Gender design is all around us, and as consumers we still buy the designs to fit in the category, why is this? For instance, if you were to buy a present for a young girl you would immediately go to the toy store… The first thing you will notice is that all the toys are categorised from girl’s toys on one side and the boys are on the other. Making an easy target for people to choose from their selection of gender designs. However, children are not aware of this gender malarkey and they will still end up playing with any old toy regardless of the design and colour. We as consumers are aware of design for gender and some may challenge this, by buying something that isn’t designed for a gender. Yet still, the consumers make it hard for customers by advertising their products dedicated to children on their gender. “Our main concern with Lego comes down to marketing and the way that girls and boys are so rarely shown playing together with the same toy the way they do in real life” (Perryman, 2014). Therefore they make it difficult for us to see the bad in categorising toys by their advertisement.
The Danish company Lego is the world’s second-largest toy maker behind Mattel. They decided to take in consideration for gender design. They believed it would be a good idea to bring out a new pastel colour girlie set, completely different to the original Lego. Yet this had caused outrage, as many customers didn’t like the new design for just girls. Lego’s Facebook and Twitter were bombarded with several comments regarding the creation one user on twitter said, ‘@jamseb tweeted: “There already was LEGO for girls. It was called ‘LEGO‘’’ As a result, I felt that they were almost categorising girls to a different species to boys. They could have simply added female characters on the original Lego instead.
A vision of how LEGO once advertised to little girls 1980’s
Reference:
Claire Connelly, 2011, Bring back beautiful: ‘Girl friendly’ LEGO range sparks social media backlash – Technology Reporter, NewsComAu
Min Kusine Maria, 2014, En hverdagshjælper http://www.minkusinemaria.dk/2014/08/ – 10.05.17
Tom de Castella, 2014, How did Lego become a gender battleground?
BBC News Magazine – 10.05.17
Bibliography:
Adrienne Lafrance, 2016, ‘How to play like a girl’ The Atlantic – 10.05.17
Claire Connelly, 2011, Bring back beautiful: ‘Girl friendly’ LEGO range sparks social media backlash – Technology Reporter, NewsComAu
Min Kusine Maria, 2014, En hverdagshjælper http://www.minkusinemaria.dk/2014/08/ – 10.05.17
Tom de Castella, 2014, How did Lego become a gender battleground?
BBC News Magazine – 10.05.17
Crystal sheval clarke 