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"What a load of scientific jargon." "Boooooring! Time to do some baking!"

Amber Thomas

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/


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    Abimbola Akanwo-Hood:

    Wish we can just allow everyone to be themselves...for heaven's sake, just be you, yourself and be happy.




     

    Abi,

    Everyone can of course be themselves. However, organisations sending out messages about how girls and boys think and behave have a responsibility to society. I'm afraid that these message sent out to girls and boys, and parents, and anyone else that reads them, will set expectations of what girls like and how they are expected to behave and how society should view them. So I'm afraid I disagree, strongly, about what we should expect from these companies and the messages they send. Lego is particularly surprising since their advertising used to be neutral, with little girls and boys looking so delighted at building weird and unusual structures from the toy. Now, we have a pink branded set of Friends Lego (with nail bars and other lovely lady things) and the magazine was just shocking sexism.

    All these little subtle messages make a difference and tell girls their little pink brains shouldn't be worried with difficult likes engineering and should just focus on baking a cake.


    Maria

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  • 0

    Abimbola Akanwo-Hood:

    Wish we can just allow everyone to be themselves...for heaven's sake, just be you, yourself and be happy.




     

    Abi,

    Everyone can of course be themselves. However, organisations sending out messages about how girls and boys think and behave have a responsibility to society. I'm afraid that these message sent out to girls and boys, and parents, and anyone else that reads them, will set expectations of what girls like and how they are expected to behave and how society should view them. So I'm afraid I disagree, strongly, about what we should expect from these companies and the messages they send. Lego is particularly surprising since their advertising used to be neutral, with little girls and boys looking so delighted at building weird and unusual structures from the toy. Now, we have a pink branded set of Friends Lego (with nail bars and other lovely lady things) and the magazine was just shocking sexism.

    All these little subtle messages make a difference and tell girls their little pink brains shouldn't be worried with difficult likes engineering and should just focus on baking a cake.


    Maria

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