5 ms·

All the naysayers out there are neglecting an important viewpoint best explained by a personal anecdote. I have a 4 year old niece that is so into princesses,

All the naysayers out there are neglecting an important viewpoint best explained by a personal anecdote. I have a 4 year old niece that is so into princesses, pink, high heals, the whole 9 yards, that any present that isn't themed pink and girly will just get ignored, yet she's very smart and likes playing with puzzles. Something like this might actually work for her, where gender neutral legos or erector sets would never get played with.

grueful 14y ago
My knee-jerk response to that: Do they make pink girly legos? Maybe there are reasons why that's the wrong approach, but I tend to regard interaction and packaging as two very distinct design components. If the packaging is the problem, fix that first. Changing the interaction should come second. Dumbing it down is almost never the solution, yet it's often the first solution people turn to when trying to deal with a gender gap. It's as if they think the issues will go away if they speak very slowly and loudly. (I admire the objective, but I believe I would like the project better if it said "an engineering toy" instead of "the engineering toy." The implication differs.)
- bjt 14y ago
  "Do they make pink girly legos?" Why yes, yes they do: http://friends.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx http://friends.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx They're controversial for the same reasons people are complaining on this thread, but they're selling. (See http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/09/lego-friends-triples-sales-to-girls-despite-feminist-critique/. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/09/lego-friends-tr...)
  - grueful 14y ago
    My experience is limited to sisters, but they played with the normal legos just as much as I did. I suspect these would have been a hit. Users care about things like color far more than engineers often suspect. If changing the color makes a substantive improvement to outcomes you care about - change the color.
    - Rolo0321 14y ago
      I think there's a bit more to this toy than simply 'pink it and shrink it' as they say in retail. The story + building is the innovation - meeting girls where they are and presenting construction/engineering themes through something other than a jumble of Legos. (This coming from a girl who loved Legos but didn't end up as an engineer)
dmor 14y ago
I almost wrote a comment about how it was basically just making erector sets pink, and what was the point of that. You've made me think twice. However, I feel like parents who are inclined to buy this might not be likely to have princess-obsessed kids. But I am not a parent, so I don't know.
- simon 14y ago
  I have two daughters ... both princess-obsessed. I trip over Barbies some days!
dmor 14y ago
I almost wrote a comment about how it was basically just making erector sets pink, and what was the point of that. You've made me think twice. However, I feel like parents who are inclined to buy this might not be likely to have princess-obsessed kids. But I am not a parent, so I don't know.
ary 14y ago
To this point there seems to be strong and widespread anecdotal evidence that many boys don't want to seem to much like girls by playing with "girly" toys and many girls feel the same way towards "boys" toys. There is perhaps (or perhaps not) a problem with this phenomenon that, over time, needs to be addressed. In the meantime things like this seem to be a great way to spread interest in science and engineering among both genders.
- alttag 14y ago
  It's not just anecdotal [1] (forgive the article for misspelling "light saber"). Toy companies have known this for some time. It's how they make money. NPR had several interesting discussions regarding the controversy over girl-themed Legos, and gender in toys [2][3]. 1: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=145705192 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1457051... 2: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=160365466 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1603654... 3: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145397007/gender-controversy-stacks-up-against-lego-friends http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145397007/gender-controversy-s...
mibbitier 14y ago
Buy Lego friends. They're pretty good 'girlie' sets.
- officemonkey 14y ago
  A friend's niece reports "LEGO Friends are too easy," but she's the kind of kid who builds the Grand Emporium all by herself.
  - mibbitier 14y ago
    My daughter loves things like the Pet Shop: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pet-Shop-10218 http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pet-Shop-10218 Really fun to build.
    - gadders 14y ago
      The reason I like Lego is because I can build stuff with her. Especially when we decide to build something "off-piste".
Frostbeard 14y ago
My first reaction when I saw this campaign was to roll my eyes a bit, to be honest. My own daughter loves the gender neutral and even "boyish" construction toys, and even though she loves ponies and princesses and pink frilly things, she'd probably cast something like this aside. On reflection though, I think anything that helps get girls interested in the concepts is fantastic. This simply wouldn't be of value to my own daughter (or my nieces for that matter), but I can see how it would be really helpful in getting girls like your niece interested, and that can only be a good thing.

grueful 14y ago

My knee-jerk response to that: Do they make pink girly legos? Maybe there are reasons why that's the wrong approach, but I tend to regard interaction and packaging as two very distinct design components. If the packaging is the problem, fix that first. Changing the interaction should come second. Dumbing it down is almost never the solution, yet it's often the first solution people turn to when trying to deal with a gender gap. It's as if they think the issues will go away if they speak very slowly and loudly. (I admire the objective, but I believe I would like the project better if it said "an engineering toy" instead of "the engineering toy." The implication differs.)

bjt 14y ago
"Do they make pink girly legos?" Why yes, yes they do: http://friends.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx http://friends.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx They're controversial for the same reasons people are complaining on this thread, but they're selling. (See http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/09/lego-friends-triples-sales-to-girls-despite-feminist-critique/. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/09/lego-friends-tr...)
- grueful 14y ago
  My experience is limited to sisters, but they played with the normal legos just as much as I did. I suspect these would have been a hit. Users care about things like color far more than engineers often suspect. If changing the color makes a substantive improvement to outcomes you care about - change the color.
  - Rolo0321 14y ago
    I think there's a bit more to this toy than simply 'pink it and shrink it' as they say in retail. The story + building is the innovation - meeting girls where they are and presenting construction/engineering themes through something other than a jumble of Legos. (This coming from a girl who loved Legos but didn't end up as an engineer)

dmor 14y ago

I almost wrote a comment about how it was basically just making erector sets pink, and what was the point of that. You've made me think twice. However, I feel like parents who are inclined to buy this might not be likely to have princess-obsessed kids. But I am not a parent, so I don't know.

simon 14y ago
I have two daughters ... both princess-obsessed. I trip over Barbies some days!

dmor 14y ago

ary 14y ago

To this point there seems to be strong and widespread anecdotal evidence that many boys don't want to seem to much like girls by playing with "girly" toys and many girls feel the same way towards "boys" toys. There is perhaps (or perhaps not) a problem with this phenomenon that, over time, needs to be addressed. In the meantime things like this seem to be a great way to spread interest in science and engineering among both genders.

alttag 14y ago
It's not just anecdotal [1] (forgive the article for misspelling "light saber"). Toy companies have known this for some time. It's how they make money. NPR had several interesting discussions regarding the controversy over girl-themed Legos, and gender in toys [2][3]. 1: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=145705192 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1457051... 2: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=160365466 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1603654... 3: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145397007/gender-controversy-stacks-up-against-lego-friends http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145397007/gender-controversy-s...

mibbitier 14y ago

Buy Lego friends. They're pretty good 'girlie' sets.

officemonkey 14y ago
A friend's niece reports "LEGO Friends are too easy," but she's the kind of kid who builds the Grand Emporium all by herself.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  My daughter loves things like the Pet Shop: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pet-Shop-10218 http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pet-Shop-10218 Really fun to build.
  - gadders 14y ago
    The reason I like Lego is because I can build stuff with her. Especially when we decide to build something "off-piste".

Frostbeard 14y ago

My first reaction when I saw this campaign was to roll my eyes a bit, to be honest. My own daughter loves the gender neutral and even "boyish" construction toys, and even though she loves ponies and princesses and pink frilly things, she'd probably cast something like this aside. On reflection though, I think anything that helps get girls interested in the concepts is fantastic. This simply wouldn't be of value to my own daughter (or my nieces for that matter), but I can see how it would be really helpful in getting girls like your niece interested, and that can only be a good thing.