


This  young marketing whiz named Charlotte is fed up with Lego’s gender-stereotyping that forces pink building blocks upon girls and blue ones on boys, and so last month she decided to write the billion-dollar Danish toy company a letter. She wisely points out that the building kits for boys feature great adventurers who “swim with sharks” while the ones for girls include figures who “sit at home, go to bed and shop.” Well said, Charlotte!

Charlotte’s mother was impressed by her daughter’s letter and posted it on Sociological Images, who spread the word on Twitter.

Here’s what Charlotte wrote in her letter:

Dear Lego Company,

My name is Charlotte and I am 7 years old and I love Legos but I don’t like that there are more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls. Today, I went to a store and saw Legos in two sections. The pink girls and the blue boys. All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach and shop. They had jobs but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people and had jobs, even swam with sharks. I want you to make more Lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun. OK!??

Thank you.

From Charlotte

Lego’s Friends line for girls has been scrutinized ever since it was first introduced in 2011. The kits feature female characters who are bigger and have more human features than the traditional boxy figures—in other words, the Lego gals are taller and curvier. They come with back stories like the American girl dolls and Disney princesses. They each have their own personality: one likes to cut hair, another loves animals. They have names such as Emma and Olivia and come with accessories such as purses and shoes. Their clothes are pink, lavender and baby blue, and hearts adorn their shirts. With their accompanying kits you can build a salon, a veterinarian clinic or a café.

When the line was first introduced, Jezebel’s Margaret Hartmann wrote:

Girls will probably love “Mia’s Puppy House” and “Stephanie’s Outdoor Bakery,” but they don’t look all that “good for little girls’ brains.” The sets don’t appear to be all that difficult to put together, and it seems unlikely that they’ll be a gateway for girls to start constructing cities of their own design with a bag of random blocks.

Lego didn’t always create separate kits for boys and girls. Back in the 1970s, the company sold gender-neutral sets with male and female figurines and primary-colored bricks for building houses. The company has launched a few small lines aimed at females over the years, all of them unsuccessful. But when Lego hit tough times, they basically gave up on girls and poured tremendous amounts of creative energy and time into making sets geared to boys’ love for violence and action, and this strategy has been hugely successful, according to Bloomberg Businesweek.

Amy Graff