Lego To Produce Three Box Sets Featuring Female Scientists 208
vossman77 writes: 'According to the Chicago Tribune, "Lego will produce a limited-edition box set called Research Institute, featuring three female scientists in the act of learning more about our world and beyond." The concept received 10,000 supporters on the LEGO ideas site. Creator Ellen Kooijman writes in a blog post, "As a female scientist I had noticed two things about the available Lego sets: a skewed male/female minifigure ratio and a rather stereotypical representation of the available female figures. It seemed logical that I would suggest a small set of female mini-figures in interesting professions to make our Lego city communities more diverse." LEGO says, "The final design, pricing and availability are still being worked out, but it's on track to be released August 2014."'
Is it a Complete Set? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mmmm (Score:0, Insightful)
Lego's aren't even Lego's anymore. When I was a kid, they required imagination.
Limited? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How do you make a lego character female? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking something similar: why not get a Male Scientist package and just give it another head.
Because kids are no longer expected to be creative with Legos. You are supposed to follow the instructions and build the exact toy you were sold, and then buy a new set.
Re:Limited? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Social Justice Warriors want to parade about the most trivial crap I tell you.
We'll stop when it's possible to release a female scientist Lego set without a bunch of benighted troglodytes whinging about it on Slashdot.
Re:How do you make a lego character female? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I read this sentiment in every discussion of LEGO that comes up... And it's never been true. Never. My son is now 16 and has loved LEGO his whole life. He still get gets it out to play with now and then. When he gets a new set the pattern has always been the same -- open the box, build the model as shown, tear it apart, add it to the pile of parts and build his own things. Current LEGO sets allow every bit as much creativity as the sets did when I was his age over 30 years ago. If anyone has problems building their own stuff it's entirely due to their own lack of creativity, not because the toys somehow discourage it.
You wanna piss and moan about the specialized LEGO pieces? How about the transition from full-sized, articulated figures to minifigs? The addition of specialized round and clear pieces in the first space sets? The Technics series, which were more single-build models than just about anything today? I heard the same damn argument when each of those was introduced.
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
No? I'd much rather give my young niece a lego set that has some female characters in it she can relate to. I can't in good conscience giver her one of those disgusting frilly pink princes lego sets, and that pretty much means all the figures are male. Same goes for most other toys.
Of course an even better solution would be just throwing in some extra female heads/hair into *all* the kits and let kids assign genders as they see fit. So it costs an extra $0.05 per kit, big deal.
Re:Madame Curie (Score:4, Insightful)
In e.g. India, being a software developer for a multinational is the best paying most prestigious job you can have (like anywhere, the fact that you have a job means you can never really be upper class). Boy or girl, if you show any talent you'll be not just encouraged but pushed into the career by parents and schools. Much like parents here in some subcultures lean heavily on their kids to become doctors or lawyers, regardless of gender.
That's not the culture here, sadly. There's still a theme throughout our culture that girls who prefer engineering are doing "girl" wrong, which you don't see with doctors or lawyers.