It's a girl thing

Today one of my coworkers and I were discussing why LEGO doesn't make more products aimed at young girls, and we jokingly decided the company is sexist and actually doesn't care about coming up with designs for females. We mentioned the idea to one of our supervisors, who quickly responded that LEGOs are just naturally more popular among boys (though he admitted this seems to be changing a bit), and therefore the company is just following smart business practices by creating products geared for its targeted demographic. Okay, but what about if the reason more boys like LEGOs is because they are supposed to like them? What would happen if the same number of sets were made for girls as there are for boys? Even the neutral kits rarely contain ponytail wigs or female faces, making it seem like only men are supposed to be police officers, dump truck drivers, or farmers.

I'm not really a feminist (I still believe there are some things men are better at than women), but I do think it's unfair to all the girls out there who otherwise would be diving into such cool toys as LEGOs. It's also a shame for the company to be missing out on such a big chunk of customers. I can't tell you how many people have come in looking for more "girly sets" besides the Belleville products (they are like a larger Barbie doll and not really LEGOs at all... Ick), and all I can really point them at is a tiny set of generic bricks with pink ones mixed in. It seems like such a stereotype to me.

This also goes along with the trend for young boys to be pushed toward math and science and young girls being pointed in the direction of art and reading -- Suddenly we don't know if either gender actually is better at those things, since they were never given the chance to step outside of the boxes society placed them in. If more girls were encouraged to be math nerds we might actually have more female engineers out there, which would then inspire even more females, and then what? The possibilities are endless.