6 ms·

Can't hate, I love it. Even the pink and cuddly bits. If this product instead had a blue ribbon and alien figurines with the title "Cyber Drivetrain Blast Kit"

by jpxxx 14y ago

Can't hate, I love it. Even the pink and cuddly bits. If this product instead had a blue ribbon and alien figurines with the title "Cyber Drivetrain Blast Kit" it wouldn't raise an eyebrow as a gendered or pandering toy. Legos are for boys when 95% of what's on the Lego shelf is boy pirates, boy laserbros, boy Batman, boy bio-alien-robots tearing the shit out of boy bio-dino-robots, etc.

vessenes 14y ago
My girls LOVE legos. They have a few of the new 'pink' ones but mostly play with our 20 year old lego collection. They don't think of the girly legos as 'real legos', for whatever reason. It _is_ disheartening to go into a lego store and see almost solely boy-oriented sets, though. I note kids in Lego stores are roughly 60/40 boys / girls, but the sets are boyish.
- scoot 14y ago
  Your girls love Lego. So does mine, and houses, shops, cars figures, vehicles - the bulk of the Lego staple kits - are all gender neutral.
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  Some of us find it disheartening that Lego makes "sets" at all. What happened to kids using their imaginations?
  - sanswork 14y ago
    Even with the sets there is still learning involved in lego or at least skill/work involved for some(the same people with the imagination before I would imagine). I'm young enough that I grew up with lego sets(actually I grew up with construx and built many a string controlled robot with them!) my favourites were the pirates ones and I still have them in a big box at my parents house. The lego sets I had came with a set of instructions on how to build whatever they were for. But the booklets also came with 4 or 5 pictures of other projects built with the same or a subset of the same parts but no details on how to make them. I admit I wasn't imagining a new thing and building it but I would always work out how to build what they showed and I learned a lot from that too.
    - no_more_death 14y ago
      The big problem is the movie-themed sets where all the children do is reconstruct scenes from a movie, instead of using their imagination to create novel scenes.
      - sanswork 14y ago
        I still wouldn't call that a waste though anymore than I'd call model building a waste. They may not be using their imagination but that does not mean they aren't learning or developing other skills.
        justinhj 14y ago
        They are learning to follow instructions. Sure that's a useful skill, but 98% of school is teaching them that. What the more open ended lego kits teach is that you are free to create things constrained only by your imagination and the bricks you have. That surely is far more valuable than reconstructing a movie scene and having it gather dust on a shelf.
  - bengoodger 14y ago
    I see the sets as a way of defining constraint, i.e. establishing what an approved construction standard is. It then becomes possible for someone with extra bricks to invent a new model that fits in with the same scale/standards. Look at the fan-created models that scale to the modular building standard established by the Cafe Corner/Greengrocer sets for example. Sometimes a set of reasonable constraints leads to more creativity than there would be in a completely open environment.
- ganley 14y ago
  Mine too. I pointed out the Friends stuff last time we were in the Lego store, and they were unimpressed.
Tichy 14y ago
So only 15% of girls liking engineering is a problem, but girls not liking pirates, batman and bio-alien-robots isn't? Where is the movement to get girls interested in bio-alien-robots?
- jpxxx 14y ago
  It's busy pushing the same rock up a hill forever.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Why should girls have to be interested in bio-alien-robots? Gender differences are real, so instead of trying to overcome them, we should do what this toy is trying to do: recognize them and work within them.
  - tthomas48 14y ago
    Gender differences are real. But interest in bio-alien-robots is taught.
    - mamoswined 14y ago
      Anecdotally, I'm probably a good example of this. Being sickly, I was homeschooled for a lot of my childhood, so I didn't have a peer group to tell me what was cool for many years. I did interact with other kids through church and various activities like choir, but it wasn't very similar to social groups that form in schools. My mother also limited my TV time. My dad didn't but only when we watched Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and all kinds of other sci=fi stuff together. He also told me stories about robots. I did also love playing with my Littlest Pet Shop toys and dressing up as a princess, but I also loved building robots, spaceships, pirate ships, etc. with legos. I don't really understand why that stuff isn't more popular with girls. I mean, almost all franchises based on them have multiple good female characters and storylines that seem like they would appeal to women. Based on later experiences as a teacher of 4-5 year olds, I get the impression that socially there is usually a queen bee girl who tells all the other girls who like different things that they are lame and they can't be in the club if they play with robots. I don't necessarily think that's a natural thing as the way schools divide children up based on age would be unusual from a historical perspective. I think having all 5 year olds together with no younger or older girls encourages bullying behavior as they establish a social dominance, rather than age-based, hierarchy.
deleted 14y ago
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by jpxxx 14y ago

vessenes 14y ago

My girls LOVE legos. They have a few of the new 'pink' ones but mostly play with our 20 year old lego collection. They don't think of the girly legos as 'real legos', for whatever reason. It _is_ disheartening to go into a lego store and see almost solely boy-oriented sets, though. I note kids in Lego stores are roughly 60/40 boys / girls, but the sets are boyish.

scoot 14y ago
Your girls love Lego. So does mine, and houses, shops, cars figures, vehicles - the bulk of the Lego staple kits - are all gender neutral.
Turing_Machine 14y ago
Some of us find it disheartening that Lego makes "sets" at all. What happened to kids using their imaginations?
- sanswork 14y ago
  Even with the sets there is still learning involved in lego or at least skill/work involved for some(the same people with the imagination before I would imagine). I'm young enough that I grew up with lego sets(actually I grew up with construx and built many a string controlled robot with them!) my favourites were the pirates ones and I still have them in a big box at my parents house. The lego sets I had came with a set of instructions on how to build whatever they were for. But the booklets also came with 4 or 5 pictures of other projects built with the same or a subset of the same parts but no details on how to make them. I admit I wasn't imagining a new thing and building it but I would always work out how to build what they showed and I learned a lot from that too.
  - no_more_death 14y ago
    The big problem is the movie-themed sets where all the children do is reconstruct scenes from a movie, instead of using their imagination to create novel scenes.
    - sanswork 14y ago
      I still wouldn't call that a waste though anymore than I'd call model building a waste. They may not be using their imagination but that does not mean they aren't learning or developing other skills.
      - justinhj 14y ago
        They are learning to follow instructions. Sure that's a useful skill, but 98% of school is teaching them that. What the more open ended lego kits teach is that you are free to create things constrained only by your imagination and the bricks you have. That surely is far more valuable than reconstructing a movie scene and having it gather dust on a shelf.
- bengoodger 14y ago
  I see the sets as a way of defining constraint, i.e. establishing what an approved construction standard is. It then becomes possible for someone with extra bricks to invent a new model that fits in with the same scale/standards. Look at the fan-created models that scale to the modular building standard established by the Cafe Corner/Greengrocer sets for example. Sometimes a set of reasonable constraints leads to more creativity than there would be in a completely open environment.
ganley 14y ago
Mine too. I pointed out the Friends stuff last time we were in the Lego store, and they were unimpressed.

Tichy 14y ago

So only 15% of girls liking engineering is a problem, but girls not liking pirates, batman and bio-alien-robots isn't? Where is the movement to get girls interested in bio-alien-robots?

jpxxx 14y ago
It's busy pushing the same rock up a hill forever.
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Why should girls have to be interested in bio-alien-robots? Gender differences are real, so instead of trying to overcome them, we should do what this toy is trying to do: recognize them and work within them.
- tthomas48 14y ago
  Gender differences are real. But interest in bio-alien-robots is taught.
  - mamoswined 14y ago
    Anecdotally, I'm probably a good example of this. Being sickly, I was homeschooled for a lot of my childhood, so I didn't have a peer group to tell me what was cool for many years. I did interact with other kids through church and various activities like choir, but it wasn't very similar to social groups that form in schools. My mother also limited my TV time. My dad didn't but only when we watched Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and all kinds of other sci=fi stuff together. He also told me stories about robots. I did also love playing with my Littlest Pet Shop toys and dressing up as a princess, but I also loved building robots, spaceships, pirate ships, etc. with legos. I don't really understand why that stuff isn't more popular with girls. I mean, almost all franchises based on them have multiple good female characters and storylines that seem like they would appeal to women. Based on later experiences as a teacher of 4-5 year olds, I get the impression that socially there is usually a queen bee girl who tells all the other girls who like different things that they are lame and they can't be in the club if they play with robots. I don't necessarily think that's a natural thing as the way schools divide children up based on age would be unusual from a historical perspective. I think having all 5 year olds together with no younger or older girls encourages bullying behavior as they establish a social dominance, rather than age-based, hierarchy.

deleted 14y ago

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