Women everywhere must be applauding this little girl who, at the tender age of 7, is already aware that gender inequality in toys is not quite right, and is fearless in giving the world a piece of her mind.
Charlotte loves Legos just as much as the next child and most adults. However, her latest foray into the toy store made her feel that Lego was short-changing her as a girl. She promptly wrote a strongly-worded letter to Lego, and he dad posted it online at the Sociological Images section of The Society Pages.
Here is the transcription of the letter in its entirety.
"Dear Lego company:
"My name is Charlotte. I am 7 years old and I love legos but I don't like that there are more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls. Today I went to a store and saw legos in two sections the girls pink and the boys blue. All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs, even swam with sharks. I want you to make more Lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun ok!?!
"Thank you.
"From Charlotte."
The image containing the letter has been shared over 4,000 times on Facebook and retweeted about 2,000 times, and almost all of the comments were positive and supportive. It has also been featured and talked about intensively on popular newsfeed sites like Boing Boing, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and the Daily Mail.
Charlotte was most likely referring to the Lego Friends line, which was introduced in 2011, and is still available now. The line contains bricks that are more pink, purple, and light blue compared with those in the other Lego sets and lines. Lego Friends also includes figures that are supposedly more realistic and less block-like than the iconic Lego figures.
The ensuing discourse did garner some defense for Lego's side. Some fans pointed out that despite the pink-and-purple color scheme, the Lego Friends line does have women figures with jobs - such as teachers, scientists, artisans, sports enthusiasts, musicians, and the like. Props include telescopes, microscopes, robots, and band instruments, giving the female figures several options of who to be on any given day. It was also pointed out that all Lego pieces are compatible with other pieces from the entire Lego range, so the women figures from the Lego Friends line can use them in their adventures.
For its part, Lego explained that its decisions to come up with those very components in every Lego set are results of the company's processing of the feedback and suggestions from its very wide customer base.
"We are grateful that we have a product that so many children around the world engage with," said Emma Owen, a spokeswoman from LEGO UK. "Each year hundreds of thousands of children all over the world reach out to us after playing with our products, and give us positive feedback and suggestions for ways to improve. We reply to all consumers who reach out to us, and this answer is between us and the consumer unless the consumer decides to share our response of course."
Nevertheless, Charlotte's simple yet direct letter is significant because it can be taken as proof that children are now more aware of the limitations that toys - and society - are imposing on them, as well as the ways in which they can break away from such imposed limitations. For Charlotte, it started with Lego, and a letter. For many other children just starting to learn their way around the world, the possibilities are endless.
