Denmark-based toy company Lego recently approved the designs for a new collection called "Research Institute," featuring an all-female line of scientists.
The designs include an all-female ensemble of astronomers, chemists and paleontologists. The design for this project was submitted to Lego Ideas, a fan-based online community that allows Lego fans to submit and vote for new designs.
The designer of the winning collection was Ellen Kooijman, a Swedish geochemist. The design garnered a total of 10,000 votes. According to Tech Times, she used to play with Legos as a child, and noticed that most Lego depictions of scientists were males. She also noted that Lego depictions of female characters could promote stereotyping.
"As a female scientist I had noticed two things about the available Lego sets: a skewed male/female minifigure ratio and a rather stereotypical representation of the available female figures," Kooijman wrote in her blog post.
In 2012, the company released a collection called Friends. It became controversial after different groups petitioned the company to stop releasing the collection. They were angry about how women were presented in the design - all of them were either modeling on a catwalk, hanging out in the beach, or baking cupcakes. In a Change.org, a petition also started calling on Lego to stop perpetuating gender stereotypes and educating children about these through their toys, ABC News reported.
Similarly, a YouTube video showing a girl complaining about limited Lego choices for females also gathered attention from all corners of the Internet. In the video, a girl named Riley questioned Lego about their limited options when it comes to their toys for girls.
"Why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff? Why do all the girls have to buy princesses?" Riley asked in the video, as reported by ABC News. "Some girls like superheroes."
