 | | Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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Building equality one female minifig at a time. (My apologies in advance for those of you that have already heard this rant.) Dear Lego, I have always been impressed with TLC's ability to provide quality products as well as sustaining valuable input (...) (17 years ago, 27-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego) !!
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| | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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(...) I pretty much concur with everything that you wrote. And I would be really curious to see what the sales figures (dollar wise) are for girl-oriented lines such as Paradisa, Scala and Clickits. Or even some trend lines. Or I'll settle for (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) Well of course you'd say all of that; you're a girl! Hardy har har. IMO you're right on the money with pretty much everything you wrote. I can think of no real justification for failing to include female minifigs in a much broader range of (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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| | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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(...) <snippage> Not at all. When you raised this issue at Brickworld during the Q&A, it got me to thinking. What do you think about the idea of simply including female wigs in every set? I mean, a fig is essentially gender neutral until wigs are (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, lugnet.general, FTX)
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(...) Or, as I mentioned earlier, just include multiple wigs. It's cheaper, and skirts the gender issue completely. (sorry)(but not really) JOHN (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) That's not a bad workaround, as long as the printing on the faces remains gender-neutral. One need look no further than the Adventurers theme to see the problem there. But now that you mention it, that problem could be headed off (!) by (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) What do you do about figs with facial hair (beards, mustaches etc) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.general)
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(...) <snip> This gets me thinking, what is it that defines a 'female' minifig? Personally, when I populate a scene I try to get a good gender balance and there are a variety of things that define 'female' A definitively 'female' torso A (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) I would like to request a very specific female minifig. Batgirl. She's historically one of the more important and recognizable members of the Bat-family (even moreso than Nightwing, IMO), and she's still going to be absent going into the third (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) But are there any? I've got long hair, and for my personal minifig I carved down a Qui-Gon hair (ostensibly one of the more "female" looking hairs in the line, except that it was designed specifically for a very recognizable male character). (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) I'd be happy with less of those too... the facial hair fashions of minifigs differ greatly from those I've observed in any country I've been to. Tim (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.general)
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(...) Though I am radical in my decision to use only "fleshies" on our train layout (but using all of the tones of flesh), I am quite traditional when it comes to faces. I would be perfectly happy with all of my figs being good ol' smilies. What if (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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| | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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(...) I too hate the lipstick laden minifig heads. I really don't know any women that wear that much makeup. For my female figs, I always try use the gender neutral heads. However, I have been impressed with the latest Harry Potter figs for (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) This reminds me of one of LEGO's internal rules in the Model Shop (where many of the cool big displays are created) - Minfigs can never be alone. They're always in pairs or groups. They are *interacting* with each other. This was the rule when (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) I know that LDD doesn't offer "fleshies", (so this won't help you, John) but it does offer a five different minifig heads. You could create your own minifig head pack. I'm certainly planning on buying some faces, figs, and hair whenever I (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.general)
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(...) radical=depraved ;) (...) Which must make it really hard to make female figs. The range of female options in flesh is far more limited, particularly for the darker skinned fleshies. (...) Can you get blank flesh heads of either hue? Tim (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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(...) I bought a Doctor's Car (7902) for a friend's daughter's birthday and took along a female hair piece which I gave to her along with the set. Voila! Instant female. Would that really have negatively affected TLC's bottom line to include that (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) I heartily agree. I have always thought that females were sadly underrepresented in LEGO sets. I would like to see more female minifigs in med-large sets alternate female heads and headgear in the majority of sets. I'm not worried so much (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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| | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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(...) They already beat Hermione a few years ago with the Studios redhead 2-sider face, which features a more obvious, but far more girly lipstick design (and only a faint bit of detailing on the eyes to suggest anything was applied there): (URL) (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) At BrickFest last year the LEGO store gave away some cardboard/foamboard displays during the raffle, and one of them was a sequence of pictures called "The Many Faces of LEGO" -- something like that. Here's a crude re-creation from memory: (...) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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(...) I built my own: (URL) Well, this one is Batwoman, but the concept would be the same. Catwoman's face under Batman's cowl works pretty well. -Elroy (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) I don't know how I feel about including a decapitated woman's head in every LEGO set. Doesn't seem to send the right message about gender equality. -Lenny (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) LOL! You reveal your own ABS sexism by assuming that the woman would have to be decapitated! Why not yank off the man's head instead? Or why not include a headless body with the pair of heads alongside? Dave! (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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| | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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(...) the problem solved. :-) (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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| | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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(...) in the meantime you can go "virtual" ;-) (URL) more can be found at: (URL) bye, w. (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) Just a thought to add on that point; The cost of a few discarded figs is minuscule if it means more girls are buying lego sets. Imagine the profit to be made if both genders could share the fun of system. Profit... cha-ching. (17 years ago, 28-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) Per Peeron, yes, all colors of blank flesh head DO exist (I actually own the medium flesh color myself). Plus there is always Brasso to remove print from heads :) (17 years ago, 29-Jun-07, to lugnet.general)
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Hey, I highly agree. In my own theme-of-choice, castle, we get about one female fig for every 50 male figs. Of course, part of that is due to the over-emphasis on action and conflict, where most castle figs are knights and soldiers (traditionally (...) (17 years ago, 29-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) I did something similar, but went more towards the classic Batgirl design. Catwoman's body and head (yellow-corrected, of course), Batman's cape and cowl, and one of the gold batsymbols from the Arkham sticker sheet (with the black border very (...) (17 years ago, 29-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) You missed one, but I'm not entirely sure being included in the only $500 set ever produced will really help her stats that much... (...) Ah, but one of those sets includes the other, less expensive set, making her presence in the smaller set (...) (17 years ago, 29-Jun-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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The problem with throwing a wig on a gender neutral face is that the "female" will either be butch or a plain Jane. My male troopers deserve hot counterparts! (17 years ago, 30-Jun-07, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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(...) Surely we fans have lamented about this before, but like all classic topics, it is worthy of bringing up again every now and then so newer members of the community can share their thoughts. I also feel you presented yourself well, and the (...) (17 years ago, 1-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) Haha, thanks for keeping the thread from becoming too tediously PC! :) Magnus (17 years ago, 1-Jul-07, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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Great points Janey, and nice to see some interesting and friendly debate here on Lugnet. I think there are two related issues here: One is whether LEGO, as a company (and quite frankly a cultural institution in certain parts of the world), has a (...) (17 years ago, 1-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) That has indeed been the case in some themes, but not all. The Ninja Princess (white ninja, for those who aren't familiar with that excellent, but short-lived line) came in the third-largest set (Emperor's Stronghold: $40), and one of the (...) (17 years ago, 2-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) I quite agree. Magnus has a point about what will sell, so I think the aim should be to make a few changes. I don't think the demand is for a perfect 50:50 split between minifigs across the range, but to start with a few changes. For example, (...) (17 years ago, 3-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) Bam. When you've got the new "MONSTER EXPLOSION ASSAULT HERO TESTOSTERONE SQUAD!(tm)" theme, it's simply going to be male dominated. It's going to have characters, rather than generic poeople-- just like we've seen in Adventurers, Exo-Force, (...) (17 years ago, 3-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) I forgot one very recent addition. Hitomi from the Exo-Force line is only available in the Golden Tower set ($30). Now, if you go only by character name, Meca One isn't available in a set under $50 (assuming you want his legs and everything), (...) (17 years ago, 4-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego, FTX)
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(...) Funny thing with Exo-Force is it's based around the style of Japanese kids' Anime and Manga that comes with associated collectible toys/cards etc. And most of these nowadays have a pretty good mix of strong male/female roles (though admittedly (...) (17 years ago, 4-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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Magnus ol' buddy, I was disheartened to see such a sexist expeditionary force at Brickworld. I'm glad you had a racially integrated fighting force but I saw not a single female trooper. Does this mean that in your future military, you suscribe (...) (17 years ago, 4-Jul-07, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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(...) Oh, come on and be honest now. Most Japanese anime/manga has female characters for the male otaku to drool over. Gratuitous shots that you just won't find in American cartoons isn't called "fan service" for nothing. And it's not just in the (...) (17 years ago, 4-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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(...) Yeah, sorry, but if you find anything about Kiki's servicy in the classic sense*, you need to seriously consider not being a lolicon. As to your original point, generalizations for the fail. Yes, many anime and manga series aimed at males do (...) (17 years ago, 5-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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I have to laugh because this was my hobby-horse 10 years ago. There has been some progress, but things are still pretty bad. I notice that Lego Designer/Pick-A-Brick includes one female head, 3 male heads, and 2 neutral heads. It also includes 2 (...) (17 years ago, 14-Jul-07, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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