On Monday, Lego, the world’s largest toy company, announced that it would remove gender stereotypes from its toys, pushing dangerous radical gender ideologies onto children.
Lego’s Dreamzzz line will debut with several new models, including a Pegasus horse, a blue and pink bunny, a robot, a crocodile car and a “nightmare shark ship.”
The new gender-neutral characters will also be featured in a Dreamzzz TV series premiering on May 15.
“We have always been focused on ensuring that LEGO play was for all children, but within the recent years we have focused more on putting systematic processes into place to ensure LEGO products and marketing be as inclusive as possible,” said Julia Goldin, Chief Product and Marketing Officer Lego Group, in a statement to USA TODAY.
In October 2021, Lego revealed that they would be removing gender bias from products following a survey, conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media, which suggested that gender roles caused shame among children.
USA TODAY reported:
The research, commissioned by the Lego Group and carried out by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, found attitudes toward children’s activities and future goals continue to be unequal and confined to gender biases.
In a survey of almost 7,000 parents and children, aged 6-14, worldwide, the majority of children reported feeling confident in engaging in a wide range of activities — including those that have been historically gendered.
But girls expressed this stronger than boys. For example, 82% of girls agreed that girls can play football and boys can practice ballet, compared to 71% of boys. And 42% of girls said they worry about being made fun of for playing with a toy typically associated for the other gender, compared to 71% of boys — a fear often shared by parents.
“Girls are more likely to consider a wider range of jobs versus boys,” Madeline Di Nonno, president and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute, told USA TODAY. “The girls are ready, we just have to get out of the way.”
Professors Dr Kevin Donnelly AM and Reverend Peter Kutri claimed the new products will push ideologies onto children who aren’t old enough to comprehend the complexities of gender theory and that children should just be allowed to “be children.”
From the Daily Mail (bolding added for emphasis):
Lego has been accused of forcing ‘woke‘ ideology onto Australian children after the company revealed its new line of gender neutral toys.
The toy giant will release their Lego Dreamzzz collection that will include a Pegasus horse, a blue and pink bunny called ‘Bunchu’ and a ‘nightmare shark ship’.
A new TV show will also be launched on May 15 and feature the new ‘gender inclusive’ characters.
Professors Dr Kevin Donnelly AM and Reverend Peter Kutri claimed the new products will push ideologies onto naïve children who aren’t old enough to comprehend the complexities of gender theory.
…
Senior Fellow at Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute Dr Donnelly said people shouldn’t be persecuted for who they are and that erasing gender roles isn’t the way to counteract it.
‘I don’t believe that people should be discriminated against or attacked for being LGBTQI+, but at the same time human biology is pretty binary – it’s not a social construct,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘A lot of this gender theory is very abstract and very confusing, and I would argue – as a lot of parents have that I talked to – just let children be children.
‘My fear is that it’s not just Lego, there’s a significant movement globally towards what I call “radical gender theory”.’
Dr Donnelly said the sensitive stages of development for young children and teenagers isn’t the time to introduce questions of sexual identity.
…
Director of the culture, prosperity and civil society program at the Centre for Independent Studies, Reverend Peter Kurti said the answer was simple.
‘They’re aiming it at parents who are themselves wanting to play down gender stereotypes and impose non-conformity on their kids,’ Rev. Kurti said.
‘Lego is doing this because they see there’s money in it. They’re not a charity, they’re a company and they think that there is money to be made in exploiting this market.’
Rev. Kurti said that nothing about the new range of toys gave an impression of gender fluidity.
‘I didn’t think that they were a non-binary toy, I can’t see why anyone would quite see why they would be,’ he said.
‘The unicorn, the bunny or the ship don’t seem non-binary quite frankly.’
‘What actually is a gender-neutral toy? Why is Bunchu the Bunny a gender neutral toy?
‘Looking at the construction bits that go with Lego, why is it not gender neutral already?
‘I think it is part of the woke culture, Lego has seen there is a market statement that we can get into here and we can pitch products to parents and I guess kids who are receiving this kind of ideology at school.’
The action figures are part of a bigger push for the Lego Dreamzzz brand, which Rev. Kurti says goes beyond a cash grab.
