Recently LEGO announced that it was coming out with a new line of “girl-friendly” LEGO with softer colours (aka pink) and more feminine characters to play with (the LEGO Friends). Of course, pink LEGO really isn’t anything new – my mom bought some for my daughter a year ago. But this new world of LEGO for girls is huge. It comes with four years of research, $40 million spent on marketing, and 23 different characters to be released. In fact, I read that the company refused to launch this new line before Christmas because they couldn’t be guaranteed adequate shelf space in stores.

Across social media, people have been lashing out at the idea that LEGO needs to be pink in order for girls to play with it. This fantastic ad from the 1970s surfaced (What It Is Is Beautiful) and this rant by a four year old girl against the pink stereotype has been widely circulated. People across the board are crying out that girls will play with LEGO of any colour – it does not need to be pastel and pretty.

And it’s all so true! My daughter River is the frilliest of girly-girls, yet she loves playing with LEGO. Her and her daddy spend time each day working on their model kits, and since Christmas they have completed a spaceship and an ambulance and are currently working on a really cool garbage truck. (We have a kit fixation, but I’ll save that post for another day). River constantly asks my husband to work on LEGO with her – it’s one of her favorite things to do. Even my one year old loves LEGO, despite my best efforts to keep it out of her reach.

Clearly, girls do not need LEGO to be pink.

But maybe the rest of us do?

I mean, how often do the rest of us think to buy girls LEGO? When people buy birthday gifts for my girls, they generally go to the toy store and find something age-appropriate in the “girl section”. We get dolls and tea sets and princesses, because that’s what they find in those aisles. I think a lot of people are the same way. Their daughters may enjoy LEGO, but it doesn’t really occur to the friends and family to give it to them.

LEGO is a great toy. Business Week writes that “unlike tiaras and pink chiffon, Lego play develops spatial, mathematical, and fine motor skills, and lets kids build almost anything they can imagine, often leading to hours of quiet, independent play.” Spatial development, math skills? Those traits are stereotypically associated with boys. It’s not fair that girls aren’t given the same opportunity to develop those skills.

Some girls like dolls. Some girls like princesses. Some girls like fairies. Some boys do too, of course. But we’re the ones who keep buying our girls doll after doll after doll. If we buy our girls LEGO, we might be surprised to find that they like that too. If it takes a bit of pretty plastic to remind us parents that LEGO is an equal opportunity toy, then I say bring on the pink.

Bonus: Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who can only process the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. In the case of today’s post, the word LEGO. Thanks Wikipedia!