Take a gander at my latest community window and try and figure out just how much of it is from these "girl" lines (hint, quite a lot of that is).
First of all, that is an utterly gorgeous MOC. These are the ones I really love--the "landscapey" ones that show off a little piece of the builder's LEGO world.
Second of all...I think the dolphins are from Paradisa, right? And maybe some of the other sea beasties. I know the transparent "seaweed" pieces originated in Belville, and I think some of the other transparent pieces did as well.
Do I pass?
Meh...keep the politics and other drama out of it all. Seriously. Have fun.
Who says I don't have fun? I want
everyone to have just as much fun as I do if not more. I argue against exclusionary business practices because they reduce the fun.
It's not like there are any other ways to get female minifigs. A lot of the faces are gender neutral, they're just slight, higher quality variations on the classic smiley. But male hair on. It's a guy. Put female hair on. It's a girl. I use that all the time. And we have Bricklink. And we have Ebay. Not to say that I don't want or think we need more female minifigs in new sets. But still, the article just seems like we've gotta blame Lego for all our problems when ultimately it's up to the parent to decide how the child plays, what the child plays with (which the parent has plenty of options to acquire these desperately wanted figs).
These are good points, but they mainly apply to AFOLs and their kids. Those aren't the kids I'm worried about. They'll be fine. I'm worried about the mainstream kids begging their parents for LEGO for their birthday. The average parent isn't going to go on Ebay or Bricklink and rustle up a bunch of heads with lipstick so their daughter can replace all the dudes in her City set with gals if she wants. They're going to go to Toys 'R' Us or Target or whatever and pick up a LEGO set and that's it. If they're lucky enough to live close to a LEGO Store, they might be aware of Pick-a-Brick and the minifig parts bins, but that's a minority of people.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who treats the heads lacking both facial hair and visible makeup as gender-neutral, but I wish LEGO would do the same. The huge City model sets use the classic smiley for all minifigs, but that's about it--other than that, if an "official" minifig is not a specific named character and has female hair, it's going to have one of two faces:
this one or
this one. I'd like to see a greater variety of feminine heads moved into the "generic" lineup.
And shouldn't we be solving more important world problems than Lego gender ratios?
Don't you worry your pretty little head.
No one's putting the environment or the Eurozone on hold while we discuss this. There are enough great minds in the world to tackle all of them simultaneously.
Anyway, How likely do you think that the Cuusoo set will be made? Do we know what other sets it'll go up against for review?
A LEGO rep made an official remark to the effect that LEGO is very interested in expanding the female presence in its regular sets, so things look good. I'm choosing to stay optimistic.