Friends or Foes: LEGO and Play for Girls Part 1: The Basics

This is the first in a three part series of articles written to explore the current controversy brewing over the LEGO Friends line launched this year by The Lego Group.

There's a LEGO war of bricks brewing - and this time, it's not the Pirates versus the Imperial Armada, Blacktron versus M-Tron, nor is it the Lion Knights versus the Dragon Knights.

This time the stakes are much higher, and the battleground is the play space of young girls and the new LEGO Friends line.  It is a topic I have been asked about frequently since the line was announced, as people, knowing my interest in LEGO, have approached me asking my opinion of 'why would LEGO do this?'

I have relented from writing about it because it is such a loaded subject.  There are so many facets to consider, and so many myths to untangle.  Further, I am somewhat removed from the discussion, in as much as I am not directly 'repressed' by the accusations, nor  do not work for LEGO, so I can not speak for LEGO, and I can not pretend that I know all of LEGO's reasons for developing this line.  But there has been much discussion and debate regarding this subject over the last month, so join me, if you are interested, in unpacking this dilemma.

DISCLAIMER: I do take this matter very seriously - with an undergraduate degree in anthropology and as a certified teacher and education professional, I do not take gender stereotyping lightly.  However, as a LEGO enthusiast, I do take playing with LEGO lightly - so if there is any humour throughout this article, note that it will not be at the expense of gender roles, but at the culture of LEGO collecting.

I feel that, in order to understand the products best, we should first look at the products "in a vacuum" - I hesitate to use this expression, as I have great fears of vacuuming up LEGO pieces at home!  But, I feel that any holistic approach to this subject should start at the core - the sets themselves.

The Sets

There are some diverse choices of role play opportunities and colour palettes that are unique to this line.  However, right off the bat, what skews any of these sets from being more neutral to potentially sexist is the colour scheme.  Many balk at the pinks, purples, and pastels that dominate all of these sets.  The only addition I want to make here is that, amongst these colours, the only new colour specifically created for the Friend's line is the new pastel blue. 

In addition, he Friends line does not use the traditional LEGO Minifig which has been in use for 30+ years, but instead introduces the 'Minidoll' - a title that definitely leans towards female sexism, but more on that later.

Butterfly Beauty Shop

Stephanie's Outdoor Bakery

Emma's Splash Pool

Mia's Puppy House

Heartlake Dog Show

Okay - so here are the first set of... sets (grumbles at English language).  I can not disagree that these sets depict activities that could easily be interpreted as stereotypical/sexist.  At first glance, we see a beauty parlour, a bakery, and a girl lounging by the pool sipping drinks. Even the puppy house and the dog show seem to play more to the woman as nurturer and caregiver role, as opposed to independence, and also playing to the concept of female obsession with outward appearance and vanity. Not exactly the most empowering depictions for young girls.

Heartlake Vet

Olivia's Invention Workshop

Olivia's Tree House

Emma's Fashion Design Studio

City Park Cafe

To contrast this, however, are also roles with power, responsibility and authority: an invention workshop, a veterinarian's office, and I'd even say that the cafe and fashion design studio both depict a certain amount of entrepreneurial industrialism as well.  Further, I would argue that the treehouse is typically (and by typically, I mean stereotypically) the domain of the young boy in popular culture.

Stephanie's Cool Convertible 

Stephanie's Pet Patrol

Andrea's Stage

Other sets seem more middling - the stage performance seems pretty neutral, the pet patrol is a weird mix of the animal issues above combined with riding all-terrain vehicles, which comes out as something of a wash.  

There are also some other promtional sets that, although not yet released, have been previewed in marketing materials:

Another car, a day at the beach, a laptop, and a skateboard - nothing particularly girly or sexist in these activities.  I would even go so far as saying that the computer and the skateboard are once again domains typically dominated by men in media, and further empowers young girls to take them on.

Then we come to the largest set, the flagship of the collection - Olivia's house.

Olivia's House

I would argue that this set is the most unique of the entire line.  For one, its colour scheme is the most neutral of them all - yes it does have pink and purple accents for the roofs, but mostly it is a pretty bland mixture of tan, white, and greens.  The yard is filled with flowers and vegetables, and people are busy and active.  In addition to Olivia, we meet Olivia's parents.

Peter, the lone male in the whole Friends line, is Olivia's father.  This is his only appearance in the Friends line - and where is he located?

At the grille of course - the traditional male cooking domain.  Now, this is a tricky spot, because having a girl doing the cooking could also be construed (misconstrued?) as being sexist.  But having Peter at the barbecue also frees up Anna, Olivia's mom, to be mowing the lawn - a role that definitely breaks the mold of male/female sexist dichotomies.

In the corner of the box's packaging, we can see the Minidolls repositioned throughout the house.

Once again, some missed opportunities by LEGO - Peter, the man, is sitting and relaxing, while Anna is working away in the kitchen - a big miss and a potential step in the wrong direction for LEGO. Note that Olivia is up in her room reading a book (I assume book, as it is the same LEGO piece that is used for all LEGO books) - not particularly masculine or feminine, but fairly neutral.  Does she have a stereotypically 'girly' coloured room of pinks and pastels? Yes indeed.

Replayability

Going back to Olivia's house - this set does have a lot of opportunities for role playing and interesting construction.  The bathroom and kitchen appear to offer the greatest challenge factor in terms of building complexity - but the set does not stop there.

The sets do come with further suggestions on extending the builder's imagination by creating redesigned versions of the home - thereby increasing the play opportunities that the set provides.

The reason I mention this is because there has also been a lot of criticism that the sets do not provide the same amount of challenge and complexity that other LEGO sets provide - and that their designs are rigid enough to be equated to a bumpy dollhouse.  In my personal LEGO building opinion, I strongly disagree - these sets appear to provide a great diversity of play opportunities, and like all LEGO, the user is only limited by their imagination.  This house could easily become a hospital, or a hotel, or a shop.  Could this house be retrofitted to become a spaceship or a police station? Probably, but the accessories may not lend themselves to make a very convincing one of either of these sets (the lack of specific accessories) - but the same would be true for many LEGO sets.

Further, those who would concede that this set provides a robust building experience, would argue that the rest of the line doesn't have any other sets that meet the same standards.  To this, all I can say is that it is pretty typical of LEGO to launch a line with one large set in the 80-120 dollar range, two or three medium sized sets in the 40-80 dollar range, and the majority of the sets falling below 40 dollars.  The Olivia's House set definitely fits the bill for the 'large set' as it contains well over 600 pieces.  The line does only have one mid-sized set, the Heartlake Vet, but it has an abundance of smaller sets.

It should come as no surprise that with fewer pieces, you do end up with less flexibility in rebuilding.  But in combining several of these sets, a child (or any fan of LEGO) could easily come up with clever and imaginative possibilities.  The smaller sets work well with each other, and I could see the Vet, the convertible, and the invention shop making for a pretty killer car garage! As always with LEGO, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination and the number of bricks at your disposal.  I think that is key to remember.

THE MINIDOLL

As mentioned above, the LEGO Friends line comes not with traditional Minifigs, but Minidolls.

The LEGO Lineup

The new Minodolls are more expressive and detailed, and (debatably) provide somewhat more realistc proportions than the standard LEGO Minifig.  They are still fully compatible with traditional LEGO accessories, and a user could even fully swap heads and head accessories, placing a knight's helmet on one of the Minidolls, and a hairpiece with barrette on a traditional Minifig.

In fact, let's just read LEGO's official description of the doll:

Introducing the LEGO mini-doll figure Anchored by the introduction of a new mini-doll figure, LEGO Friends introduces a new LEGO minifigure platform tailored to girls’ requests for a more realistic, relatable and stylized figure. Designed to the same scale of the classic LEGO minifigure, the mini-doll figure stands roughly 5 millimeters taller than its minifigure sibling, yet features similar constructability, shares the iconic “claw” hand to hold the same accessories, can wear the same hair and headpieces, and is compatible with all LEGO building sets. A total of 29 different mini-doll figures will be introduced in 2012. “LEGO Friends is one of the most researched LEGO projects ever and is a culmination of years of anthropological research with girls around the world to understand what they expect from a construction toy,” said Nanna Ulrich Gudum, senior creative director, LEGO Group. “In talking with girls and their moms, we understand that girls really want a LEGO offering that mirrors what the boys experience, but in a way that fulfills their unique desire for remodeling and redesign, combined with realistic themes in community and friendship.” “Unlike previous LEGO toys for girls, LEGO Friends, at its core, does not apologize for being a construction toy and delivers, for the first time, a building experience in the same scale as our classic offerings,” Nanna Ulrich Gudum continued. “What LEGO Friends does differently is deliver the beauty, details, accessories, real world themes and need for strong interior play that the research revealed would make all the difference for girls ages 5 and up.”

This is not the first time that LEGO designed a new scale of minifigure for a specific line - the Jack Stone and Technic lines both had custom figures developed for them.  More recently, the microfigure was also introduced.  So to say that LEGO is specifically and uniquely modifying the play experience to cater to girls is a bit of a miss, as it is not atypical for LEGO to develop alternate minifigures for different lines.  

Other parts of LEGO's statement could be cause for concern, and they require a great deal of unpacking and analysis. The title of the minidoll certainly does present a problem (why a doll, and why not just stick with minifigure as the title?), but I think the answer to that lies more in marketing than in research. But LEGO's communication and marketing strategy is a whole other ball of wax, and will be covered in Part 2 of this

(all images courtesy of the LEGO Group and LEGO.com)