The story does a good job of laying out reasons why girls don't go for regular lego sets so much, and why the new stress are a huge hit (because boy children and girl children have different brain structures, and want different things out of their toys, because they play in a fundamentally different way), but then devolves into criticizing that the legs don't move, and that says something about how we expect women to act later in life.
So derpy.
The girls sets are cool.
Also, I can see how lrgo in a variety of pastel colors might be more appealing than the traditional red/blue/yelliw primary colors of regular, gender neutral lego…
Girls’ Legos Are A Hit, But Why Do Girls Need Special Legos? : NPR
Lego introduced a line of characters and sets that helped the company reach girls successfully. But some question what’s wrong with girls playing with plain old Legos, and what this line is telling them.
I think you're assuming why they're successful without proper data to support it; the question stands — painting something pink didn't make it "for women". It made it patronizing. So, why do it?
My boss brought back one of the new girl's lego sets from Legoland for my daughter. She liked the bicycles and the fact that female figures that came with the set, but the rest of it left her completely non-plussed. She'd rather build a spaceship than play house.
I have 4 girls and they have both types of sets. The love pink but they build with the bricks. Sometimes it is house and sometimes they are catching criminals, going to space or chasing dinosaurs. The color is not an issue if you don't make it an issue. They play house but they also play other things.
I do think they should stick to one form factor for the mini-figures.
I don't think they need special legos but I don't think it makes a difference as they will imagine with any color set of bricks.
+Dorian Trent I'm actually assuming that they're fantastically successful because Lego did a bunch of focus groups to ask girls what they wanted in a lego set, and *then they gave them that*.
Which is why I feel dumber – because (adult views of) gender issues got dragged into an article that started off being pretty clearly focused on "Lego learned what girl (children) wanted in a product, then made that for them, and have found massive success as a result".