Subject:
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Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:20:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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12502 times
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In lugnet.dear-lego, C. L. GunningCook wrote:
> Building equality one female minifig at a time. (My apologies in advance for
> those of you that have already heard this rant.)
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, the latest hospital set (7892) contains 4 minifigs. 3 are
distinctly male, and the pilot, although perhaps ambiguous, would typically be
assumed to be male given no clear identifying features. How many all-male
public hospitals have you ever visited? Surely one of these could be female?
I don't think a neutral face and a spare wig in a set will work, as you can't
portray both figures 'in-role' on the packaging. The only thing you could have
is either some sort of emblazoned logo to draw attention to it (which goes
against the whole point of this exercise) or different pictures on the front and
back (like the police car - but this would lead to shops only showing one side,
and is another nail in the coffin of alternate models).
I think the policy of only including females as an incentive to buy big
expensive sets is twisted and wrong and needs to be stamped out immediately.
Unique or special figures are fine, but the specific focus on gender projects
the wrong image - portraying the female as a token or object.
Now a 50:50 rule across a range may well conflict with LEGO's marketing and
customer profiling; even saying that if a set contains 2 minifigs, one should be
female, may conflict with some set ideas (e.g. jousting knights). But it should
at least be considered. When a set has 3, 4 or more minifigures though, there's
just no excuse for not including females.
Maybe this is still discrimination, but LEGO have to address the issue that if,
for example, the doctor's car had contained a single female figure, how many
little boys would put it on their wanted list? Would a number of additional
sales to girls make up the difference? Given LEGO's popularity with boys, would
(or even should) LEGO take that chance?
The new modular street, with one male, one female, and one fairly neutral
long-haired figure gets it spot-on though and should be applauded. But perhaps
it shows that this gender equality is most viable in real-life sets, and the
more dramatic or fantastic sets are all aimed squarely at boyish values.
Jason R
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Building equality one female minifig at a time.
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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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Message is in Reply To:
| | 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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