LEGO Friends for Girls – Is it Sexist or Not?

LEGO Friends - Olivia's Tree House

LEGO Friends is now available at major retailers. What is LEGO Friends, you ask? LEGO after much touted intensive research for the first time ever, has developed an  entire new construction play theme, Heartlake City specifically tailored to girls ages 5-9.

Since the launch, there has been much backlash and controversy: it’s sexist, why were the LEGO characters changed (the girls are less “block” like and girly), can’t girls play with existing LEGO set,  blah, blah, blah.

Here is my personal take on the new line and yes, I have a focus group of one, my daughter from which I draw this opinion.

Boys and Girls do play differently.  I think that “playing” with LEGO  is an amazing learning tool and  draws on child’s imagination as well provides focus on building the sets.

Around age 4-5, I noticed all my daughter’s boy peers all had LEGO and none of the girls did. Who knows why? I never asked the girl’s parents.  Then, as a birthday swag bag, she received a giant bin of LEGO bricks, which she promptly put on the shelf with no interest in playing, even with help from Nana.

Then when she was 6, we went to the LEGO store at Rockefeller Center (if you come to New York, make the pilgrimage just to see all the figures)  where she begged for one of the many sets in the store. I said no thinking why would I spend $40 plus for something I know she is not interested in. So we came to a middle ground where I bought her a little car that cost $15 to see if she would actually play with it.

Lo and behold, she sat down and finished it quickly and since then she has completed more and more complex sets from Pirates and the Caribbean Queen Anne to Harry Potter sets.

You can say LEGO Friends is sexist, why can’t girls build the sets in existence, why do the figures have to change design but the most important person is the target demographic is  my 8 year old daughter.

• Why do you like the new LEGO Friends? “It’s cute, it’s pink.”
• Are you interested in building LEGO Friends? “YES” said enthusiastically and loudly.
• But don’t you like LEGO now? “I like Harry Potter yes but nothing else.”