January 2014, Lego HQ got a mail. Not an email but a real traditional paper mail even written by beautiful (subjective opinion) handwriting. It says,
Dear Lego Company:
My name is Charlotte. I am 7 years old and I love legos but I don't like that there are more 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, and they had no jobs but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs, even swam with sharks. I want you to go make more lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun, ok!?!
Thank you.
From Charlotte
A seven-year-old girl's letter went viral and had great responses. How did we adults have no awareness though most of us used to play Lego(since there are about more than 62 Lego bricks per person spread on the planet...plz update me. This is 2008 figure. It should be more than that.)? Aren't we exposed to much harsher discrimination than those sevenies. And LEGO, isn't the company in Denmark where it supposed to be so called equal society?
Lego was fast. A spokes person of Lego called the press saying they were planning to release FEMALE SCIENTISTs series soon. And that summer the female scientist series came out. The collection contains three varied female professionals within the world of natural science. Here come the paleontologist studying the origin of dinosaurs with the magnifying glass, the astronomer mapping the skies with her telescope, and the chemist carrying out experiments in her lab.
There is a new Lego idea suggesting page on Lego. When the idea has more than 10 000 supports, Lego buys the idea. This female scientist series has been suggested by real-life geoscientist from Sweden, Ellen Kooijman, and selected by LEGO® Ideas members and came out into the real world August 2014. It has been sold out within a week.
Though Dr Koojiman who suggested the idea showed a little concern as a real scientist perspective that chemist figure doesn't were gloves(OMG!) and wearing a makeup(What were you thinking, lady!) but chemists do not normally wore make-ups in the lab as it may cause contamination of the samples. Cool.
Next series also came out. It reflected the Charlotte's wish of girls on adventures. A "Women of NASA" set features four mini figurines of pioneering women from the space agency: the astronauts Sally Ride and Mae Jemison, the astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, and the computer scientist Margaret Hamilton.
I was born in Asia and used to live in Scandinavia for a while. I was surprised when I checked out toy section in one department store in Stockholm, Sweden. A boy holding a doll and a girl with a serious look aiming something with a gun pictures were on the box. A boy and girl were playing with a doll house together. I got used to the department store with toy section separately categorized by girl and boy. But I often went to boy section to look at the dinosaurs. There are plenty girls like me!
One day my friend from Sweden share the picture of Lego that Amelia her 4 year old daughter made. In Amelia's world daddy holds a stroller and mommy drives a helicopter. Most societies would draw a different picture. Amelia, FYI your mommy is a biologist and your daddy is on parental leave. :-)
June 2016, Lego released an accessibility set with a boy on a wheelchair. Kids learn about the world by playing. I wish toys reflect the world more in real so our kids can understand people are all different and far from perfection. Difference doesn't mean superiority or inferiority. They are just different and all important.
That is why I like Lego more than Barbie.