Mia, Emma, Andrea, Stephanie and Olivia have arrived in Stephanie’s cool convertible. After coffee at the City Park Café, they are off to the Butterfly Beauty Shop. They are new citizens of Heartlake City and they are here to stay. But why the heck did it take them some 78 years to get there?
My take on Lego is bias to some extent (being Danish), but I'm not looking at it blindly. As a toy it has the full scale of what toys should be: creative, imaginative in scope, educational, endless in possibilities and last but not least FUN. The way Lego has sustained its popularity and why hundreds of copy-cats have failed, underline the consistent development of newness to the product and the constant level of high quality.
And then somebody is getting bend out of shape about this new addition to Lego that now caters to girls; meet Mia, Emma, Andrea, Stephanie and Olivia - and they are so cute and pretty – really. I'm a bit miffed why somebody would complain about positive progress; especially since it has taken such a long time to materialize.
From the first Lego brick popped out of the Danish factory in 1932 (factory still owned by the same family and has over 10,000 employees / 3rd largest educational toy manufacture in the world, by the way) it has been very popular. For any product of any kind to sustain time and constantly grow in popularity year after year is not an easy task. Most business’ rely on past year’s success to carry any future possibilities of profit - but not Lego. As effective merchants, Danes are in the top three worldwide - just so you know; so to me it’s not a miracle that they have done so well with much more to come.
When we look back on the first 70+ years of this "toy"-line, educational or not, who has it been catering to? Boys. Who has played with the cars, the space-ships, the forts, the pirates and so forth? Boys. Have girls been involved? To some extent, but it has dominantly been a "boy-toy". Did anybody ever complain about that? So now somebody feels it should stay that way? In hindsight (and I'm very good at that), why did it take Lego this long to figure it out, considering the huge market called "girls"?
As if nobody has noticed, the two major genders here on this globe-thing are rather different. We dress differently, we talk, walk, think and function differently and for the most we play with different toys. If you hold up blue and pink, boys will take blue (okay some boys will opt for pink, but that's another story) and girls will for the most choose pink - and there is nothing wrong with that at all, no matter how "influenced" by society and parents in all their shapes and forms. Is that really news to anybody out there?
Lego has been catering to the male oriented market and it has worked big time. Luckily they finally saw the pink light at the end of the tunnel and girls can now whole-heartily participate. The full meaning of a universal/unigender educational toy has materialized - just as it should have many years ago - seriously.
When we look at the overall "toy" market, educational or not, how many brands and ideas cater to both genders? Not a heck of a lot. But will some liberals or conservatives scream HOLY TUNA at Mattel when they come out with a Barbie line catering to boys? Barbie is a designated girl-toy, that’s why – it’s that gender thing again. Bringing Ken and other male figures to life is not going to change the minds and taste in play-toys for many boys, is it? It was solely to give Barbie somebody to play with and get married to… But it was still girls playing with dolls – for the most, boys still stay out of that, instead comforting themselves with action-figures. Lego is different now; they finally caught on.
Back in the bra-burning days, which I fully embraced by supplying gallons of lighter-fluid to speed up the process, women wanted equality. On so many levels I fully support that ongoing effort, but there are certain things I cannot understand are still forcefully being stuffed down our collective throats. My point is that by nature we cannot be equal on all levels. When we try to bend Mother Nature, she'll get pissed, since certain gender issues cannot bend because when we try, they will break and nobody would like that to happen. Don’t get me wrong, I like equality for all on all levels possible, and Lego has finally stepped to the plate and helped us along a little bit with that. If that is by bringing us pastel colored bricks and beauty shops, I’m there to cheer (6 new colors, only pastels; no pink, can you believe that?)
To me this is not all about Lego and a few people not agreeing with their new product-line. It’s about the togetherness of the genders we need so much more of. When our boys and girls can play together with the same toys early on, they will learn to understand each other much better and be better prepared to coexist in the future. They will learn to acknowledge and respect our wonderful differences and great sameness which we are all about and will more so understand, accept and respect nature’s awesome diversities that will never go away; and we should all embrace that - really.
I know it’s a slow process, but we are on the right track and I am so convinced we will get there; we have come very far already and we keep picking up speed. Lego have now done their share and hoorah for that – finally.
Now go get that old box of Legos out of the closet and built a castle or something and why not invite the girls over. I hear that Mia, Emma, Andrea, Stephanie and Olivia are great at parties; perhaps Stephanie will even let you ride in her convertible - I mean, how cool would that be?
Till next Monday – have fun, brick by brick.
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