Feminist Frequency needs a fact check?

[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.

 

[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?

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

Point Taken. Although If I may unleash my inner Lego fanboy for a sec, That crane looks fucking awesome.

 

[MrMan999]

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.

To be fair, trying to compete with Star Wars anything is a fools errand.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

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.

Lego was used as a microcosm to demonstrate a greater problem. Its hard to encompass the whole industry and still make easily understandable to passive viewers. Lego is both instantly recognisable and very simple in its aesthetic design, which makes the glaring differences between male and female orientated ads more apparent.

But what about this for a kicker. Where the boys ads and the old ad focus on and encourage construction and experimentation and can give way to roleplay, the girls ad is entirely roleplay (construction is a chore to get by, like assembling a desk from Ikea) and the roleplay consists of baking, accessorissing, caretaking and shopping.

Where are the female doctors in non-pink hospitals? Where are the Female firefighters in heartlake city (not to be confused with Lego city, oh god no... thats preposterous).

Girls don't get the same lego experience that boys get, or at least that's what they are been encouraged to see. Despite it being essentially the same product with different pastel palettes, the actual focus of fun between the boy ads and girl ads is entirely different.

Also, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of girls who don't want to partake in catering, caretaking, baking and shopping ALL the damn time. If I was to take a wild guess, I'd say that women would also like to have heroic adventures or to fight crime or to go to space.

But nope, the Lego group don't see it that way. Boys want to be out there adventuring, girls want to do girly things... bleh.

Point Taken. Although If I may unleash my inner Lego fanboy for a sec, That crane looks fucking awesome.

It does doesn't it.

I'm pretty sure there are girls who would also like it, but this ad is basically telling that girl its for boys only.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

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.

Holy crap that was the most condescending post I've read in Off-Topic since... a very long time.

Even if your points are correct, no one is going to listen to someone who calls them a Troglodyte (which according to Wikipedia is a small species of Wren [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodytes_%28wren%29].) Who knew?

It would also help if you actually addressed the points raised in the video instead of solely attacking the personal respectability of those who oppose you, because even if they are assholes, they could still be right on this issue.

That issue was whether the marketing of the new girl-centric Lego range was sexist, or at least well implemented, when Lego in its component structure is a gender neutral object, and many sets are gender neutral too. How do you get more girls interested in Lego?

Spoiler

 

[Icehearted]

As I understand it feminism is largely sensationalist anyway. American is in a major election year, so naturally that's one of the cards being played to manipulate voters. The so-called "war on women", for example; pretty sure there's not active campaign of warfare (media, psychological, or otherwise) on women or their rights. The gender pay gap is, as I understand it, a myth, and the fight against abortion has existed long before it was legalized.

Some radicals are blowing things out of proportion, and nearly all of the women I know see it exactly as that. Many of them don't even know about most of this nonsense, and even fewer care.

As for the kickstarter shitstorm, she went right for the hornet's nest and it paid off big time. It proves only that there are people willing to draw lines in the sand and insist people take a side, and that others will support that mindset however counterproductive to their own causes doing so actually is.

So much drama over problems that pretty much aren't there to begin with. Pisses me off that game companies will completely compromise to the vocal minority, but then this industry isn't known for having a strong sense of integrity.

 

[MrMan999]

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.

Lego was used as a microcosm to demonstrate a greater problem. Its hard to encompass the whole industry and still make easily understandable to passive viewers. Lego is both instantly recognisable and very simple in its aesthetic design, which makes the glaring differences between male and female orientated ads more apparent.

But what about this for a kicker. Where the boys ads and the old ad focus on and encourage construction and experimentation and can give way to roleplay, the girls ad is entirely roleplay (construction is a chore to get by, like assembling a desk from Ikea) and the roleplay consists of baking, accessorissing, caretaking and shopping.

Where are the female doctors in non-pink hospitals? Where are the Female firefighters in heartlake city (not to be confused with Lego city, oh god no... thats preposterous).

Girls don't get the same lego experience that boys get, or at least that's what they are been encouraged to see. Despite it being essentially the same product with different pastel palettes, the actual focus of fun between the boy ads and girl ads is entirely different.

Also, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of girls who don't want to partake in catering, caretaking, baking and shopping ALL the damn time. If I was to take a wild guess, I'd say that women would also like to have heroic adventures or to fight crime or to go to space.

But nope, the Lego group don't see it that way. Boys want to be out there adventuring, girls want to do girly things... bleh.

Point Taken. Although If I may unleash my inner Lego fanboy for a sec, That crane looks fucking awesome.

It does doesn't it.

I'm pretty sure there are girls who would also like it, but this ad is basically telling that girl its for boys only.

I always hated that Boys=Adventuring and Girls=Home Making thing.