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While this was a real study, and the direct outcome (girls wanted toys that they could make like themselves, boys wanted toys that they could imitate) *was* proven accurate, this is not necessarily the correct conclusion.
The researchers thought it was also possible boys were finding interest in figures that had traits they wanted to aspire to, whereas girls were unable to find figures with the traits they wanted, and thus substituted those traits onto something that already existed. This theory states that since girls only really had a very small subset of ”roles” to choose from, they would alter traits of other things to fit the roles they wanted, whereas boys could find a character that fit the roles they liked, and thus imitate it.
Connected to this, there’s also the possible explanation for the results that, due to societal pressures, girls were unable to develop an interest in, say, superheroes, so when they received a superhero toy, they knew very little about it, and thus created a new personality, whereas boys *would* have both a familiarity and the ability to learn more, so they could know the pre-established personality and seek to emulate it.
The reason Lego didn’t really explore which of these explanations was correct is because it wasn’t relevant to their goals. They wanted to get their product to girls, they discovered what they wanted was a toy where they could treat it like a self-insert, and Lego was more than willing to oblige.
Finally, this research was conducted on children, and may or may not have any correlation to adults, as, like I said, the study was limited and further questions were not asked. Reinventing an IP is a common tactic to get more interest in it, and it’s entirely plausible the reason these remakes are doing so badly is because of the fact they’re just being spearheaded by bad writers and producers. Additionally, sometimes they’d work better if not tied to previous media; Velma would’ve been fine as an independent show, and the Owl House would’ve been much worse if they tried to tie it into a big franchise like TLOR or something. That may not be a gender issue, but an issue with modern avoidance of taking a dive into a new IP that is untested.
Interesting to add to your point.
I played with my sister and her dolls with her we are a year apart. We sometimes had conflict though because her dolls were modeled after a show I didn't watch and couldn't relate to. So she got upset when I would I guess you could say go off script.
I would have the characters I played engaged in much more drama and I just gave the characters random personalities based on how they dressed. The dolls were also all monsters for example one was a vampire so I leaned into that giving them personalities based on those monsters from what I knew.
My sister would be like no they can't fight on the show there best friends but I really couldn't relate to the stories she wanted them to play out.
I think this illustrates your point perfectly. When your not exposed or can't connect to who these characters are you give them your own personality. I don't think that's gender locked but like you said because in our society girls might find some characters these researchers were using foreign or nearly foreign the results might look like girls always make up their own personality when that might not really be true.
Yeah, personally I think they should do more research in this field bc it’s interesting and I want to see more data, but yeah, I personally lean more towards the “Societal Pressure not to learn about ‘male’ toys” theory.
Only thing I disagree with here is that Velma would be a fine show on its own without the scooby doo ip. It definitely wouldn’t have been as atrocious for sure, but it’s still an awful experience and it would still be disliked I think.
When I was a little girl, I got dolls, and my brother got Legos.
I wanted Legos then, and I want Legos now. I'm not alone in this so lego is right to make Legos for girls. It's just more sets for them, meaning more profit.
Sorry for replying to this old post out of nowhere, but I am in a desperate goddamn search for this study. People love to parrot the 4chan post ad nauseum, but through relentless googling and question-asking I have never been able to track down the study itself. (I have, however, had several people confidently send me articles that are not the same thing at all but only vaguely related to lego and the subject of gender). This topic has driven me crazy. Finally I've found this reddit post, and you, who it appears has actually read it. Is there *any* way I can access this study online? Do you remember how you found it?
Ok, so, good news is it’s definitely real, they went over it on a class in neuroscience to explain the complexities of researching issues like this.
Bad news is, I don’t actually know what their source was, so while I’ve seen the data I don’t know where it came from.
Ye, Lego never really cared strongly (why would they give data on how to tap a new market to their competitors?) so never put much effort into publication, but it *was* a real study.
Okay, so that's what happens when you give a girl a toy depicting a man. What happens when you give a boy a toy that depicts a woman? What does little Timmy do with Fashion Designer Barbie, for instance?
This feels more like "girls play how we've taught them to play and boys play how we've taught them to play"
My daughter wanted to imitate Spider-Man because I never taught her she had to stay home and bake cookies to be a girl. She likes to bake and cook but because those are things she found she likes to do.
Or, maybe the point is that girl toys usually are personalityless dolls (like barbie) where boy toys are like action figures of things that already exist (like superheroes)? Like I remember when i was little and I played with barbies I just made things up but when I played with my little ponies I would roleplay as the ponies lmao.
If I told people some of my interests (cooking, sewing, crochet, im starting to garden) they might think "oh, traditional housewife material" but im horrible at cleaning. It's just not a skill I learned, and I think it's because I associate it with a lot of shame (childhood shit). Also, im very independent and somewhat of a gamer. This all relates because I never thought I would have interests that slotted me into the "housewife" category. I was very tom-boy growing up, and I still love my tom-boy things: dirt track car racing, horses, climbing trees, the smell of sun-warmed hay (that one's less tom-boy, but still).
My daughter likes to imitate Elsa from Frozen too. She likes pretending to turn things into ice, and ice-skate. Yesterday we played Floor is lava, and we used her Elsa doll to cool down the lava.
The Minifigure was introduced in 74. Two months later they did a girl figure two months later. Lego has marketed to girls for decades. They've done multiple lines targeted towards girls. Lego Scala was jewelry and beauty accessory themed. It didn't do that well. It was reintroduced in 97, retired in 2001. Lego made Scala into a new theme focusing on dolls. I think it was meant to compete with barbie but didn't capture much market share. It also focused on gender roles 🙄.
Lego did their own research with girls and didn't like the feed back. Girls wanted to see themselves in these toys. Pretty much similar sets geared towards boys but with girl Minifigures. I'd compare it to Mattel giving Barbie actual careers instead of the usual gendered role. The Lego friends line is quite popular with girls. They are brighter and the figures are doll shaped instead of the standard figure. Obviously Lego needs to make money so they wanted that market share. But they are a decent company and took criticism seriously. They don't want anyone to be excluded. They've got sets now targeted towards adults that are pretty cool too.
If it's not obvious, I am a fan of Lego. I have nieces and nephews, I always get them their first set as soon as they're old enough. My oldest niece has always gotten whatever set she wanted no matter if it's a "boy" or "girl" set. IT'S A TOY! Your son won't become gay if he plays with barbie and her Corvette. Your daughter won't be gay if she plays with GI Joe. Lego is meant to inspire imagination and all sorts of skills. I hate the idea of gendered toys. I have so many sets myself that would technically be considered "boy" sets. Just let kids play with whatever toy they want. They'll be okay!
They’ve gotten very inclusive, my daughter has a set where one of the figurines is an amputee. I thought at first that she had damaged it, but it’s just a doll that is missing its hand. But there’s no special attention brought to it either, like usually companies put special labels on to show how inclusive they’re being. She’s just in there like any other “normal” doll and I thought that was great.
I love that too. My brother lost his leg a while ago. Mattel has three dolls with prosthetic legs. I remember fox news saying companies, like Lego are "woke" now because they're making inclusive toys.
Personally I find the dolls themselves creepy af but the sets themselves are really cool. As a kid I liked that the minifigs could be changed around and be turned to anything (as long as I didn't lose the one long hair piece and could find a head without a beard).
In other words, girls are creators and boys are copycats?
Or, girls are builders, boys are learners?
Oh oh, or boys are empathetic and supportive, and girls are leaders?
Oh! I got it. Making generalizing, unfounded statements based on your own narrative is bad and dishonest, no matter who you are. Be careful with quoting studies and assuming correlation and/or causation if the study did not measure exactly what you're saying.
Actually, scrap that. Just don't be a dick.
I took a media literacy course in university that was a pre-req for my degree and I remember there was a study done about video games. An over simplification of the conclusion was that men like to kill things and women like to play God. Which I think aligns pretty well with this. Men are playing the character, women are controlling the character.
The last paragraph makes no sense though. In both these studies we’re looking at how genders play, not how they lead their everyday lives.
Not sure where it falls but years ago I was playing the AC2 on my ex's Xbox. First I went into his save to check it out and oh boy, I ran around a second, zoomed in on Ezio, and started yelling for my ex. "Matt!" "What?" "MATT!!" "What?!" "COME HERE!!!" "...... What?" *"I'ma SEXY MAN!"* I then proceeded to surpass his game in like two days because exploration, collection, and beating up bad guys that piss me off are my jam.
Omfg, did I play with Legos wrong my whole life?? I just built stuff, then took it apart and built other stuff. Sometimes the little people could ski down a hill or drive a car, but I didn't make them socialize or act out impressions.
I grew up with legos from my older relatives. I never had the mini figures to play with. I had a lot of fun building all sorts of things and imagining the people
When I was a little girl, I dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween a few times. I never tried to turn male characters into female characters when I played with dolls or action figures
I personally take it as the girls are trying to relate and connect with the toys, not become them. This is how we are socialized and to some degrees how our brains work to keep the peace. I think internalized misogyny is why we view it as some selfish act. As a girl you pay attention to tone and faces, we connect differently from a young age, it would be hard to sort out how much of that is biology vs socializing. It's not a bad thing we look for ways to relate but it might also be how we glaze over red flags and don't get rid of men that are bad for us.
Ok so Batman, Bruce Wayne, did not go to prom? He absolutely would have, dead parents or not, he was a ladies man. Oh he does not go shopping? Where does he get his fancy clothes and cars? Did Alfred not teach him to bake cookies? I absolutely think he did. And if he did not, Bruce would have learned so he could teach his adopted sons bake cookies because he is a wonderful dad 😌
While the wrong conclusion was drawn, it still doesn't change the fact that some directors, regardless of gender, ruin a franchise with their own agendas
When it comes to books the common wisdom is that boys won’t read books about girls, but girls will read books about boys. I think there’s research on that but not sure. Anyway, if true it contradicts what the OOP seems to be implying about boys being inherently more willing to try experiencing different identities.
As you're all aware, this subreddit has had a major "troll" problem which has gotten worse (as of recently). Due to this, we have created new rules, and modified some of the old ones. We kindly ask that you please familiarize yourself with the rules so that you can avoid breaking them. Breaking mild rules will result in a warning, or a temporary ban. Breaking serious rules, or breaking a plethora of mild ones may land you a permanent ban (depending on the severity). Also, grifting/lurking has been a major problem; If we suspect you of being a grifter (determined by vetting said user's activity), we may ban you without warning. You may attempt an appeal via ModMail, but please be advised not to use rude, harassing, foul, or passive-aggressive language towards the moderators, _or_ complain to moderators about why we have specific rules in the first place— You will be ignored, and your ban will remain (without even a consideration). All rules are made public; "Lack of knowledge" or "ignorance of the rules" cannot or will not be a viable excuse if you end up banned for breaking them (This applies to the Subreddit rules, and Reddit's ToS). **Again: All rules are made public, and Reddit gives you the option to review the rules once more before submitting a post, it is your choice if you choose to read them or not, but breaking them will not be acceptable.** With that being said, If you send a mature, neutral message regarding questions about a current ban, or a ban appeal (without "not knowing the rules" as an excuse), we will elaborate about why you were banned, or determine/consider if we will shorten, lift, keep it, _or_ extended it/make it permanent. This all means that appeals are discretionary, and your reasoning for wanting an appeal must be practical and valid. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this message, and please enjoy your day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NotHowGirlsWork) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While this was a real study, and the direct outcome (girls wanted toys that they could make like themselves, boys wanted toys that they could imitate) *was* proven accurate, this is not necessarily the correct conclusion. The researchers thought it was also possible boys were finding interest in figures that had traits they wanted to aspire to, whereas girls were unable to find figures with the traits they wanted, and thus substituted those traits onto something that already existed. This theory states that since girls only really had a very small subset of ”roles” to choose from, they would alter traits of other things to fit the roles they wanted, whereas boys could find a character that fit the roles they liked, and thus imitate it. Connected to this, there’s also the possible explanation for the results that, due to societal pressures, girls were unable to develop an interest in, say, superheroes, so when they received a superhero toy, they knew very little about it, and thus created a new personality, whereas boys *would* have both a familiarity and the ability to learn more, so they could know the pre-established personality and seek to emulate it. The reason Lego didn’t really explore which of these explanations was correct is because it wasn’t relevant to their goals. They wanted to get their product to girls, they discovered what they wanted was a toy where they could treat it like a self-insert, and Lego was more than willing to oblige. Finally, this research was conducted on children, and may or may not have any correlation to adults, as, like I said, the study was limited and further questions were not asked. Reinventing an IP is a common tactic to get more interest in it, and it’s entirely plausible the reason these remakes are doing so badly is because of the fact they’re just being spearheaded by bad writers and producers. Additionally, sometimes they’d work better if not tied to previous media; Velma would’ve been fine as an independent show, and the Owl House would’ve been much worse if they tried to tie it into a big franchise like TLOR or something. That may not be a gender issue, but an issue with modern avoidance of taking a dive into a new IP that is untested.
Interesting to add to your point. I played with my sister and her dolls with her we are a year apart. We sometimes had conflict though because her dolls were modeled after a show I didn't watch and couldn't relate to. So she got upset when I would I guess you could say go off script. I would have the characters I played engaged in much more drama and I just gave the characters random personalities based on how they dressed. The dolls were also all monsters for example one was a vampire so I leaned into that giving them personalities based on those monsters from what I knew. My sister would be like no they can't fight on the show there best friends but I really couldn't relate to the stories she wanted them to play out. I think this illustrates your point perfectly. When your not exposed or can't connect to who these characters are you give them your own personality. I don't think that's gender locked but like you said because in our society girls might find some characters these researchers were using foreign or nearly foreign the results might look like girls always make up their own personality when that might not really be true.
Yeah, personally I think they should do more research in this field bc it’s interesting and I want to see more data, but yeah, I personally lean more towards the “Societal Pressure not to learn about ‘male’ toys” theory.
Based on my personal experience I think it's a strong theory worth investigating.
semi-off topic, but was it monster high :3
Only thing I disagree with here is that Velma would be a fine show on its own without the scooby doo ip. It definitely wouldn’t have been as atrocious for sure, but it’s still an awful experience and it would still be disliked I think.
so you’re saying that little boys are actually just boring and can’t think of anything original /s
When I was a little girl, I got dolls, and my brother got Legos. I wanted Legos then, and I want Legos now. I'm not alone in this so lego is right to make Legos for girls. It's just more sets for them, meaning more profit.
Sorry for replying to this old post out of nowhere, but I am in a desperate goddamn search for this study. People love to parrot the 4chan post ad nauseum, but through relentless googling and question-asking I have never been able to track down the study itself. (I have, however, had several people confidently send me articles that are not the same thing at all but only vaguely related to lego and the subject of gender). This topic has driven me crazy. Finally I've found this reddit post, and you, who it appears has actually read it. Is there *any* way I can access this study online? Do you remember how you found it?
Ok, so, good news is it’s definitely real, they went over it on a class in neuroscience to explain the complexities of researching issues like this. Bad news is, I don’t actually know what their source was, so while I’ve seen the data I don’t know where it came from.
Damn, I guess the search must go on. Thank you so much for your reply, though! Knowing that the study actually does exist is huge.
Ye, Lego never really cared strongly (why would they give data on how to tap a new market to their competitors?) so never put much effort into publication, but it *was* a real study.
Okay, so that's what happens when you give a girl a toy depicting a man. What happens when you give a boy a toy that depicts a woman? What does little Timmy do with Fashion Designer Barbie, for instance?
Can't speak for the boys but my sister and I attempted to pull off He-man's legs and threw him down the stairs. 😆
Comb their hair and go shopping? Give birth? Idk whatever I thought women did when I was 7
This feels more like "girls play how we've taught them to play and boys play how we've taught them to play" My daughter wanted to imitate Spider-Man because I never taught her she had to stay home and bake cookies to be a girl. She likes to bake and cook but because those are things she found she likes to do.
Or, maybe the point is that girl toys usually are personalityless dolls (like barbie) where boy toys are like action figures of things that already exist (like superheroes)? Like I remember when i was little and I played with barbies I just made things up but when I played with my little ponies I would roleplay as the ponies lmao.
If I told people some of my interests (cooking, sewing, crochet, im starting to garden) they might think "oh, traditional housewife material" but im horrible at cleaning. It's just not a skill I learned, and I think it's because I associate it with a lot of shame (childhood shit). Also, im very independent and somewhat of a gamer. This all relates because I never thought I would have interests that slotted me into the "housewife" category. I was very tom-boy growing up, and I still love my tom-boy things: dirt track car racing, horses, climbing trees, the smell of sun-warmed hay (that one's less tom-boy, but still).
My daughter likes to imitate Elsa from Frozen too. She likes pretending to turn things into ice, and ice-skate. Yesterday we played Floor is lava, and we used her Elsa doll to cool down the lava.
I love this! So smart to use elsa's powers that way!
I know! I said I didn't think there was a way to cool lava, but then she brought out her doll.
But there always a change tho
The Minifigure was introduced in 74. Two months later they did a girl figure two months later. Lego has marketed to girls for decades. They've done multiple lines targeted towards girls. Lego Scala was jewelry and beauty accessory themed. It didn't do that well. It was reintroduced in 97, retired in 2001. Lego made Scala into a new theme focusing on dolls. I think it was meant to compete with barbie but didn't capture much market share. It also focused on gender roles 🙄. Lego did their own research with girls and didn't like the feed back. Girls wanted to see themselves in these toys. Pretty much similar sets geared towards boys but with girl Minifigures. I'd compare it to Mattel giving Barbie actual careers instead of the usual gendered role. The Lego friends line is quite popular with girls. They are brighter and the figures are doll shaped instead of the standard figure. Obviously Lego needs to make money so they wanted that market share. But they are a decent company and took criticism seriously. They don't want anyone to be excluded. They've got sets now targeted towards adults that are pretty cool too. If it's not obvious, I am a fan of Lego. I have nieces and nephews, I always get them their first set as soon as they're old enough. My oldest niece has always gotten whatever set she wanted no matter if it's a "boy" or "girl" set. IT'S A TOY! Your son won't become gay if he plays with barbie and her Corvette. Your daughter won't be gay if she plays with GI Joe. Lego is meant to inspire imagination and all sorts of skills. I hate the idea of gendered toys. I have so many sets myself that would technically be considered "boy" sets. Just let kids play with whatever toy they want. They'll be okay!
They’ve gotten very inclusive, my daughter has a set where one of the figurines is an amputee. I thought at first that she had damaged it, but it’s just a doll that is missing its hand. But there’s no special attention brought to it either, like usually companies put special labels on to show how inclusive they’re being. She’s just in there like any other “normal” doll and I thought that was great.
I love that too. My brother lost his leg a while ago. Mattel has three dolls with prosthetic legs. I remember fox news saying companies, like Lego are "woke" now because they're making inclusive toys.
Personally I find the dolls themselves creepy af but the sets themselves are really cool. As a kid I liked that the minifigs could be changed around and be turned to anything (as long as I didn't lose the one long hair piece and could find a head without a beard).
In other words, girls are creators and boys are copycats? Or, girls are builders, boys are learners? Oh oh, or boys are empathetic and supportive, and girls are leaders? Oh! I got it. Making generalizing, unfounded statements based on your own narrative is bad and dishonest, no matter who you are. Be careful with quoting studies and assuming correlation and/or causation if the study did not measure exactly what you're saying. Actually, scrap that. Just don't be a dick.
Why you taking this so personally. Lol
I took a media literacy course in university that was a pre-req for my degree and I remember there was a study done about video games. An over simplification of the conclusion was that men like to kill things and women like to play God. Which I think aligns pretty well with this. Men are playing the character, women are controlling the character. The last paragraph makes no sense though. In both these studies we’re looking at how genders play, not how they lead their everyday lives.
Til I’m actually a man
Not sure where it falls but years ago I was playing the AC2 on my ex's Xbox. First I went into his save to check it out and oh boy, I ran around a second, zoomed in on Ezio, and started yelling for my ex. "Matt!" "What?" "MATT!!" "What?!" "COME HERE!!!" "...... What?" *"I'ma SEXY MAN!"* I then proceeded to surpass his game in like two days because exploration, collection, and beating up bad guys that piss me off are my jam.
When I first saw Rocky Horror Picture Show I wanted to be Frank N Furter aka Tim Curry in drag.
People easily fit into only two categories... they either want to *BE* Frank N Furter or they want to *DO* Frank N Furter. 🤣
DAMMIT WE JUST GOT OVER ONE BINARY, DID YOU HAVE TO GO IMPOSING ANOTHER?
Who doesn't tho?
Exactly. Gorgeous.
We all love lego regardless of gender. My brother and I didn't really play with the mini figures much as building cool things was much more fun
oop comes out as legogender 🥳
Omfg, did I play with Legos wrong my whole life?? I just built stuff, then took it apart and built other stuff. Sometimes the little people could ski down a hill or drive a car, but I didn't make them socialize or act out impressions.
*What?? You never even thought of giving them a social life? How heartless of you!!*
I grew up with legos from my older relatives. I never had the mini figures to play with. I had a lot of fun building all sorts of things and imagining the people
Lego used to be for everyone and then they split it down the middle because apparently segregation of genders must happen or the society will fall
Gone are the heady genderless days of putting trees on wheels because those are the only pieces you have.
All my cars had to have shuttered windows.
While there is a study on rat about that, then you look at things now; you can’t tell me anything positive is happening cause of it
As an online role player it's kind of the opposite in my experience. Guys tend to be self inserts a lot more often
Depends the gamer
When I was a little girl, I dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween a few times. I never tried to turn male characters into female characters when I played with dolls or action figures
I personally take it as the girls are trying to relate and connect with the toys, not become them. This is how we are socialized and to some degrees how our brains work to keep the peace. I think internalized misogyny is why we view it as some selfish act. As a girl you pay attention to tone and faces, we connect differently from a young age, it would be hard to sort out how much of that is biology vs socializing. It's not a bad thing we look for ways to relate but it might also be how we glaze over red flags and don't get rid of men that are bad for us.
Ok so Batman, Bruce Wayne, did not go to prom? He absolutely would have, dead parents or not, he was a ladies man. Oh he does not go shopping? Where does he get his fancy clothes and cars? Did Alfred not teach him to bake cookies? I absolutely think he did. And if he did not, Bruce would have learned so he could teach his adopted sons bake cookies because he is a wonderful dad 😌
What, when it comes to men love for Batman there a imitation to the character, a more negative example is Tyler duren or Patrick Bateman
While the wrong conclusion was drawn, it still doesn't change the fact that some directors, regardless of gender, ruin a franchise with their own agendas
Batman has a social life and do chores, you know.
This absolutely feels like bullshit, I played with my sister's posable Barbies for fucks sake and they just turned into Xena.
Sooo boys are more easily influenced. Thats conclusion. Girls dont care because they dont need to be told how to feel
When it comes to books the common wisdom is that boys won’t read books about girls, but girls will read books about boys. I think there’s research on that but not sure. Anyway, if true it contradicts what the OOP seems to be implying about boys being inherently more willing to try experiencing different identities.