Edwina Bartholomew: Lego is right to make its toys free of gender bias

At our house, our daughter may eventually pivot to princesses but for now she is perfectly happy playing with trucks, says Edwina Bartholomew.

There is a toy in our house that is currently on high rotation. Well, it’s not really meant to be a toy, but my daughter absolutely loves it. It’s an allen key. Yes, the kind you get for free at Ikea and then throw into the bottom of the junk drawer.

I’m sure someone will tell me it is a choking hazard or not suitable for children but I’m running with it anyway in the hope I will never have to put together a flatpack in the future.

She walks around the house pretending to tighten up screws on furniture and flips her little chair over to check it’s structurally sound. She uses it so much, we have now purchased her a little tool kit of her own.

I found the set on a website under “boys’ toys”. The same website listed nurses outfits for girls and cupcake making kits but nothing tough in that category or anything that would end up with a grazed knee or dirt-covered clothes.

Lego has vowed to make its products “free of gender bias and harmful stereotypes”.

Gender specific toys have been in the headlines this week after Lego vowed to make its products “free of gender bias and harmful stereotypes”, saying there is a need for wider society to “rebuild perceptions”.

It sounds very PC and, as old people say about young people, woke. But as a parent, I completely agree with it. We have made a deliberate effort in our house to give our daughter a combination of toys: dolls, teddies, trucks, cars. She loves them all, for now.

The changes at Lego reflect a global shift away from boys’ and girls’ toys. Last week, California became the first state in the US to mandate that large department stores display products like toys in gender-neutral ways.

In Lego’s case, they surveyed nearly 7000 parents and children across seven continents. They found that girls were more open to engage in different types of play than boys, but there is a gradual creep of “societal norms” for both sexes when it comes to play time.

Consequently, the company will no longer label its products “for boys” or “for girls”. What that means for the Lego, helmet hair, we are not quite sure.

At our house, our daughter may eventually pivot to princesses but for now she is perfectly happy playing with trucks alongside the next door neighbour wearing his Emma Wiggle skirt.

Originally published as Edwina Bartholomew: Lego is right to make its toys free of gender bias