LEGO Builds Representation With Female Scientist Set

Lieju

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EvilRoy said:
Lieju said:
NuclearKangaroo said:
kind of redundant considering LEGO's girl oriented playsets
Which all have the minifigs that are almost completely incompatible with the standards figs.
Also they have no scientists. They are all princesses or kids with hobbies.
What was your point?
Actually, they did have a scientist set - Olivia's Invention workshop. Out of production now, because nobody bought it apparently. There are also vets, teachers and so forth. Basically the standard 'lego profession' line, except with different minifigs, and a more pastelle-ish sort of colour choice.

As another poster mentioned, they have done female oriented lego sets before a few times, they just tend not to do well - except for the friends line. Paradisa was your basic 'people having fun in different ways' sort of lego set that was ubiquitous across nineties lego except it had a light pink colour scheme, but there were also a couple "pretty princess" lines.
Why is this female scientist set 'female oriented' in itself, though?
Boys can't want female minifigs?

And that Friends-set didn't have a scientist minifig (it was a girl dressed in casual clothing), so how does it make these redundant?

EDIT: I do say this for LEGO, as far as female minifigs go, they have done good job with the collectable minifigs line, where we also got monster ladies, like a vampire bat and a gorgon.
And cavewomen and lady liberty, all kinds of diverse female figs.
(But I guess those too are 'just for girls', why would a boy want a badass female viking or a vampire?)
 

Imp_Emissary

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Stabby Joe said:
...and how many children are just going to make the scientist ride the skeleton T-Rex into battle regardless of gender or profession?
xD You say that like it's a bad thing. [sub][sub]Also, the answer is; :D ALL THE KIDS![/sub][/sub]

Anyway, neat figure sets. Good to see they made them compatible with the other sets this time. :)
 

BlumiereBleck

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Risingblade said:
I like how they're all flat
HA!

Why is everyone getting worked up over children's toys. If anything we should all be upset about the fact their going to charge $30 for this underwhelming playset.
 

Diddy_Mao

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The facial expressions on these are great.

Both faces on the astronomer look like she's totally misusing her equipment to spy on her sexy neighbor.

The Chemist's "neutral" face is, I'm sure meant to be one of deep concentration...but it kinda looks like she's one bad day away from turning full supervillain.
 

Slash2x

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Exterminas said:
*Brevity Snip
^this
I do not ask for the "girls" or "boys" toy for my son when I get a Happy Meal. I ask him what toy he wants to play with and I ask for that toy. He wanted the some MLP stuffed animal on an end cap the other day, and I was like sure buddy. Then the lady at the register asked him if that was for his sister and he (2 year old) got pissed of at her and said "it mine!"

So to the OT if it were a step toward "promoting diversity" then it would be 50% M/F, like life, not 100% Female or 100% Male, like nowhere. Instead it is just a toy set with only women, just like the ones before it only had men.
 

Machine Man 1992

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beef_razor said:
Nothing will ever beat the old original pirate sets. Knights were pretty cool too. And the underwater set... and the ninja set. Christ. LEGOS were fucking awesome.
My favorite was the alien space bug sets with the neon yellow everything.

And then there was the set with Rock people who lived underground and had giant chrome drills oneverything.

Remember that weird anime inspired set with the flying robots? That was great.

Point is, I'm more concerned with stuff being cool rather stuff being PC.
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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Exterminas said:
This is not a step into the right direction.
THANK YOU!

In my eyes, the solution to there not being enough female Lego characters in playsets is to mix-up the genders to be something closer to 50/50 - maybe even include an extra figure or two if needed - not to release all-new "girl" Legos. All that does is lead to additional segregation.
Mike Hoffman said:
Exterminas said:
This is not a step into the right direction.
*snip*
Except this decision, like all decisions, was not made in a vacuum. LEGO spent decades making all-male sets that featured figures in a variety of roles, and then an all-female set was made with the focus on gendered roles. Basically, LEGO had a problem, and releasing a couple all female sets before going into the "equal representation" area. Hell, right now it's not equal representation. Look at the LEGO line-up. If they want to get to "equal" then they have a lot of all-female sets to go.
That's like saying that the solution to slavery is that blacks should have been allowed to enslave whites for a century or two; or that we should still have "whites" and "blacks" bathrooms, but now the blacks will have the nice bathrooms, then eventually when we've "evened-out" we can start sharing bathrooms. As the old idiom states: Two wrongs do not make a right. "Girls-only" Legos is not the answer to the notion that Lego playsets are too male-oriented.
 

maninahat

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WhiteTigerShiro said:
Exterminas said:
This is not a step into the right direction.
THANK YOU!

In my eyes, the solution to there not being enough female Lego characters in playsets is to mix-up the genders to be something closer to 50/50 - maybe even include an extra figure or two if needed - not to release all-new "girl" Legos. All that does is lead to additional segregation.
Mike Hoffman said:
Exterminas said:
This is not a step into the right direction.
*snip*
Except this decision, like all decisions, was not made in a vacuum. LEGO spent decades making all-male sets that featured figures in a variety of roles, and then an all-female set was made with the focus on gendered roles. Basically, LEGO had a problem, and releasing a couple all female sets before going into the "equal representation" area. Hell, right now it's not equal representation. Look at the LEGO line-up. If they want to get to "equal" then they have a lot of all-female sets to go.
That's like saying that the solution to slavery is that blacks should have been allowed to enslave whites for a century or two; or that we should still have "whites" and "blacks" bathrooms, but now the blacks will have the nice bathrooms, then eventually when we've "evened-out" we can start sharing bathrooms. As the old idiom states: Two wrongs do not make a right. "Girls-only" Legos is not the answer to the notion that Lego playsets are too male-oriented.
I think you are being hyperbolic. Making all female sets with female scientists won't take away from the all male lego moon bases, pirate ships and other sets aimed at boys; if a boy wants sciencey lego, those sets still exist. Boys aren't being discriminated against because of the existence of these lady scientists, but girls were being discriminated by the lack of lady scientists. If you've got pro science/pro-technology/pro-action sets aimed at boys and girls, you aren't doing any harm.

I would however like to see more lego sets encouraging boys to be stylists, pony riders and florists.
 

EvilRoy

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Lieju said:
EvilRoy said:
Lieju said:
NuclearKangaroo said:
kind of redundant considering LEGO's girl oriented playsets
Which all have the minifigs that are almost completely incompatible with the standards figs.
Also they have no scientists. They are all princesses or kids with hobbies.
What was your point?
Actually, they did have a scientist set - Olivia's Invention workshop. Out of production now, because nobody bought it apparently. There are also vets, teachers and so forth. Basically the standard 'lego profession' line, except with different minifigs, and a more pastelle-ish sort of colour choice.

As another poster mentioned, they have done female oriented lego sets before a few times, they just tend not to do well - except for the friends line. Paradisa was your basic 'people having fun in different ways' sort of lego set that was ubiquitous across nineties lego except it had a light pink colour scheme, but there were also a couple "pretty princess" lines.
Why is this female scientist set 'female oriented' in itself, though?
Boys can't want female minifigs?

And that Friends-set didn't have a scientist minifig (it was a girl dressed in casual clothing), so how does it make these redundant?
The spellchecker is driving me up the wall but I'm not adding minifig to the dictionary.

Anyway, I never claimed it makes them redundant, just that lego has, in the past, totally done things that aren't stereotypically girly for sets aimed at girls, contrary to the claim you had made.

I did have to do some research to figure out when this whole 'lego people with jobs' thing really started though. It wasn't like this when I grew up, it was 'car' or 'castle' or 'space-something', plus some yellow people, most of whom didn't even have drawn on hair. This whole legoes with jobs thing seems to be relatively new outside the old fireman/policeman standby.

EDIT: I do say this for LEGO, as far as female minifigs go, they have done good job with the collectable minifigs line, where we also got monster ladies, like a vampire bat and a gorgon.
And cavewomen and lady liberty, all kinds of diverse female figs.
(But I guess those too are 'just for girls', why would a boy want a badass female viking or a vampire?)
I imagine from the perspective of lego the friends sets are as 'just for girls' as everything else is 'just for boys'. Its not like they discourage girls from buying any of the other sets, parents just apparently don't do it. I seem to remember reading an interview that the whole 'pink' sets were a reaction to the fact that the otherwise gender neutral sets were only selling to boys and lego - like most companies with a near monopoly - really like money.
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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maninahat said:
I think you are being hyperbolic. Making all female sets with female scientists won't take away from the all male lego moon bases, pirate ships and other sets aimed at boys; if a boy wants sciencey lego, those sets still exist. Boys aren't being discriminated against because of the existence of these lady scientists, but girls were being discriminated by the lack of lady scientists. If you've got pro science/pro-technology/pro-action sets aimed at boys and girls, you aren't doing any harm.
It's not about these sets "taking away from" the "male Legos", it's that these sets don't do anything to address the fact that they ARE "male Legos" in the first place. The solution to segregation isn't to introduce more segregation. Meanwhile, what if girls want to play with these moon base Lego sets, but are turned-off by the fact that all of the characters are male? Or what if a male wants to have a modern-day scientist to go with his city set, but doesn't want it to be just women scientists?

We haven't solved a problem; we've just created a new one while leaving the old problem intact.
 

Jumplion

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Slash2x said:
I do not ask for the "girls" or "boys" toy for my son when I get a Happy Meal. I ask him what toy he wants to play with and I ask for that toy. He wanted the some MLP stuffed animal on an end cap the other day, and I was like sure buddy. Then the lady at the register asked him if that was for his sister and he (2 year old) got pissed of at her and said "it mine!"
Good for your son, and good for you for being supportive over that.

I'd imagine it would be better to have more opportunities to choose "girl" toys 'cause toys are toys.

So to the OT if it were a step toward "promoting diversity" then it would be 50% M/F, like life, not 100% Female or 100% Male, like nowhere. Instead it is just a toy set with only women, just like the ones before it only had men.
That would be a valid argument if there weren't already a huge majority of male versions already. It's a false equivalency. When one person wants a 100 meter bridge, and the other doesn't one a bridge at all, the solution is not to make a 50 meter bridge. Adding a toy set that's dedicated to a historically underrepresented group of people is not being unfair to the group of historically overrepresented people, it's simple representation.

WhiteTigerShiro said:
In my eyes, the solution to there not being enough female Lego characters in playsets is to mix-up the genders to be something closer to 50/50 - maybe even include an extra figure or two if needed - not to release all-new "girl" Legos. All that does is lead to additional segregation.
Again, this would be valid if there weren't already a huge skew in representation towards men.

Lets take a mathematical approach to this, switch things up. Lets say there are 75 male figures, and only 25 female ones. We could have sets that are now 50/50 male:female figurines, but that still leaves male figurines in the majority. The only way to get a proper 50/50 representation is to provide female-only sets. Especially considering that there are already a plethora of male-only sets, I don't see the issue. I do not assume malicious intent by Lego, it's just what it is.

That's like saying that the solution to slavery is that blacks should have been allowed to enslave whites for a century or two; or that we should still have "whites" and "blacks" bathrooms, but now the blacks will have the nice bathrooms, then eventually when we've "evened-out" we can start sharing bathrooms. As the old idiom states: Two wrongs do not make a right. "Girls-only" Legos is not the answer to the notion that Lego playsets are too male-oriented.
It is not the equivalent at all. Slavery is not equivalent to representation in most any sense that I can think of, they're two widely different topics. Slavery involves one group dominating itself over another, and ideally would be better with less representatives. Segregation involves disenfranchising already underrepresented minorities, it works opposite of representation.

Really think about what you're saying. You are comparing a toy set intended to bring more representation to a historically underrepresented group to the act of slavery and the arbitrary segregation of people based on factors they cannot control (an act that, as I said before, limits representation). You're saying it is unacceptable for women to have more representation in a medium that is dominated by male representation. The only solution is to arbitrarily go 50/50, still giving men the dominant supply of representation.

If you really wanted to keep with your slavery/segregation analogy, a better version would be to say that, say, back in the 1960s we should have emphasized great black teachers in our school systems to show that minorities could achieve greatness, or show black kids in segregated and low-quality schools that they can be just as successful and hard-working as their supposed better whites.

This toy set is intended to highlight an underrepresented group of people because they shouldn't need to in the first place. That's why it's important.
 

Dragonlayer

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I see the female astronomer is running away from the T-Rex instead of defending herself - that's pretty sexist, yo.


FogHornG36 said:
Well this just isn't right! why do all of these females have to adhere to the patriarchal standards of beauty?! lipstick, beauty marks, and even their bodies are painted on to look like they have an hour glass figure!!

SMASH THE PATRIARCHY!!
Alright Foghorn but make sure you pack away all the bits of the Patriarchy: I don't want to stand on any misogyny when I've just woken up.
 

Jumplion

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WhiteTigerShiro said:
It's not about these sets "taking away from" the "male Legos", it's that these sets don't do anything to address the fact that they ARE "male Legos" in the first place. The solution to segregation isn't to introduce more segregation. Meanwhile, what if girls want to play with these moon base Lego sets, but are turned-off by the fact that all of the characters are male? Or what if a male wants to have a modern-day scientist to go with his city set, but doesn't want it to be just women scientists?

We haven't solved a problem; we've just created a new one while leaving the old problem intact.
1) I think you are giving excitable 5 to 10 year old kids way too much credit in what they actually care about.

2) We should probably teach kids that it doesn't matter whether or not a minifig is a woman or not, which leads to...
-2a) If the same child didn't want a playset simply because it had a black minifig, I'd hope you'd be quite uncomfortable with that notion and question what his/her parents are teaching them.

3) Even if we do accept your hypothetical, young boys would have much more variety of options regarding whether or not they want their Lego people to be women or not. There are plenty of male scientist minifigs, several of which carry around badass whips and go on adventures from what I understand.

4) Again, you are comparing segregation, a social policy meant to reduce representation in minorities (See: Apartheid in South Africa), to actual representation.
 

Mike Hoffman

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Jumplion said:
Mike Hoffman said:
That's like saying that the solution to slavery is that blacks....
Hey could you fix that quote? :D

Also, since I'm here, I've noticed all the counter-arguments in this thread. I don't care to engage in arguments, which is why I haven't responded directly to anyone and I don't intend to. I would like to share an image I'm sure we've all seen before.
[/spoiler]
If the first thing you want to do is poke holes in that, fine. Otherwise, consider how it applies to this situation.
 

Jumplion

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Mike Hoffman said:
Jumplion said:
Mike Hoffman said:
That's like saying that the solution to slavery is that blacks....
Hey could you fix that quote? :D
Oopsie-daisy, fixed.

Also, since I'm here, I've noticed all the counter-arguments in this thread. I don't care to engage in arguments, which is why I haven't responded directly to anyone and I don't intend to. I would like to share an image I'm sure we've all seen before.
[/spoiler]
If the first thing you want to do is poke holes in that, fine. Otherwise, consider how it applies to this situation.[/quote]

Great image, I'll be sure to cite that for further use.
 

Stabby Joe

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Imp Emissary said:
Stabby Joe said:
...and how many children are just going to make the scientist ride the skeleton T-Rex into battle regardless of gender or profession?
xD You say that like it's a bad thing. [sub][sub]Also, the answer is; :D ALL THE KIDS![/sub][/sub]
Not at all, you got the answer right in one.
 

maninahat

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WhiteTigerShiro said:
maninahat said:
I think you are being hyperbolic. Making all female sets with female scientists won't take away from the all male lego moon bases, pirate ships and other sets aimed at boys; if a boy wants sciencey lego, those sets still exist. Boys aren't being discriminated against because of the existence of these lady scientists, but girls were being discriminated by the lack of lady scientists. If you've got pro science/pro-technology/pro-action sets aimed at boys and girls, you aren't doing any harm.
It's not about these sets "taking away from" the "male Legos", it's that these sets don't do anything to address the fact that they ARE "male Legos" in the first place. The solution to segregation isn't to introduce more segregation. Meanwhile, what if girls want to play with these moon base Lego sets, but are turned-off by the fact that all of the characters are male? Or what if a male wants to have a modern-day scientist to go with his city set, but doesn't want it to be just women scientists?

We haven't solved a problem; we've just created a new one while leaving the old problem intact.
Well, we're solving the problem of there not being enough toys encouraging girls to be more into science. But I basically agree that lego sets should have a more balanced mix of male and female characters. There is no reason why a lego airport set can't have a male and female pilot.