Feminists, Please Leave LEGO Friends Alone!

This blog is in response to a prompt from Mama Kat: "Write a blog post inspired by the word: pink."

Before I launch into the point of this blog, I want to clarify my definition of feminist. I am in complete solidarity with the definition of feminist from dictionary.com: "advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men." People who know me know I want my girls to be strong, heroic, brave women. I read to them about women warriors and superheroes. I'm appalled when I hear that even today some people think women are always responsible for attacks on them by men or that men earn more than women doing the same jobs. So in this post I am not referring to women who fit the dictionary.com definition. The feminists I am referring to are the ones who give feminism a bad name. The ones who make anger and complaining and judging their food. The ones who want to be considered superior to men. The ones who rage over LEGO Friends.

I have read several blogs furiously chastising LEGO for their Friends line of toys because the sets have the colors pink and purple in them. This means LEGO is reinforcing the stereotype of girls only liking pink and purple. That LEGO is forcing our little girls into a societal mold that says they only like frilly things and can't be as good as boys. After all, the LEGO Friends line has a shopping mall. A shopping mall! That makes girls think all they are good for is shopping.

Wait? I thought feminists wanted to support women. But it seems to me that raging over LEGO Friends doesn't support all women. It supports only women who don't like pink. Slamming LEGO for the colors of the Friends line implies that any girl who likes pink and purple is less of a woman. Look, pink and purple are just colors. It's okay for a girl to like any color--blue, yellow, green and yes, pink and purple.

Confession: my oldest's favorite color is pink. But she isn't into the mall (unless it has a play area) or makeup or shopping. She runs around flinging herself onto the couch pretending to be on American Ninja Warrior. She's created her own superhero: Super Cheetah. She fights Grandpa with her lightsaber. And yet, she adores the LEGO friends line. She is into animals now and has the pet vet hospital, the jungle rescue base and multiple pet oriented sets. She likes the animals more than the people actually. It doesn't even occur to her that she is less than a boy because she plays with LEGO Friends. She imagines adventures and rescues and animal parties. But even if she didn't, if she wanted the mall and to play shopping, there is nothing wrong with that.

This argument is even more ridiculous to me when you actually consider the percentage of colors in the Lego Friends sets we have. Below is a picture of my oldest's LEGO box. It's organized by color.

Here are the colors in order from most to least: white, green, blue, tan/brown/red, pink, purple/gray/black/yellow. Blue comes before pink!!! In fact, six colors come before pink. Is it okay to have a smidgen of pink? I guess not if you need to rage over it.

Another complaint other than colors is that the sets pigeonhole girls into certain roles. I completely disagree. For example, the Jungle Rescue Base I mentioned above. It's got a raft and a technologically tricked out to tree to look for hurt animals from and a house to live in the jungle and an outhouse. It's all about rescuing animals and that thrills my daughter. There is nothing in this set that screams mall or makeup. It's rough and tumble. There is an outhouse!

To see if I was missing something, I decided to peruse current LEGO friends sets. Some fit the "stereotype." A pop star house. A supermarket. A hotel. A sewing set. But then I see an astronomy set, rafting set, archery set, airplanes, a roadster, a skate park, an ambulance. It seems to me LEGO is doing a good job reaching out to girls who like various things and validating whatever a girl likes. If she likes sewing, great! There's a set for that. If she likes going to the grocery store, there's a set for that. Is she into science? There's a set for that. Is she into sports? There are sets for that.

This complaint about pigeonholing is coupled with another complaint that the sets have so many specialized pieces that you can't free play and so girls are stuck in the mold of the set. I snicker every time I read that. Below is a picture of my daughter's current LEGO set up (not counting those in use elsewhere). It's about a 50/50 combination of objects made with LEGO instructions and those she made on her own. She puts together the sets when she receives them and a few days later they are apart and being made into whatever she wants. She is constantly coming up with creations of her own and I love that about LEGO. No, there are not so many specialized parts that she is forced to stay in the submissive LEGO mold.

So, what do I really want to convey? Let's lighten up, ladies. It's okay for a girl to like pink. It's okay for LEGO to include pink. It's okay for a girl to like to sew or go to the mall. If we really want to support all girls, then we need to support girls that like to sew and go to the mall, too. If a girl wants to design fashion, great. If she wants to be a scientist, great. Instead of getting all ragy and judgy over LEGO friends, lets recognize that all girls matter and let's not pigeonhole girls ourselves by telling girls that like pink that they aren't woman enough.