Soon the end of gender stereotypes among the famous Lego brand toys? In any case, this is what the Danish firm announced on Monday, according to information from the British newspaper. The Guardian. To remove its figurines from gender stereotypes, the toy giant will no longer classify Legos by gender but by main themes.
This decision comes after the publication of a study carried out among 7,000 parents and children aged 6 to 14 in China, the Czech Republic, Japan, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. 70% of young children feared being laughed at if they played with toys categorized as “girls”, a fear shared by their parents. “Parents are more afraid for their sons than for their daughters if they play games attributed to the other gender”explained to the guardian Madeline Di Nonno, executive director of the “Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media,” which carried out the study. The survey also reveals that parents encourage boys to play more sports or science activities and girls to dance or cook.
“There is an asymmetry. We encourage girls to play with ‘boy’s things’, but not the other way around. This is a problem because toys provide training opportunities. If girls don’t play with Lego or other construction toys, don’t develop the spatial skills that will help them later. If the dolls are offered to girls but not boys, then they will lack educational skills. “explains Professor Gina Rippon, neurobiologist and author of “The Gendered Brain.”
Lego isn’t the first toy store to embrace the theme of gender. In February, Hasbro renamed its iconic toy line “Potato Head” instead of “Mr. Potato Head,” and announced that it was launching a “genderless potato family”.
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