Nothing Is Safe From All Pervasive Corporate Bullshit.

When we were kids (presumptuous of me to assume a)people reading this are in my age group, b)people are reading this), LEGO was the a series of toys with themes: Town (which i believe it now called "City"), Space, Undersea, etc. you got generic blocky figures i always just called "Lego Guys" (apparently they have an actual name: "Minifigs". i will not be referring to them by this horrible appellation), a series of blocks that interconnected, and awesome green and/or grey flat thing to connect everything to, and maybe the bare-bones of a story. there were basic instructions for creating dwellings and vehicles, but those were suggestions at best. the point was to try and make as crazy shit as possible. the blocks were maybe color-coded to what the theme was (my space sets were all white, grey, and maybe some black; they had rad transparent canopies for the cockpits). the "Lego Guys" themselves were fairly gender neutral, but in my unenlightened pre-adolescent mind, they were "guys". you could've made them female quite easily, tho, with a snap of some strangely molded plastic hair piece (mostly it was "Ted Copple" for dudes, and then maybe ladies had longish hair). fact is, i'm not sure if the space set had hair at all, as the characters mostly wore bitchin' retro-futuristic helmets. had i been in the know as a kid, i could've re-enacted some awesome Day The Earth Stood Still or Planet of Vampires stories, but i think i mostly tried to tie it in to whatever weird sci-fi thing i had seen on TV or sommat. Other sets were different colors and had a different configuration of "guys" (probably even some that were more representative of females). there were also just "generic" Legos that were the traditional color scheme one may associate with Lego; the familiar green, red, blue, yellow, grey, and white. those sets weren't as interesting to me, but they did of course get mixed in with the more "themed" sets, which just led to crazier, more elaborate, and more outlandish vehicles/dwellings for the space men (et al). my point is, Lego never struck me as boys or girls toys. my sister and i played with them, tho i did generally play with them alone. and it never really dawned on me that Lego was considered a boys toy until now.
sadly, Lego has been primarily marketed to boys for the past 20+ years. it stared subtly with Zack, the Lego Maniac. you no doubt remember him:

even so, the focus was still on building, and the sets were original. these days, Lego is not what we had as kids. it's primarily in the pocket of major genre franchises: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman, etc. and the focus on the boys only club mentality is even more pronounced. an attempt to make a "Lego for girls" (which is idiotic, as the toy started out as being for everybody, including parents even!) called "Lego Friends" was introduced, and it's wretched. the entire line is bedecked in pink and purple. there's nothing wrong with these colors per se, the problem is that these are the marketed colors telling girls that this is for them, and the other stuff (Star Wars, Harry, the space and the city) are not for them. Lego Friends figures are not compatible with the blocky "guys" of yesteryear. they're taller, slim, and "look like girls" (i.e.- have boobs, wear skirts, have long hair). there aren't even occupations in Lego Friends' "Heartlake City" (this is whether they live. yep. "Heartlake city". jeezis...). all of the sets are based on taking care of pets, decorating a house, and getting your hair did. Feminist Frequency's Anita Sarkeesian puts it best when she states what do the "friends" do if a house catches on fire? call the boys from the "real" Lego City to put it out? conversely, where do the inhabitants of Lego City go when they're hungry? do they all commute to Heartlake City? her two part deconstruction (pun intended!) of Lego and gender is highly recommended by this humble writer (she says it much better than i could, truly):

(you can link to part 2 through this video, and i strongly suggest you do).

it's sad to see that even Lego is not safe from this patriarchal nonsense. i look back fondly on Lego, and i do plan to buy the new Lego Batman 2 video game, but i really do wish Lego would get their shit together and not pander to macho stereotypes of boys fighting, nor talk down to girls and expect them to clean up the mess afterwards. i might have to buy that Superman set i keep ogling from afar used on Ebay, because frankly, i'd like to support them as little as possible with my money until they at least try to straighten this out.