Feminist Frequency needs a fact check?

[pffh]

EDIT:

I'm just going to add that I worked in a toy shop for a few months and we were specifically trained to promote the Pink Lego boxes for girls and dissuade selling them Blue Boxes, since the Blue lego boxes were selling so fast we couldn't keep stock. Also, fuck all bought the Pink boxes.

Basically, we didn't want girls to have blue boxes because the boys only went for blue boxes. Despite the fact that plenty of girls actually wanted blue boxes.

Yup. Nothing wrong here.

and thats something that baffles me.
why has to be almost every fucking thing aimed at women got to be friggin pink.

I would be more worried about the fact that there exists a 'Women Only' train than that it's pink.

 

[Zydrate]

Lego isn't being intentionally sexist, they're mostly just adapting to the sexism that already exists

...And that's 'okay' to you?

The adaptation? Yes. The sexism in our society? No. But I'm able to separate the two.

I don't really see much of a distinction.
That's just an apathetic "there's no issue here" viewpoint.

As always, apathy is death.

Seriously, if you can't do the research, then you're missing vital information to discuss anything.

 

[pffh]

EDIT:

I'm just going to add that I worked in a toy shop for a few months and we were specifically trained to promote the Pink Lego boxes for girls and dissuade selling them Blue Boxes, since the Blue lego boxes were selling so fast we couldn't keep stock. Also, fuck all bought the Pink boxes.

Basically, we didn't want girls to have blue boxes because the boys only went for blue boxes. Despite the fact that plenty of girls actually wanted blue boxes.

Yup. Nothing wrong here.

and thats something that baffles me.
why has to be almost every fucking thing aimed at women got to be friggin pink.

I would be more worried about the fact that there exists a 'Women Only' train than that it's pink.

Oh, no need to worry. It's just to give women a safe train to ride so that they won't get molested by male passengers on a crowded train...

Not sure if sarcasm.... Since the need (real or socially constructed) for that seems to be something that someone should be worried about.

 

[Zoomy]

This whole debate over a bunch of petty chauvinistic virgin?s vs a blogging feminist with a habit of shitty research has me in a conundrum.
If I agree I am also agreeing to her view that all her other videos are good and well thought out arguments, which they are not. If I disagree I face being crucified by people jumping to the conclusion I am a women hater which I am most certainly not.

Oh no, Racist Roger said black people don't deserve to vote, but he also said that pizza is tasty! I like pizza, so I'm a racist!

It doesn't work like that. You can vehemently disagree with someone on most points but agree on a few others. I hate David Cameron's views on just about everything, but I agree with his stance on the Falklands.

2. The sexist/racist comments issue. On Youtube? People are being offensive? Awww, really? I also like the fact that anyone complaining about the posts she got acts if there isn't a shit load of posts from women on all kinds of YT videos that use exactly the same kind of racist/sexist crap plus death threats etc. Nope - it's just so much easier to act as if only men can write this kind of stuff.

So because some people are dicks we should ignore the other people acting like dicks? To quote myself, it doesn't work like that. Some of the shit that was said was downright disgraceful. Doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on, it does humanity a dis-service and shouldn't be ignored. Weren't you ever taught about the relationship between two wrongs, a right and how the former doesn't create the latter?

 

[Irridium]

This whole debate over a bunch of petty chauvinistic virgin?s vs a blogging feminist with a habit of shitty research has me in a conundrum.
If I agree I am also agreeing to her view that all her other videos are good and well thought out arguments.

Uh, no it doesn't. It means you agree with something she said.

If I disagree I face being crucified by people jumping to the conclusion I am a women hater which I am most certainly not.

While that may happen, you disagreeing with a thing she said doesn't make you a woman hater. It just means you disagree with a thing she said.

The whole idea that if you agree with one thing someone said, you agree with everything they say is just fucking stupid. I'm not saying you're stupid OP, just the idea that if you agree/disagree with something someone said/did you agree/disagree with everything they say/do. It's a horrible way to think and needs to fucking stop.

It's fine to agree with someone and still point out flaws they make, or disagree with something they say and not fall into the opposite extreme.

Sorry, had to rant a little there.

As for the whole LEGO thing, well youtube's being lame to me and won't load the videos, so I don't really know what it's all about. That being said, I don't think there's sexism in the toys themselves, but I have seen "gender targeted" ads for 'em. Mainly "girls get the pink set, boys get the blue." That sort of thing. Though that was a long time ago. Maybe it's still around, maybe it isn't. I don't know, but I would't be surprised if it was.

 

[Irridium]

EDIT:

I'm just going to add that I worked in a toy shop for a few months and we were specifically trained to promote the Pink Lego boxes for girls and dissuade selling them Blue Boxes, since the Blue lego boxes were selling so fast we couldn't keep stock. Also, fuck all bought the Pink boxes.

Basically, we didn't want girls to have blue boxes because the boys only went for blue boxes. Despite the fact that plenty of girls actually wanted blue boxes.

Yup. Nothing wrong here.

and thats something that baffles me.
why has to be almost every fucking thing aimed at women got to be friggin pink.

I would be more worried about the fact that there exists a 'Women Only' train than that it's pink.

From what I've read about Japan, "girl only" trains exist because women keep getting groped in trains with men and women. Seriously, apparently that's a pretty big problem over there.

 

[Zydrate]

I'd say, rather, that the real issue is being missed.

Yes, yes it is.

I guess you're just set on Lego being all evil and shit.

Yep, you're done here. Toodles.

 

[Aprilgold]

Guise, problem A exists so we have to ignore problem B until we've fixed problem A. There's absolutely no possible way we could identify and propose solutions to both problems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy]

Oh no, a smart arse reply. Whatever shall I do.

I know, i'll point out again that her rant was over LEGO .... LEGO.

Not anything remotely connected to a specific gender argument. It's fucking LEGO.

Is there anything less sexist that coloured building bricks?

My point, that seemed to have wooshed slowly over your head, is that this is a feminist debating LEGO and not anything that furthers gender equality.

The point of Feminist Frequency's 'Tropes vs. Women', isn't meant to further gender equality in a straightforward sense. It's meant to make people more aware of gender stereotypes against women that are, usually, reinforced in movies, TV shows, video games and the like.

FUCKING BAM! RIGHT THERE! Someone gets it. This, in and of itself is the point. Most if not all of the posts bashing her over the head are non-other then people who ignored why she talked about the things she does or saw the word feminist and automatically went to the stereotypical version of a feminist.

The way I see it, shes just pointing out different tropes or stereotypes females fall into in different things and suggesting ways to change that.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

A point for people complaining about how you're sick of hearing feminists complain about relatively minor issues, and to extend Kahunaburger's perfectly valid point:

Guise, problem A exists so we have to ignore problem B until we've fixed problem A. There's absolutely no possible way we could identify and propose solutions to both problems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy]

Has no-one, no-one at all, ever stopped to think that, this being a video game forum people might maybe, just maybe, be more inclined to talk about things related to video games or nerd culture in general here? While also caring, almost certainly more so, about the bigger issues?

I'm a feminist and when I talk about feminism here it tends to be in relation to video games/general geekery. When I discuss, or even think about, feminism in my day to day life, I do not tend to focus on these things. I'm pretty sure the same could be said for others.

Similarly (and again I'm sorry for using myself as an example), if you knew me in "real life" you'd most likely consider LGBT equality to be my main "thing." On forums like this I'll discuss LGBT issues with regards to gaming, but actually the majority of my efforts are spent trying to raise money and awareness for more "serious" causes (like LGBT people getting murdered or thrown in prison for their orientation/gender identity).

Anyone think this might be worth bearing in mind?

Well if the folks over at R&P are anything to go by, I guess some off us want to discuss politics that have to do with more things than video games. Yes we like them, but they are not the only thing we want to talk about.

OP:*Reads title*

haha, oh this is going to be good.

*Gets popcorn*

 

[MrMan999]

Someone should introduce this girl to figmas and PVC figurines. I'm sure that would be hilarious.

 

[Smeatza]

All lego body parts are completely interchangeable.
If you don't have enough female lego characters you simply haven't bought enough female heads.

Spoiler: Lego Belville minifigs

Spoiler: Lego Friends minifigs

2 series specifically targeted at girls. Not the only ones either.

I'm not of the belief that targeting a product to a specific audience is sexism in itself.

Did you watch the videos? The disparity in current marketing, compared to the original marketing of Lego products, is pretty striking and far from accidental incidental.

I watched some of them, there's a LOT.

Lego have always had variations on their product aimed at different audiences, Bionicle, Lego Techinic etc. You don't have{/i] to buy them. And all audiences are still catered to within the core lego brand.
Arn't they?

 

[zefiris]

Ah, I see the people crying about feminist frequency, because she dares to go against the party line and MILDLY criticize a few things, need to make yet another emo thread about it.

Predictably, it's filled with the same people that think they have a right to tell women what they should care about - clearly, men know better. Or so troglodytes like Rawne1980, Smashlovestitansquest, or Owyn_Merrilin seem to think.

Owyn_Merrilin is, obviously, the worst troglodyte among you lot. Wow.

We've got all these legitimate issues that affect women, and what gets them fired up? Some cop giving some candid advice about stranger rape.

This? By far the worst in this thread.

That you seriously can come here and think that rape is not a "legitimate issue" truly says it all. Really: You cannot make feminist frequency's point better for her. You are living proof of how deeply entrenched sexism is. So thanks for posting. You prove her right.

Good work. Spoiler, clownface: Rape, and the dismissal of it, is one of the bigger issues. That's why "slutwalks" got big in the first place. Use brain. That's why you have it. Stop thinking with the shriveled up meat between your legs, its function isn't thinking.

Would you be spewing your "arguments" if the cop had made these comments about children that were raped? No, you wouldn't. Why? Because you'd be a child-rape defending piece of trash.

If I disagree I face being crucified by people jumping to the conclusion I am a women hater which I am most certainly not.

You're not being crucified, you face something called criticism. This happens if you speak in public.

You are crying about being crucified for people saying to you what you say about this youtube person. Your hypocrisy is completely off the charts. You seriously have the audacity to attack a youtube video maker with clueless, trite arguments, and then turn around and whine when people poke holes into your mess?

That's pathetic.

Also, helpful tip: You will not be accused of being a woman hater if you stop dismissing misogynist hate campaigns. You could also stop using misogynist arguments. It'd help a ton

 

[Texas Joker 52]

FUCKING BAM! RIGHT THERE! Someone gets it. This, in and of itself is the point. Most if not all of the posts bashing her over the head are non-other then people who ignored why she talked about the things she does or saw the word feminist and automatically went to the stereotypical version of a feminist.

The way I see it, shes just pointing out different tropes or stereotypes females fall into in different things and suggesting ways to change that.

Well, I try to keep a clear head on my shoulders (and not in my ass, though it does occasionally end up shoved up in there, unfortunately), when reading posts on The Escapist, unless its something clearly silly.

I just don't understand most peoples problem with 'Tropes vs. Women'. I'm a guy, and I love a well-characterized woman in a story, or in other kinds of media. And this, in a way, helps point out examples of bad writing, among other things.

And sure, guys get the short end of the writing stick too, but for women, it seems to be all the more clear-cut.

 

[MrMan999]

All lego body parts are completely interchangeable.
If you don't have enough female lego characters you simply haven't bought enough female heads.

Spoiler: Lego Belville minifigs

Spoiler: Lego Friends minifigs

2 series specifically targeted at girls. Not the only ones either.

I'm not of the belief that targeting a product to a specific audience is sexism in itself.

Did you watch the videos? The disparity in current marketing, compared to the original marketing of Lego products, is pretty striking and far from accidental incidental.

I watched some of them, there's a LOT.

Lego have always had variations on their product aimed at different audiences, Bionicle, Lego Techinic etc. You don't have{/i] to buy them. And all audiences are still catered to within the core lego brand.
Arn't they?

Back when I worked at KB toys before it closed down, Most of the girls who bought legos either went for Star Wars or Bionicle.
I also saw a lot of girls buy Gundam Wing toys. But I digress.

 

[Smeatza]

All lego body parts are completely interchangeable.
If you don't have enough female lego characters you simply haven't bought enough female heads.

Spoiler: Lego Belville minifigs

Spoiler: Lego Friends minifigs

2 series specifically targeted at girls. Not the only ones either.

I'm not of the belief that targeting a product to a specific audience is sexism in itself.

Did you watch the videos? The disparity in current marketing, compared to the original marketing of Lego products, is pretty striking and far from accidental incidental.

I watched some of them, there's a LOT.

Lego have always had variations on their product aimed at different audiences, Bionicle, Lego Techinic etc. You don't have{/i] to buy them. And all audiences are still catered to within the core lego brand.
Arn't they?

Back when I worked at KB toys before it closed down, Most of the girls who bought legos either went for Star Wars or Bionicle.
I also saw a lot of girls buy Gundam Wing toys. But I digress.

But the option was still there for them to buy gender netural lego, or lego specifically marketed to females.

 

[RatRace123]

So, this is about LEGOs?

The gender neutral building blocks? LEGOs are sexist now?

I'm, I'm confused.

EDIT: I am not confused anymore. I have since watched the two videos and I can see the point she's trying to make, even if I don't fully agree with it.
I don't really think it's about branding, if girls wanted LEGOs then there's nothing that's really stopping them from playing with LEGOs.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Well the first part of the video 1 pretty much says why she's looking at Lego at all - they (the company) brought up how they want to be more girl friendly. It was a "current event" that drew her attention because it related to the topic she is obviously deeply interested in.

She's also specifically addressing the offering that the company put forward under the new "female friendly" development program.

Also, considering she says that it is her most ambitious video research project to date, it is likely that broader more important issues (like payscale and other things) are simply beyond her reach as topics. Either because of the financial commitment involved in the research and expert requirements or accessibility.

She points out some differences in the advertising that are worth looking at, but sometimes the tone becomes a bit shrill with the eye-rolling and the smirking - but in fairness to her, if I had to look at these topics and know that I was probably just going to be flamed for bringing them up at all, I'd be prone to a little eye-rolling myself - no one is perfectly patient. She does at least point out that at some point Lego was pretty gender neutral and that it wouldn't be impossible for them to go back to that since the toy itself is appealing to both genders.

A child of the 80's, Legos were something I enjoyed playing with when I hung out with my friends who were boys, because they had the biggest collections of Legos. None of my friends who were girls had Legos - they had other stuff that was also fun to play with, most of it the fisher-price 'house' collections. I didn't have my own Lego collection, because money could be tight for presents and I focused on building my video game collection over little block sets when requesting gifts for birthdays/Christmas ect. I was fortunate that my friends who were boys (the majority of my circle of friends, in fact now that I look back on it) included me in their play (I had to beat one or two of them up first, before they would "accept" me as one of the guys - true story!), but I always felt like their friendship came at the price of having to be the most boyish boy in the room among them if I was going to be able to stay with the pack. There wasn't a lot of gender neutrality then and there could stand to be more now - if we want boys and girls to be playing together in a way that doesn't require either group to pretend they are part of the other just to get along.

 

[MrMan999]

All lego body parts are completely interchangeable.
If you don't have enough female lego characters you simply haven't bought enough female heads.

Spoiler: Lego Belville minifigs

Spoiler: Lego Friends minifigs

2 series specifically targeted at girls. Not the only ones either.

I'm not of the belief that targeting a product to a specific audience is sexism in itself.

Did you watch the videos? The disparity in current marketing, compared to the original marketing of Lego products, is pretty striking and far from accidental incidental.

I watched some of them, there's a LOT.

Lego have always had variations on their product aimed at different audiences, Bionicle, Lego Techinic etc. You don't have{/i] to buy them. And all audiences are still catered to within the core lego brand.
Arn't they?

Back when I worked at KB toys before it closed down, Most of the girls who bought legos either went for Star Wars or Bionicle.
I also saw a lot of girls buy Gundam Wing toys. But I digress.

But the option was still there for them to buy gender netural lego, or lego specifically marketed to females.

The Option was there yes. But they were the least popular Legos.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

All lego body parts are completely interchangeable.
If you don't have enough female lego characters you simply haven't bought enough female heads.

Spoiler: Lego Belville minifigs

Spoiler: Lego Friends minifigs

2 series specifically targeted at girls. Not the only ones either.

I'm not of the belief that targeting a product to a specific audience is sexism in itself.

Did you watch the videos? The disparity in current marketing, compared to the original marketing of Lego products, is pretty striking and far from accidental incidental.

I watched some of them, there's a LOT.

Lego have always had variations on their product aimed at different audiences, Bionicle, Lego Techinic etc. You don't have{/i] to buy them. And all audiences are still catered to within the core lego brand.
Arn't they?

I linked both the lego related videos in a post on the first page. Lego has existed for the better part of 60 years, but male and female exclusive advertising has only been present in the last 25-30.

EDIT: Here's a comparison:


vs


and

 

[Smeatza]

I linked both the lego related videos in a post on the first page. Lego has existed for the better part of 60 years, but male and female exclusive advertising has only been present in the last 25-30.

Those are the ones I watched.
And isn't that the case for pretty much every toy that's existed in the last 25-30 years. It seems unfair to single lego out when it's what the entire toy industry does.
Especially when their product range accounts for all ages and genders, even if their advertising doesn't.

The Option was there yes. But they were the least popular Legos.

So in spite of the fact there's a lack of demand, lego still keep making them.
That doesn't seem very sexist to me.