National Post

Lego’s ‘pink ghetto’ draws fire over gender-specific marketing
The Lego backlash was perhaps inevitable. When the maker of countless little coloured bricks sold all over the world decided to create a line of products designed specifically with girls in mind, it was broaching a delicate subject.

Sure enough, as Lego Friends was being rolled out this month, sets in which the girls of Heartlake City can do things like visit the vet and hang out at an ice cream café, criticism descended upon the Danish toy giant.

“Lego’s pink ghetto,” read one headline. An advocacy group compiled 50,000 signatures on a petition that decried Lego for implying that “girls are not interested in their products unless they’re pink, cute, or romantic.” Among the thousands of critical messages on social media rallying around the “LiberateLego” hashtag was a typical post: “There’s already a type of Lego for girls. It’s called LEGO!!!”

Mess with the gender-neutral bull, you get the horns.