IHSS Blog: Leon

 Leon Hoang

Mr. Roddy

IHSS
6 October 2020

IHSS Blog: Toys and Tipping Points

I will be talking about legos for my blog. Legos are an type of toy that have interlocking bricks and pieces that can be put in millions of various ways to form different things. With the right pieces you can make anything you want; a helicopter, boat, car, etc. Due to the creativity that can be put to use playing with this type of toy its obvious that many kids prefer playing with them, making a lego a very common and popular toy. When I used to play with them there were these different styles of legos catered more for a specific gender, such as ninjas, star wars, soldiers were more catered to boys, while a type called lego Friends was more catered for girls. And there were some types in the middle, an example would be lego City which was basically in the middle of all of this, a kind of gender neutral approach. Lego city was basically a type that was focused on real life situations like in a real city. At that time,  I was obsessed with this rather than the other more boy-influenced types. Mainly all the sets I bought were lego police and firefighter stations because I was engrossed with first responders back then. I’m sure in today’s climate that wouldn’t be encouraged especially for the police. But regardless I was criticized for playing with lego city which was “unmanly” so as I grew older I started to switch to ninjas and star wars which was considered more for boys. I think the main reason that lego city wasn’t approved by boys was because of the lack of firearms or any weapons. So there definitely was social pressuring or else I would’ve kept playing with the lego city theme. I’m not saying that these themes are only for boys, I’m sure many girls enjoyed playing with them, but in my opinion, guns and weapons were are more of a male-associated thing. And in that same line of thought, ponies and pink colors were more in association with girls. So in conclusion, I think that at that that time, the separation between gender in terms of lego products was not official, but for generally people knew. And I think nowadays lego has expanded its reach and all legos aren’t for a specific gender.             

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