Lego goes (not) by marking building blocks to break down gender stereotypes – PRAVDA.sk

The construction manufacturer Lego wants to focus on eliminating gender stereotypes in its products. Research into the habits of children playing with certain toys has found that while girls play with various toys without difficulty, up to 71 percent of boys fear being ridiculed if they play with toys intended for girls.

Based on this research, Lego has stated that it will no longer offer a range of kits for girls and kits for boys.

“Our role will be to encourage boys and girls to play with (kit) kits, which are traditionally perceived as not for them,” explained Julia Goldin, Lego Group’s marketing director for The Guardian.

Slow progress

The Let Toys Be Toys campaign has been running in Britain since 2012, encouraging toy manufacturers to be more creative in their production, so that boys and girls do not feel that playing with toys traditionally reserved for the opposite sex is not suitable for them. However, according to The Guardian, the results of this initiative are still very small.

The research was carried out by the Geena Davis Institute for Equality in the Media, an organization aimed at improving gender balance in the entertainment industry. Its executive director, Madeline Di Nonn, said that the boys ‘fear of playing with “girls’ toys” was shared by their parents.

“If society accepts the fact that behaviors and activities typically associated with women are valuable or important, parents and children will try to accept them,” she said, noting that male behavior is rated above.

Rooted prejudices

The authors of the study found that while their parents were encouraged to play sports or group activities, their daughters were offered dancing and dressing or baking.

“These findings highlight how rooted prejudices are rooted around the world,” said Geena Davis, an Oscar-winning actress and activist who founded the institute in 2004 to combat negative gender stereotypes and promote inclusion.

According to The Guardian, Professor Gina Rippon, a neurobiologist and author of The Gendered Brain, pointed out that “there is an asymmetry” when “we encourage girls to play with ‘boyish things’, but not the other way around.”

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She explained that the toys offer “training opportunities” in one of the activities: “If girls do not play with leggings or other construction toys, they do not develop their spatial skills that could help them later in life.” If dolls are reserved for girls, but they are not offered to play by boys either, “then boys lack the ability” to take care of a child or another person.

The report of the Davis Institute was published on Monday, which according to the UN was World Girls’ Day. The survey was conducted on a sample of almost 7,000 parents and children aged six to 14 from China, the Czech Republic, Japan, Poland, Russia, Britain and the USA.