls Need Special Legos?
npr.org
npr.org
The article cites that Lego itself has noticed, through empirical testing, that the two groups (statistically speaking), use the sets differently.
The critics, through virtue of their assumptions about how gender equality should work, seem to imply that this distinction isn't there and everyone should be happy with the same set.
So let me ask this: if there really is a difference in play styles (exterior versus interior focus on the set, for instance), why wouldn't you as a toy maker design two lines of sets - one with a focus on interior details and one with a focus on exterior ones?
If you try to combine it, for the price point, the toy is going to be slightly weaker for each segment of the population - effectively raising the price on both groups to have the toy they actually want by mandating we must have one toy in the name of "equality".
Seriously, can someone explain what's wrong with two lines of toys if Lego (through testing, no less) has found that there are two distinct groups of wants?
No one would suggest that if it were boys split in half in their interest of interior versus exterior, Lego would be remiss in offering two product lines, so it strikes me as incredibly... insecure about gender equality, to the point of pathologically insisting there be no differences, to say that we shouldn't have two lines because of the divide happening mostly along gender lines.
The only problems I can see is that the two lines will very quickly become "pink or ponies for girls" and "dark or soldiers for boys". Whether that's actually a problem or not is for other people to decide.
There's another small problem with quality of testing - there's some possibility of confounding factors in the research.
Both of these come down to "do boys and girls actually prefer different toys, or do they get conditioned by society to like different toys?"
Just so I'm clear, I'm entirely against this.
What I /do/ support is one set of city-scape sets that focus on internal details and the characters involved, and a second that focuses on the building and external set details.
I think that this hits a legitimate play-style difference that happens to be mostly, but isn't entirely, along gender lines.
I'm against the knee-jerk reaction that we're absolutely equal, and everyone gets the same!
We accept, routinely, that there are behavioral differences that are statistically significant (because of genetics, exposure in the womb, hormones, etc) within a gender, but there seems to be a class of people who categorically insist that there is no such trend between genders.
This isn't to say every little girl wants to play the same way, but that there are statistical biases to the genders which might be intrinsic, not societal constructs.
"Equal before the law" and "equal member of society" does not mean "the same in every way", and trying to enforce the last of these can be harmful rather than helpful.
EDIT: The more I think about this:
> "Equal before the law" and "equal member of society" does not mean "the same in every way", and trying to enforce the last of these can be harmful rather than helpful.
the more this frustrates me. No one is saying everyone should have to be the same. Did you even look at the LEGO products? What parents are reacting to is the reservation of action, space, science, adventure, technology, etc. for one gender and homemaking, baking, beauty, and animals for the other gender by putting very distinct gender-specific markings on them to make it clear which belongs to which. I'm extremely skeptical that girls just genetically prefer pink things and dresses. This is about forcing people into cultural categories which limit their options for individual expression, not some silly attempt to make everyone do the same things.
Men and women are different in far more ways than the genitalia. We have spend decades trying to convince ourselves that male and female roles are fabricated by society and have no basis in biology. And we have failed, because ideology does not change biology.
Have we really made so little progress that we still cannot celebrate men and women for their differences and their unique contributions, and strengths? In other words, do men have to cease being men and women have to cease being women in order to consider themselves "equal"? Gender equality is becoming its own form of oppression. No, not equality itself (for men and women have the same human rights), but the wrong-headed attempts to suppress and eradicate the distinctions between genders.
They could simply stop doing that.