LEGO Heroes Battle Sexism – and Ageism
A couple of years ago, iconic toy company LEGO came under fire for its overwhelmingly male characters, or minifigs, so it created the girls-only LEGO Friends line. That move caused the company even more problems: The “Friends” – a beautician, a singer, a waitress and others – were stereotypically girly, as immortalized in a report by Gothamist titled “Gender-Normative LEGOs With Boobs Pissing Everyone Off.”
Now artist, editor, children’s-media creator and all-around smart girl Maia Weinstock has come up with a remedy: The Justice League. A set of five minifigs, it includes Justice O, Justice G, Justice S and Justice K (aka Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan), plus the makings of the SCOTUS library.
It’s all part of Weinstock’s effort to encourage girls to aim for non-stereotypical girl careers. But wait – maybe there’s even more to the Justice League. Could toy bricks like these also make a dent in ageism by exposing kids not just to smart toy women, but to smart, active older toy women?
Too bad: Although the Justice League set was submitted to LEGO Ideas, the company says it can’t make it available for sale because of its political nature.
Who’s up for petitioning the toy maker to come up with LEGO “Seniors”? Which older women or men would you pick for LEGOization?
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Comments
I buy individual LEGO and LEGO compatible pieces online (faces, hair, bodies) etc. online for my grandson, and I have put together “older” minifigs. You don’t have to wait until they sell complete sets, although having them available would sure make them more popular. But in the meanwhile, it’s possible to create your own older LEGO folks.
The point is not to be able to create one’s own minifigs in order to fill a gap that exists in the Lego minifig gallery, but to encourage Lego itself to step up to the plate and start acting as if women are an actual part of the universe, not just appendages or add-ons intended to satisfy the demands of a few disgruntled feminists. Maia Weinstock doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk too, and her Legal Justice League entry into the Lego Ideas contest should be given as full and fair a consideration as any other “non-political” entry. If it were, it would win!