The Beauty of Sexism

We've held off on commenting about the new Lego Friends range since Neil brought this article to our attention last month. Fair enough, there may well be differences in the way boys and girls tend to play, and a range of toys that focusses on a 'competitive' playstyle popular amongst boys may well be more gender-inclusive if it expands to include a 'role play' playstyles supposedly more popular amongst girls.

But, hold on a minute. There's every reason to believe that a load more accessories for minifigs would be popular amongst boys as well. The video game industry has an established practice of enabling players to customise the appearance of their characters (and has found it can tap them for more profits by charging for accessories), and that's hardly an industry regarded to be a typically 'girly' pursuit. We can't imagine little boys being put off by a load more faces, hairstyles and so on with which to customise their minifigs to identify with them more.

Now, is the new range representing a significant break from past attempts to make 'Lego for girls' that were perceived as patronising and sexist?

Well, the sets themselves feature an entirely female ensemble of minifigs, excepting the unidentified suited man in Olivia's house (does the suit signify him as a breadwinner?). So, any hope that this would be a range that would endeavour to be accessible across genders is stumped. These are sets for girls. If your boy wants to play with a Lego vet, or cafe, or tree house, you've got to get a set marketed to suggest to him and his peers that it's for girls.

Perhaps more males will join the ensemble. Unless Heartlake exists in a Y: The Last Man kind of context, where all the men bar one have mysteriously died. In which case, what's the purpose of the Butterfly Beauty Shop? For whom are its customers dolling up? Perhaps its clients are lesbians? Maybe 'butterfly' is a transgender signifier, and some of the Lego Friends are transsexual? It's nice to see toys challenge heteronormativity, but this seems an obscure way to do it.

To be fair, the inclusion of a science lab and a design workshop (and of course the vet) means the range can claim to be encouraging graduate career aspiration - though the former two being small minisets makes it easy to accuse this of being a token effort, and under-exposure could make 'this is unpopular with girls' a self-fulling prophecy. Pink and lilac are everywhere, though in many sets are used as spot colours rather than being applied to every surface.

The basic problem we have with this range is that you can't fight sexism with sexism. Give Heartlake a gender balance, with male and female firefighters, doctors, roadworkers, service staff, teachers, scientists, breadwinners, domestic partners and equal partners, and then it might be more credible as a way of breaking gender barriers. As it is, it smacks of pandering to stereotypes to tap a demographic for profits.