top of page
Search

#2472 DISCUSSION: Portrayal of Women in LEGO #2

In part 1, post #2438, we explored the timeline of women in LEGO, from the 1970s to now. In today’s post, we’ll be diving deeper into the different areas LEGO has succeeded in, changed their strategy in, and where we think there’s more work to do.



2472 DISCUSSION: Portrayal of Women in LEGO 2 In part 1, post #2438, we gave a broad overview of how LEGO has portrayed women. Image of various female LEGO characters resembling a team photo- a mini-doll from Disney, a Friends character, 2 ninjas, Izzie from Dreamzzz, and a pirate from the 80s. In this part, we’ll dive deeper into cases where LEGO has been successful, where they have evolved, and where there’s more work to do.

In the 1970s, large “maxi-figures” had brick-built clothes and filled regular household roles. Image of brick-built grandma figure. The first minifigures either had a hat, generally indicating their job, or pigtails to suggest femininity. Image of part 3625 hair, female, pigtails. Going into the 90s, figures started to have printed makeup and body shape. Image of a minifigure with bold lipstick and eyelashes, wearing a swimsuit. Belville began a trend of more realistic-looking doll-based themes. Image of a princess doll from Belville The 2000s and 2010s saw many adventure themes targeted at boys and with limited female characters. Image of Nya minifigure from 2011 Ninjago. Mini-dolls arrived in Friends in 2012. Image of Emma mini-doll from Friends. Licensed themes caused an explosion of hair pieces and realistic-coloured figures. Image of Padme Amidala figure from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The 2020s have brought much more diversity in marketing and options for figures. Image of Elf Wizard minifigure from the IDEAS Dungeons and Dragons set. For a more detailed timeline, see part 1, post #2438!

Minifigures are iconic for their blocky proportions and generic faces, but some of them have prints that seem to contradict this. Introduced initially for corsets (Source: Bricklink.com), this kind of hip shaping print is now used for many female characters regardless of outfit. Images of LEGO torsos. One is simplistic and has a corset, the other is of a striped sweater. Both have indentations of negative space on their designs at the hip area, making the body look slimmer and curvier. An issue with prints like this for body shape is that LEGO looks unrealistic anyway so the prints only limit what parts can be used for creating custom figures. Image of a masculine-presenting minifigure holding up a torso piece with hip print on it and looking a little confused. In cartoonish art styles like LEGO figure prints, makeup often serves as a visual shorthand for “girl”. Image of LEGO Minnie Mouse minifigure. She has pronounced eyelashes as part of her design. The first feminine face print without exaggerated makeup came out in 2004, 15 years after the first distinctly feminine LEGO head was released.(Source: womensbrickinitiative.com/timeline-of-female-minifigures/) Image of simplistic LEGO face print design with large red lipstick from 1989. Image of more modern looking LEGO face print design with subtle eyeliner from 2004. The prevalence of these prints that define femininity in the LEGO art style serves a limiting idea of how women ‘should’ look.

Successors to the large dolls in the girl-targeted themes Scala and Belville, Mini-dolls were introduced in 2012 (Source: brothers-brick.com/2011/12/19/2012-lego-friends-sets- ) Mini-dolls are still here today, and many people still have strong opinions about them (see post #2338 for more). Image of cover of Tips and Bricks post 2338 Mini-Dolls a love/hate relationship. One criticism of Mini-dolls is the lack of diversity in their body shapes presenting a certain standard to kids. Images of the 5 different Mini-doll torso moulds, all of them quite thin. Luisa should be much bigger and stronger than Mirabel, but their figures both use the standard thin arms. Images of the animated versions of Luisa and Mirabel from Encanto next to their Mini-doll versions. The animated versions are different heights and body shapes, with Luisa being large and barrel-chested with powerful arms. The mini-dolls are the same height and both look quite thin, Quote: Ultra-thin dolls are part of a bigger picture of body pressures that young children experience, and awareness of these pressures is really important to help support and encourage positive body image in our children.” Dr Elizabeth Evans (Source: ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2021/03/ultra-thindolls/) We would like to see some more variation in the moulds used for Mini-dolls, if not for representation, simply for accuracy to certain characters.

The introduction of LEGO Friends in 2012 was very commercially successful (Source: upi.com/blog/2013/02/28/Lego-gets-sales-boost-from-girl-friendly-toy-series/9651362066350/ ), but also quite controversial. Regarding Friends, LEGO faced criticisms: Limited subject matter compared to “boy” themes Feeding pre-existing gender stereotypes of colours, hobbies, and beauty Marketing to genders denying kids toys they may be interested in LEGO addressed a lot of these issues in the 2023 Friends reboot. Image of new Friends logo with teal and purple colour scheme and new, diverse, cast. See post #2306 for more on Friends and the relationship between gendered marketing and purchasing. Image of the cover of post 2306, LEGO and gender 4, buying habits and stereotypes. One area where Friends has positively stood out is in the variety of skin tones it has used, particularly in recent years. Images of mini-dolls of a variety of realistic skin tones.

For years, kids’ action media, LEGO included, has fallen into the trope of having an all-male cast except for one girl. Katha Pollitt wrote about this back in 1991 (Source:nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html) :“The message is clear. Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.” LEGO followed this system for most of the core casts of their adventure themes up until the 2020s. Image of 6 main characters of Ninjago, the light blue ninja is pointed out as Nya. Image of 5 main characters of Nexo Knights, the red knight is pointed out as Macy. In a recent post, an illustrator who has worked for LEGO revealed that it was a battle to get Nya on the box art for Ninjago season 7, and even then she had to be a step behind her brother.(Source:mikerayhawk.com/ninjago.htm/) Image of box of a set from Ninjago Season 7, with the female light blue ninja behind the red ninja on the top stripe of decoration of the box.

When sets are based on something else, how women are represented isn’t decided by the LEGO designers. Rivendell has 1 named female figure and 11 officially named male figures, because the characters in LotR are mostly men.(Source: lego.com/en-gb/product/the-lord-of-the-rings-rivendell-10316) Image of all of the named Rivendell figures, one of them is a female elf. Star Wars, overall, has mostly featured men, and, as a result, in LEGO, there has been a consistent trend of droid figures outnumbering women! Graph of LEGO Star Wars figures in 2022 (Source: jaysbrickblog.com/editorial/revisiting-legos-progress-on-female-gender-representation-lego-sets-iwd-2023) Male: 44 Female: 16 Droid: 19 Despite having some prominent women, Harry Potter is focused mostly around characters who are men, and LEGO sets reflect this. Image of Harry Potter figures, men outnumbering women. So what now? Should LEGO include more background characters with more diversity? Or is the solution to push for new media with more equal casts?

In 2022, LEGO claimed to no longer market any product specifically to boys or girls- but results have been mixed. (Source: positive.news/society/lego-to-remove-gender-bias-from-its-toys/) Recent movies and TV feature a variety of female superheroes, however, LEGO are yet to release a newer-style mech or action figure based around one. Images of minifigures of Batgirl, new Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and Scarlet Witch. Since the starts of the newer mech line in 2020 and buildable figure line in 2022, there have been (Source: Bricklink.com): 3 mechs and 2 buildable figures for Peter Spider-Man 2 mechs and 1 buildable figure for Miles Spider-Man 2 mechs and 1 buildable figure for Iron Man 1 mech and 2 buildable figures for Batman The repetition of these characters before a single woman suggests a bias in favour of male characters.. Where LEGO leaves a gap, the community fills it; check out this Spider-Gwen by @shyd_bricks! Image of detailed large brick-built Spider-Gwen action figure.

Current themes use less stereotypically gendered colour schemes and subject matter than their predecessors, giving girls more stories and more choices. Images of set boxes from Monkie Kid, new Friends, Ninjago Dragons Rising, and Dreamzzz. They use black, teal, red, and blue, with builds of bright green and purple and yellow and pink and white. LEGO City now has far more women in its minifigure selections (Source: jaysbrickblog.com/editorial/revisiting-legos-progress-on-female-gender-representation-lego-sets-iwd-2023/) Image of box of LEGO grocery store set with minifigures peeking out of the side of it. The figures are a woman with a high vis jacket, a little girl, a woman in a pea pod costume, a man in grocery store uniform, and a miscellaneous man. The D&D minifigures show in a mainstream theme that prints for body shape or excessive makeup are not needed for any of them to be feminine. Images of the Dwarf Cleric, Gnome Fighter, and Elf Wizard from the D&D IDEAS set. Their makeup is minimal and their torsos neutral.



What do you think of how LEGO has portrayed women? Is there anything you want to see changed? Comment below!

Comments

bottom of page