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Buyers Can Choose More Pink for Their Little Girls

February 13, 2012Written by RetailWire Staff

Lego marketing director, David Buxbaum, claims the company has done its research, which shows that "80 percent of its sales have been to boys," according to the Daily Telegraph. With a new range of pink and pastel colored bricks, however, he says, "I would argue we are giving girls what they are asking for."

The brand's new Friends line also features characters sporting slim figures and stylish clothes with each representing a different personality: "the smart girl," "the animal lover," "the beautician," and "the singer." Attractions to be built include a beauty salon, a horse academy, a veterinary clinic and a café.

Legos were initially created to be gender neutral, but the company a few years ago made a decision to focus on kits for boys, sparked by research that showed boys liked completing complex tasks. Further research from anthropologists found that girls wanted more reality-based toys "that let them see themselves as the characters," according to the Chicago Tribune. Girls were also looking to play with the set after building them.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some critics are questioning the stereotypical gender roles they believed are represented by the toys with boys playing active roles and girls passive ones.

Bailey Shoemaker Richards, an activist and blogger, is a co-sponsor of an online movement to force Lego to commit to gender equity in marketing. On a recent segment of NPR's Tell me More, she described the Friends line as "a very narrow and limiting sort of idea of what girlhood Lego experience should be."

A follow-up Tell me More broadcast featured a group of mothers discussing how their children play and what they play with, including the new Friends range from Lego. Host Michel Martin said some online commenters "applauded the company for bringing girls into the fold, but others felt that the new Legos focused too much on stereotypes of women."

As for his panel of mothers (of sons and daughters), one who previously worked on Barbie for Mattel proclaimed the objections "ridiculous" because it denies their "innately different play patterns ... extracting from a child the ability to create an identity." She added, "You have to allow them the opportunity to explore who they are, and I completely agree. But what if who they are is girly?"

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