For years, it seems that more boys than girls have played with Lego, especially after the age of 4 or 5. This desn't seem like the most earth-shattering news, nor does it strike me as an urgent problem to be solved. But for some people it is. I wonder if you can guess who?
Feminists.
Lots of girls begging their parents for Lego would of course mean a huge increase in sales for that company, and make its owners very rich indeed. They have tried 5 or 6 times to make new ranges that will appeal to girls. These tend to come in pink coloured packaging, to be easier to build, and are centred around the social play that girls prefer. (feminists will have to get angry about the continued gender stereotyping if and when girls actually buy the stuff)
Yet members of the sisterhood are so busily looking for signs of patriarchy everywhere that they SERIOUSLY believe that the makers of Lego don't want to sell their products to young girls. These are probably the same people who think it is insidious social programming of some sort that is forcing young girls to choose My Little Pony instead of Star Wars toys.
I think these people belong in a secure psychiatric ward. Many of us laugh it off as an unimportant piece of lunacy. But this kind of thinking is everywhere. The sad fact is that not only women but also many men accept this sort of nonsense and repeat it with a straight face (then wait for approval like a good dog). Women
This is how free speech dies. It's all justified by the same political rhetoric that persuades grown adults that toy manufacturers are more interested in maintaining a mythical 'patriarchy' than they are in selling more toys or keeping their shareholders happy.
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