Did anyone else see this? An issue of Lego Friends (a magazine that is targeted at girls aged between 7 - 11), has recently come under fire on twitter and the media. In the comic strip style story, the characters discuss going to a meeting that a (female) researcher is hosting. One says: ‘We won’t be able to just walk right in. A group of girls among researchers – we’ll stick out like sore thumbs.’
The girls decide to dress up as bakers and give out muffins as "nobody will suspect a thing."
"Yay! That means that I can design uniforms for us!" cheers one.
"We can sing songs while we're baking!" cries another.
At the meeting the researcher explains to the assembled audience "It goes without saying that this vision of the city's future requires a substantial amount of energy which should be generated with a combination of flux compression and solar power"
"What a load of scientific jargon." says one of the characters.
"Booooring! Time to do some baking!" says another.
"But that 3D model is shining so beautifully!" comments a third.
"I thought it was super-interesting! Innovative technology!" says the bespectacled character with STEM interests, before adding "Huh, OK, if you say so..." as they all go off to bake.
This is from the December 2019 issue.
A spokesperson for Lego said: ‘We believe that LEGO play is for everyone and our magazines should reflect that. With this story, we were trying to show that girls have lots of different interests and passions including science and STEM but we appreciate that some of the language we used missed the mark this time and we apologise. ‘We will certainly learn from this and do better in future.’
So do Lego get points for having a female researcher? Or for having a story about STEM topics in the first place? Or is that overshadowed by the conversations and attitudes portrayed by their main characters? I haven't seen the whole magazine so I'm hoping that there is some sort of a twist before the story ended, but the wording used certainly raises some questions! What are your thoughts? Would you want your 7-11 year old daughters/nieces reading this?
Follow the comments on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/lettoysbetoys/status/1207238891033518080 or read more here: https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/18/lego-kids-magazine-branded-sexist-saying-girls-stick-among-scientists-11927086/
