Emma likes drawing, fashion and giving her friends makeovers. She has long black hair, purple tank and mini.
Andrea loves music, singing and dancing with her friends. Her hair is long, brown and wavy. She’s in the yellow tank with the pastel blue mini.
They are three of the six Ladyfigs, girl figurines introduced by Lego as part of its new Friends series, an effort to attract more girls to construction play. On the Friends homepage, they’re seen hugging, holding hands and giggling like, well, girls. They come with play sets. Butterfly Beauty Shop. City Park Cafe. Emma’s Splash Pool. And Stephanie’s Outdoor Bakery.
And since they hit toy shelves, Lego has attracted something else: criticism.
Among the complaints: it promotes damaging gender stereotypes, limits creativity and encourages girls to focus on appearance and being thin.
So, should we be equally as outraged? Equally as horrified at the apparent sexualization of young girls by Lego?
Or should we relax a bit. Is it really such a big deal? It’s what girls want, after all.
Problem is, it’s not about one toy. Not about one Ladyfig with breasts, says Rebecca Raby, associate professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock.
It’s accumulative. A bombardment of stereotypical images of beauty. Big hair. Big eyes. Big breasts. Small waist. All in one sparkly, glam, tight-top-short-skirt package.
And it’s everywhere. On TV. At the movies. At the mall.
So, the problem isn’t so much with Friends. But that Friends is so much like everything else. In a word, limiting.“It gives such a narrow expectation of what it means to be a girl,” says Raby.
For its part, Lego says four years of research with 3,500 girls and their moms helped the company better understand what would make its building blocks more interesting to girls.
And, according to a press release, Friends is a response to what moms and girls asked for: more details, a brighter colour palette (it’s based on two blues, two purples and two greens), more realistic figurines, better role play opportunities and more interesting story line.
It’s not that it’s a bad toy, says Shauna Pomerantz, associate professor of Child and Youth Studies.
And, no, she’s not inherently anti-pink. And, yes, she knows that kids will play with toys in imaginative ways. In ways other than which the toy was intended.
She even lets her three-year-old daughter dress up in princess gowns. Think Belle. Sleeping Beauty.
It’s more about the lack of choice. The predictable, homogeneity of it all.
“I’m just sad that girls’ toys so repeat the same old gender scripts over and over again,” she says.
She worries, like Raby, that girls will compare themselves, and other girls, to the Stephanies, Emmas and Andreas of the toy world. Fact is, the body of a Ladyfig is nothing like the blocky, square forms of Lego old.
“They’re sexed up,” she says.
“It’s not that a little girl will pick it up and say, ‘It’s sexy, I want to be like that’.
“But if you get bombarded with enough of those images, you start to see it as absolutely normal.
“There is no other way for a girl to be.”
Even gender-neutral toys have been polarized, says Raby.
Case in point: on a recent trip to the toy store, she spotted two pots of glue. One pink and sparkly. The other, darker with an action figure.
Why would a toy manufacturer do this? Pomerantz offers an explanation: “They get to make two sets of everything and market it twice.”
Even the freckly, slightly pudgy Strawberry Shortcake of her youth has had a makeover.
It’s no wonder girls ask for pretty, girly toys, says Raby.
“That’s what girls want because that’s what they see around them,” she says.
When toys are so gender polarized, it’s harder for girls and boys to play together, says Raby.
Girls aren’t comfortable playing with boy toys. And even more uncomfortable are boys playing with girl toys. Fact is, how many parents are OK with their boys playing dress-up with princess gowns?
The result — they miss out learning how to interact with each other, she says.
So, what’s a parent to do? Give children a variety of toys. Balance the pretty in pink with the rough and tumble. Support them in their own creative play.
Case in point: Raby’s five-year-old son loves cars and trucks.
“And sometimes, I feel overwhelmed with all the vehicles,” she says, laughing.
But she counteracts this with not-your-typical boy toys. Same for girls. Go ahead and buy Barbies, but expose them to diverse images of girls. Books are great for this. Show kids girls with different skin colour, body sizes, shorter hair.
Talk to them about their toys. Show them Barbie and ask, “Do you know any women who look like this?”
When her son came home one day and told her a kid at school said boys can’t wear pink, they talked.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I like pink,” was his answer.
cclock
@stcatharinesstandard.ca
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