At long last, LEGO will actually have new female figurines who do something other than bake and hang out at the beach. The Denmark-based toy company has approved new designs for female scientist, paleontologist and astronomer characters from its LEGO Ideas online competition. “We’re very excited to release Ellen Kooijman’s Female Minifigure set, featuring 3 scientists, now entitled “Research Institute” as our next LEGO Ideas set,” LEGO said in an official statement. “This awesome model is an inspiring set that offers a lot for kids as well as adults.” As Kooijman put it, LEGO typically features a “stereotypical representation” of women in their figures, and she set out to change that. “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,” Kooijman wrote in a post explaining her project. “It seemed logical that I would suggest a small set of female minifigures in interesting professions to make our LEGO city communities more diverse,” she added.
Support for the project was slow at first, but thanks to a flurry of tweets, it skyrocketed from around 2,000 supporters to 10,000 in just about one week. #LEGO Female Minifigure Set will be an official product! /hWQX16xoFp — Alatariel Elensar (@AIatariel) June 3, 2014 Despite comprising nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and 60 percent of bachelor degree recipients, women filled only 24 percent of Science Technology Engineering and Math jobs in 2009, according to the Department of Commerce. It’s an acute problem with no easy solution. But many believe that one piece of the puzzle is broadening the dreams and visions of young girls. In 2013, LEGO introduced a “scientist” mini-figure to its collection, and though she had no particular specialty, it was warmly received. But LEGO’S 2011 attempt to explicitly appeal to girls was resoundingly panned. LEGO Friends seemed like a Barbie knockoff — replete with lots of pink, short skirts, hanging out at the pool and of course, some good old baking.
Its critics called the toy sets condescending and stereotypical, or worse: sexist. Earlier this year, a 7-year-old girl wrote to the company to complain that “all the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and had no jobs,” while the boys in LEGO toys “went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs.” 7yo Charlotte writes an adorable and strongly worded letter to LEGO regarding the lack of adventures for girls. /JblNKzCwJs — SocImages (@SocImages) January 28, 2014 Kooijman’s design is the first step in correcting this problem. For this heightened awareness of the depiction of women in toys and the media, there are many decades of feminism to thank. More recently, however, Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has made changing the depiction of women in stock images a big priority, along with — somewhat controversially — a campaign to reclaim the word “bossy” as a compliment, not a critique. And startup GoldieBlox captivated the world with its truly ingenious ad recasting the Beastie Boys song “Girls” as a mini-feminist anthem to the backdrop of young girls building and breaking things.
(The ad did get the company embroiled in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the band, though.) “Girls, you think you know what you want,” they sing. “You like to buy us pink toys, and everything else is for boys.” LEGO’s new “Research Institute” set is on track to be released in August 2014, the company said.Criminal gangs around the world are targeting a new, lucrative and almost untraceable commodity – Lego. Sets of the brightly coloured plastic bricks can sell for thousands of pounds on online trading sites prompting thieves to target toy shops from America to Australia. The trend came to light this month when US police revealed back-to-back cases in New York state and Arizona worth almost $300,000 (£181,000). Caleb Raff, who runs the Brick Hutt Lego shop in Santa Rosa, California, said he knew of several similar thefts near his store. Mr Raff, who earlier this year sold a single piece for $15,000 (The Platinum Avohkii Mask of Light, custom made by Lego for a competition) said criminals seemed to be getting wind of the collectability of some sets.
“If you look at other makes – Kenner, Hasbro, Fisher Price – those have always been collectable,” he said. “With Lego, it’s a new trend and if you know what to get then there’s value.” Lego’s popularity is soaring after years of crisis saw the Danish family business turned over to new management. Tie-ins with movies, such as Star Wars and Harry Potter, have helped it connect with a new generation of young builders and quadruple its revenues in less than a decade. Expensive specialist kits include Tower Bridge or the Ewok village, from Return of the Jedi, which retail for $249. But that’s nothing compared with how prices can rise for unopened, discontinued lines, such as a 2,899-piece Statue of Liberty, released in 2000, which now sells for $10,000. With that has come a lucrative online trade – and black market. Police in Phoenix spent four months investigating thefts from toy shops, monitoring CCTV footage before identifying four suspects. When they made their move last week, they found 18 pallets of Lego sets stored in the garage of one the suspect’s homes, worth more than $200,000.
That case was followed by a case in Long Island, New York. A 53-year-old woman was arrested after allegedly taking $60,000 of Lego sets from a storage facility and trying to sell them on eBay, the Nassau County Police Department said in a statement. And detectives in Australia are hunting a gang behind a string of thefts in two states, using angle grinders to cut their way into stores. Two years ago, a Silicon Valley executive was caught sticking fake bar codes on collectible Lego sets, buying them at huge discounts before raking in a profit by selling them on eBay. Officers said his thefts – for which he was later sentenced to a month in prison - included a $279 Millennium Falcon kit from Star Wars which he bought for the knockdown price of $49. In mint condition, some versions of Han Solo’s aging spacecraft can sell for more than $10,000. When police searched Thomas Langenbach’s home near San Francisco they found hundreds of unopened kits as well as dozens of creations he had built himself.