Funnily enough I have been drawn to links this week that tackle the ‘girl lego’ issue. The one closest to my own opinion & sensibilities is from Wandering Scientist, who points out how badly Lego has skewed “boy” for so long, and that while Lego is aware that boys consider “a castle without a dragon to be worse than no castle at all,” they don’t seem to have the same respect for girls who think a castle without a PRINCESS might be worse than no castle at all.

I also enjoyed reading her post, Princesses are not the Problem, about how she deals with her daughter’s craving for Disney Princess Culture, by allowing it in and working to help her daughter understand there are more options out of there, rather than forbidding it.

Disney princesses are problematic, but I have a similar policy in my house, and I find it frustrating when people automatically criticise pink and girliness as if these are terrible things. My daughter had her pink phase. I didn’t push it on her, but I didn’t kick and scream, either, and now she’s come out the other side and she likes purple and yellow and Batgirl and, yes, Lego. And if she was still super princess-feminine-sparkly-rainbows in her outlook, I’d still be rather fond of her. Kids need choices, and it irritates me beyond all measure when pink is the only choice for girls, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to provide a castle without a princess in it.

(Megabloks, btw, provides a castle with a princess AND a dragon. How is this not the best of both worlds?)

Some other Lego for Girls links:

The Changing Face of the Lego Minifigure

Reel Girl: I know Lego didn’t start all this gender stereotyping in kids’ toys. I get that you’re jumping on the bandwagon because you need to sell products. You’re worried because sales are down. But you’re making a mistake.

I’m Starting to Think that Lego is Evil

Some Links Not Involving Lego:

The Outer Alliance on Intersectionality and Lovecraft’s racism

Ian Mond also has some thoughts on Lovecraft’s racism & anti-semitism.

Ben Payne muses on his year of trying to consume equal amounts of culture created by men and women.

Sean the Blogonaut meanwhile, explains why attacking the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge makes you Look Like a Dickhead. (he is far more diplomatic than that)

Can I say how much I love it when men take up the challenge of explaining Feminism 101 to the guys who don’t get it? Much though it does niggle at me when men talking feminism are lauded and cheered and respected in a way that many women talking feminism often are NOT, I still think it’s a job that men can and should be taking on their shoulders, and I very much appreciate those who do.

Paul Cornell’s 12 Blogs of Christmas have been delighting me. I especially enjoyed his review of (and perspective on) the recent season of Merlin, because he manages to sum up everything I (STILL) like about the show. And the post which describes the lost Christmas episode of Blake’s 7 is a thing of beauty.

Some cute art: i09 presents the cast of Community as Batman villains, and Kathleen Jennings introduces Daleks to the world of the greenwood with a Robin Hood/Dalek crossover. [I wish this one was in colour - lincoln green Daleks for the win!]

Oh and I spent far too much of yesterday (in between all that pre-Christmas shopping, cleaning and preparing) reading this post analysing why, exactly, the end of Battlestar Galactica sucked so much. I think what I find most fascinating is that this is a MAJOR essay about how awful the ending was, and I agree with most of it, and yet it doesn’t even touch on the gender issues that screamed loudly at me, through the whole final season. Wow. Apparently I’m still not over the ending.

Tags: battlestar galactica, blake's 7, catwoman, daleks, disneyprincesses, friday links, lego