Leggo my LEGOS: Fair play for girls

Good morning, Friday Feministing friends. To start the weekend, I bring you some news about feminist badassery and the taking on of corporate foolishness.

Today, a few folks from our friends over at SPARK, including SPARK Executive Director Dana Edell and Jamia Wilson, Vice President of Programs at the Women’s Media Center and Co-Founder of SPARK, will be meeting with the LEGO Corporation about the concerns raised by SPARK over the LEGO Friends product line.

Since December, the group has gotten more than 55,000 plus people on board with their Change.org petition to ask LEGO to “stop selling out girls.”

It’s on, LEGO.

The petition is in response to the LEGO Friends line which is marketed directly to girls. The problem with the line is that it reinforces stereotypes and is intentionally domestically oriented, with toys that encourage girls to decorate their homes and get their hair done. The “boys line” has things like ninja quests, being police, doctors and contstruction workers and my personal favorite, fighting alien invasions.

Never mind that this kind of marketing is pretty antiquated and narrow in it’s construction of gender identity (what if a little boy wants to decorate his home?!) but it’s particularly insidious because it is marketed to little kids. And as we know, these years of play and identity construction are formative in helping kids see what’s possible for them and can sow the seeds of shame in kids who don’t desire what LEGO wants them to desire.

So to that end, we send solidarity vibes to our friends who are speaking truth to marketing today. On behalf of little girls everywhere who want to fight alien invasions, we’re with ya.

Pic via.