We certainly love our Legos, don't we?

Ask any contemporary parent of boys what their favorite toy is and "Legos" is certain to come up as a popular reply.  In the last decade or so, Lego has gone from having boxes of connecting blocks to build anything you want to building specific worlds: Harry Potter, Atlantis, City, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. The sisters of these boys either played with them too or just did other things.

Daughters across the U.S.,(including my own), have been anticipating something designed for them. "What would it be?" we wondered. Would the girl-marketed Lego take a page from the last 10 years of boy-Lego and be themed to a movie or book? Would we get Spy Kids-themed Legos with cool Carmen leading the way for girl spies everywhere? Would they get Studio Ghibli to do Lego versions of Miyazaki's cool girl heroines like Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service? A Twilight tie in?  What cool girl heroines would they chose to make an adventure set out of? Fiona from Shrek? Or my wish — a Buffy the Vampire Slayer retro '90s set! (Girl vampire slayers rock!)

Lego Friends

In January Lego delivered Lego Friends. Five friends with thin perfect bodies having jobs like cupcake baker and hair stylist, fashion designer and singer. You can drive around town in a lavender Corvette with friend Stephanie, or make music with friend Andrea. The sets all have important items in them like handbags, mirrors, and brushes.

Hey girls, Lego's marketing department assured in interviews that test markets showed that you like gender stereotypes and didn't want adventure.

To be fair, there is a veterinarian friend and an inventor friend included. So at least two friends probably have MS degrees, but still. Is this all they could do? Some parents are disappointed; a few searches and you can drum up at least three petitions against Lego — even an eating disorder one for making the five girls identical in size and shape, with just a change of hair color and eyes.

The Real Controversy is Really Just Disappointment

Progressive parents everywhere love Legos. The whole premise is to use your imagination, creativity, and wonder. A kid with a Lego set learns to build and think about how things get put together. Today's adult engineers likely played with Legos as children. The company has picked some pretty cool storylines in the past to use for Lego sets. Though they've been marketed to boys (with boy 'dark colors') they've never been off-limits for girls.

Parents kind of expect gender bias and stereotypes from the likes of Disney, Barbie, Bratz, and all manner of pink-painted merchandise from Mattel. But somehow, we hold in higher regard and to higher standards the Dutch company of Lego. We expect Lego to know better — to set the high bar and not pander to those who know no better than to grind into a little girl's head that she should choose hairspray over heroism.

The Kid Test Tells All

For their part, my daughter and her friends want the veterinarian set and the invention set — a dynamic duo in the (girl) Friend world of stereotypes. A quick, informal poll of other young girls yielded these suggestions for Lego friends:

• librarian
• college professor
• doctor
• engineer
• spy
• cowgirl
• film director
• martial arts experts

Hey, Lego. There is no reason to limit what the Lego friend world looks like? And when do girls get their own cool adventure sets?

What do you think of the new sets and concept? Would you buy it for your daughters? Does playing with stereotypical toys doing stereotypical roles hurt our girls?