by Hiu Yue Heidi Wong
Toys are the first avenues of experience for children and contribute to many aspects of childhood development by equipping them with a range of physical, cognitive, and social skills (Maccoby, 1998; Reich, Black and Foliaki, 2018). In recent years, however, there has been a significant increase in gendered toys. Among all, The LEGO® Group was criticised for deviating from its traditional gender-neutral marketing ever since its release of the girls’ line LEGO®Friends in 2012. This consequently cultivates stereotypical gender schema in children and perpetuates the prescribed gender roles across generations.
Significance of studying gender stereotyping in children’s toys
The explicit and implicit messages about gender roles in relation to toy play that children received from various socialising agents (e.g. media, parents, and peers) will replicate and reinforce their stereotypical gender schemas for fulfilling the cultural and social expectations of appropriate gender roles and behaviours, which will then be passed on to the next generation. Having identified such an urgent need to stop the permeance of gendered toys in the market, we should take a closer look at LEGO®’s gender-typed advertising of LEGO® Friends through the lens of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA).
Check this out:
Advertising Video 1 (Ad1): LEGO® Friends Rebrick
Advertising Video 2 (Ad2): LEGO® Friends x五個小孩的「正」綱
MCDA of two Facebook advertising videos of LEGO® Friends
Explicit gender labels
Adjectives
Examples in Advertising Video 1 (Ad1) of LEGO® Friend:
係女仔都想變靚啲，高踭鞋就最Lady!
All girls want to become prettier, like a lady wearing high heels.
佢成日笑到甜絲絲，不如送佢set High Tea?
Let’s prepare her a tea set that resembles her sweet smile!
The positive adjectives “prettier” (comparative form) and “sweet” are used to highlight pretty look and sweet temperament as desirable qualities of girls depicted by the mini-dolls in LEGO® Friends (see Fig. 1.1). This echoes the prevalence of toy make-up kits and dress-up play in the toy sets of LEGO® Friends.
In Advertising Video 2 (Ad2), “wasteful” (see Fig. 1.2) connotes the undesirable behaviour of wasting food. Given a cross-cultural tendency for children to imitate same gender models, the negative image of a “big waster” is demonstrated by a male mini-doll instead of the female protagonists in LEGO® Friends to avoid girls identifying with such bad behaviour. This negatively affects children’s perception of the opposite sex (as shown in Fig. 1.2, the girls despise the male mini-doll portrayed as a ‘big waster’).
Pronouns and collective nouns
Examples in Ad1 (female pronouns):
佢最愛中華白海豚，就砌個海豚樂園比佢喇!
She loves dolphins. Let’s build her a dolphin cruiser!
係?佢好似中意貓咪，貓咪屋岩玩啲!
Really? I think she likes cats, a cat’s playground sounds better!
The prevalent use of female pronouns (e.g. she, her) helps girls identify with the caregiving and animal-loving characteristic portrayed by the mini-dolls in the advertised toy set, which echoes the historical gender segregation of boys’ versus girls’ toys with the breadwinner versus caregiver model.
On the other hand, the use of deictic pronouns (e.g. we, you) and collective nouns (e.g. girls) also serves to cultivate a sense of participation and collectivism in the process of gender identification through toy play.
Examples in Ad1 (deictic pronouns):
我地比啲surprise佢囉！
Let’s (let us) give her a big surprise!
咁索性砌番間屋仔，入面賣雞蛋仔囉！
Why don’t we build a snack shop and sell egg waffles?
The use of the deictic pronouns allows the ad the sound more inviting as if the target audience (i.e. girls) are also taking part in the social conversation and activities performed by the mini-dolls in the ad.
Examples in Ad1 (collective nouns):
係女仔都想變靚啲，高踭鞋就最Lady!
All girls want to become prettier, like a lady wearing high heels.
Example in Ad2 (collective noun):
The use of the collective noun “girls” makes LEGO® Friends stands out as a girls’ toy and exclues boys from the toy play experience demonstrated in the ad. In Ad1, viewers’ attention is drawn to the aforementioned gender ideology on girls’ appearance and attractiveness. In Ad2, the slogan (see Fig. 1.3) highlights the creative and imaginative power of girls and keeps in line with LEGO® ’s mission of developing children as “creative, engaged, lifelong learners” (The LEGO Foundation, 2017). However, it also places boys in a disadvantaged position to be engaged in the creative and imaginative play opportunities brought by the LEGO® Friends series.
Implicit gender labels
- Colour
The trend of “pinkification” in children’s toys not only attracts girls to toys designed and packaged with pastel colours, but also discourages boys to avoid playing with pinkified toys regardless of which gender it has been marked with.
Examples of pinkification in LEGO® Friends and its ads:
The use of a range of pastel colours (with pink and purple as the theme colours) are showcased in both product design and visual representation of the advertisements. In Ad1 (see Fig. 2.1), Pinkification is manifested in toys’ packaging, outfits of mini-dolls, and the decorative style of the room where the advertising video was filmed (i.e. pink pillow and purple wall). In Ad2, the interviewed girls dressed in outfits of pastel colours (and dresses, of course) to fit into the gender norms of girl fashion.
- Font style
Past research suggested that script type fonts are associated with femininity, while display type fonts are associated with masculinity. In Fig 2.7, LEGO® Friends’ logo features a cursive and script type font coloured in purple with pink shades. The dot in ‘i’ appears in heart shape alongside the butterfly on top of ‘s’. This logo design captures the essence of femininity, thus serves as a subtle yet effective gendering tool for meeting the purpose of gendered marketing.
- Product design
Mini-dolls as gender models
The mini-dolls in LEGO® Friends (see Fig 1.1) deviate from the appearance of the traditional LEGO® minifigs in that they are less blocky in body shape, looking more humanlike and stylish with the refined details of facial expressions, facial make-up and fashionable accessories. These stereotypical mini-dolls also mark distinction in gender roles, exemplify gender-appropriate activities, and influence children’s visions of their adult roles in both workplace and family contexts.
Suggested activities for play
Historically, feminine toys place an emphasis on nurturing and domesticity by engaging players in feminised labor and household activities that include baking and serving food, as well as caregiving (both human and animals). Later on with the prevalence of fashion dolls in the market, elements of glamour, entertainment and socialising are also recognised as common features in feminine toys. With all these markers of suggested activities for play shared among girls’ toys, children are directed to replicate and adopt the historical gender norms such as women domesticity and pursuit of beauty.
Examples in Ad 1:
In Fig 4.1, leisure and entertainment are highly recognised in different toy sets of the LEGO® Friends series. For instance, Ad1 showcases toy sets of a cafe, two playgrounds, and a dolphin cruiser, which seem to present leisure and socialising activities as the only options for girls’ play.
Examples in Ad2:
Fig 4.2 captures the enjoyment of the girls who are engaged in cooperative play in building and decorating the doll’s house with their peers. From their smiles and laughters, a friendly relationship between the girls is observed and it echoes the name of the LEGO® Friends series. However, Ad2 is still considered gender-typed in a way that it includes girls as the only participants in cooperative toy play. As much as how it may reinforce the feminine roles of caregiving, socialising, and domestic labouring in girls, Ad2 excludes boys’ participation in these activities and exploits their showcase of creativity and imagination through cooperative toy play with LEGO® Friends.
Implications and conclusion
Toys reinforce and perpetuate segregation of gender, as demonstrated in the above discussions of plentiful semiotic resources (e.g. language, colour, font style and product design) used in two advertising videos of LEGO® Friends. Although LEGO® ’s marketing has foregrounded caregiving, domesticity, entertainment and cooperative relationships as the core values of creative toy play, these values could be gender-biased when manifested in gendered marketing of toys that consequently leads to children’s limited play experiences and exacerbates the segregation and asymmetry of gender in adulthood. As more mature members in the society, we are responsible for limiting, monitoring, and challenging children’s exposure to different mediums of advertising where gender-typing is observed. In the meantime, members in the toy industry are also responsible for upholding gender equality through gender-neutral marketing of toys so that the existing gender stereotypes will not ingrain in children’s gender schema and affect their choices of roles to take in adulthood. Together we should all aim to facilitate children’s growth in a less gender-segregated environment so as to help them become more open-minded individuals and embrace diversity in not just toy plays, but all kinds of experiences in life.
Tags: Language and Gender, Gendered marketing of toys, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis
References
Maccoby, E. E. (1998). The two sexes: Growing up apart, coming together. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Reich, S., Black, M., & Foliaki, R. (2018). Constructing Difference: Lego® Set Narratives Promote Stereotypic Gender Roles and Play. Sex Roles, 79(5), 285-298.
Language Culture and Society in Hong Kong (and beyond) 