Lego To Produce Three Box Sets Featuring Female Scientists

vossman77 writes: 'According to the Chicago Tribune, "Lego will produce a limited-edition box set called Research Institute, featuring three female scientists in the act of learning more about our world and beyond." The concept received 10,000 supporters on the LEGO ideas site. Creator Ellen Kooijman writes in a blog post, "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. It seemed logical that I would suggest a small set of female mini-figures in interesting professions to make our Lego city communities more diverse." LEGO says, "The final design, pricing and availability are still being worked out, but it's on track to be released August 2014."'

Comments

I don't know what the fuss is...

[Richy_T]

There have been at least four different Princess Leia Lego minifigs.

Four!

Madame Curie

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the Madame Curie set glow in the dark?

Re: Madame Curie

[CRCulver]

Marie SkÃ...odowska-Curie was Polish. Her friends and family called her Panni as opposed to Madame.

This is an inappropriate nitpick. For one, the Polish word is pani. Two, her husband was a Frenchman, as was nearly her entire social circle from the age of 24 to the end of her life. While Curie did teach her children Polish and retain some ties with her country of origin, "Madame" is an entirely appropriate appelation for this woman who did all her life's work in France, became a French citizen, and served the French state and army.

Re:Madame Curie

[lgw]

In e.g. India, being a software developer for a multinational is the best paying most prestigious job you can have (like anywhere, the fact that you have a job means you can never really be upper class). Boy or girl, if you show any talent you'll be not just encouraged but pushed into the career by parents and schools. Much like parents here in some subcultures lean heavily on their kids to become doctors or lawyers, regardless of gender.

That's not the culture here, sadly. There's still a theme throughout our culture that girls who prefer engineering are doing "girl" wrong, which you don't see with doctors or lawyers.

Plastic ceiling?

[DougOtto]

I heard these sets would cost 30% of the sets with male scientists.

Re:Plastic ceiling?

[Miseph]

Can't imagine it would matter much, it's not like they'd want to fuck you either way.

Is it a Complete Set?

[PvtVoid]

Does it come with a Lego Dean who can pay them less and deny them tenure when they have children?

LEGO

[Anonymous Coward]

Reducing great women to objects! Mere playthings!

Re:LEGO

[Keyboard Rage]

Reducing great women to objects! Mere playthings!

...in a world of studs.

Limited?

[jbmartin6]

Why is it a limited edition?

Re:Limited?

[Xeth]

All sets produced via LEGO Ideas are limited edition. Though in truth, all sets are; you'll find great difficulty getting just sets older than a year, perhaps a year and a half, from the primary market.

Re:How do you make a lego character female?

[ranton]

I was thinking something similar: why not get a Male Scientist package and just give it another head.

Because kids are no longer expected to be creative with Legos. You are supposed to follow the instructions and build the exact toy you were sold, and then buy a new set.

Re:How do you make a lego character female?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

why not get a Male Scientist package and just give it another head

Because giving head to a male scientist would spark an outrage in feminist circles?

Re:How do you make a lego character female?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

The Madame Curie Lego will have bald patches.

Re:How do you make a lego character female?

[GameboyRMH]

Serious answer: painted-on eyelashes and big lips on the minifig head piece, long hair piece on top. Male & female minifig leg & torso pieces are completely interchangeable.

Re:How is this news?

[PvtVoid]

Social Justice Warriors want to parade about the most trivial crap I tell you.

We'll stop when it's possible to release a female scientist Lego set without a bunch of benighted troglodytes whinging about it on Slashdot.

Re:How do you make a lego character female?

[StrangeBrew]

Not to mention, how would you advertise the box? Male Scientist Pack. Now Giving Head to get Female Scientists!

Re:How do you make a lego character female?

[Chelloveck]

Back when I was a kid Lego was far, far superior... blah, blah, all specialized parts, blah, blah, no creativity, blah, getoffmylawn.

You know, I read this sentiment in every discussion of LEGO that comes up... And it's never been true. Never. My son is now 16 and has loved LEGO his whole life. He still get gets it out to play with now and then. When he gets a new set the pattern has always been the same -- open the box, build the model as shown, tear it apart, add it to the pile of parts and build his own things. Current LEGO sets allow every bit as much creativity as the sets did when I was his age over 30 years ago. If anyone has problems building their own stuff it's entirely due to their own lack of creativity, not because the toys somehow discourage it.

You wanna piss and moan about the specialized LEGO pieces? How about the transition from full-sized, articulated figures to minifigs? The addition of specialized round and clear pieces in the first space sets? The Technics series, which were more single-build models than just about anything today? I heard the same damn argument when each of those was introduced.

Re:Wow.

[Immerman]

No? I'd much rather give my young niece a lego set that has some female characters in it she can relate to. I can't in good conscience giver her one of those disgusting frilly pink princes lego sets, and that pretty much means all the figures are male. Same goes for most other toys.

Of course an even better solution would be just throwing in some extra female heads/hair into *all* the kits and let kids assign genders as they see fit. So it costs an extra $0.05 per kit, big deal.

Re:Mmmm

[gfxguy]

I can look at that two ways... I can watch TV and it requires no thought. Or I can choose specific interesting things on politics, nature, or other sciences, and actually think about it.

So LEGO sets come with instructions, and require little thought to put the sets together the way they've laid it out in the book. That doesn't differ from how it used to be. Oh, you used to be able to just buy buckets of bricks, though! Which, of course, you can still do. The imagination happened when you took those bricks, and you took those sets apart, and made what you wanted instead of what you were told you could make.

That's the same as it is today. Why don't you visit the ideas site (link in TFS) and see where people's imaginations take them. They're not all works of art by any stretch, but some of the sets offered there are phenomenal. Also take a look at ReBrickable for other models people have created.

It's true they make some simpler sets aimed at younger kids, things with big molded pieces that "real" LEGO enthusiasts hate, but that's not representative of all that's available.