professor bodin makes her bow

It's been a remarkable week. Eight days ago, an excursion to a local LEGO store yielded my first brush with the company's newest minifigure, the Scientist, who had long been anticipated on the pages of this blog. Upon returning home, I sat down and wrote about the experience, adding a brief history of LEGO, gender, and minifigs in the STEM fields for a guest post on the Scientific American blog network. The piece went live the next day.

By Tuesday, it had become the most read article on the SciAm blogs, and it remains in that position as I write this nearly a week later. The post spread like wildfire via social media, and before long, other outlets began covering it on their own sites. News of Professor C. Bodin, LEGO's first female lab scientist minifig, had clearly captivated scores of people around the globe who, like me, were surprised at just how few female STEM minifigures LEGO has produced in 35 years.

Smithsonian, CNET, Gizmodo, and The Mary Sue were the first major outlets to piggyback on the post, followed by LiveScience, Fast Company, the Christian Science Monitor, and A Mighty Girl, among others. TODAY, The Huffington Post, Think Progress, and The Washington Post joined in toward the end of the week. On Friday, my day was made when The Onion cracked wise with their tongue-in-cheek American Voices spoof, which asked three supposed "men on the street" their opinions about the minifig's debut. It was also fun to see articles from other countries, including the UK, France, and Hungary. Even Planned Parenthood named my original post their "Friday feminist moment of awesome"!

My only lament about whole thing is that the actual news became distorted rather quickly. Many outlets claimed this was the first female scientist for LEGO, when I had taken pains to point out in my post that this was not actually the case. Others reported incorrectly that a proposed all-female minifig set had also been released as an official product.

It's been a pleasure, however, to read so many tweets and comments on this story. Most have been positive, although many readers have been flabbergasted at the fact that this could be news in the year 2013. To that end, I hold that there is much yet that can and should be done to increase the representation of women and minorities in all facets of history and popular culture, including toys. I would love, for instance, to see more brown LEGO minifigures representing people of color. It would also be nice to see more minifigs—and LEGO Friends—in other areas of science and technology. This is not just ho-hum wishful thinking; the way people have embraced the news of this particular minifig strongly suggests that toy companies can still make a profit with products that defy the pink-blue, girly-macho gender dichotomy.

Lastly, a wee bit of trivia that didn't make the SciAm post, since I only discovered it later in the week... Just who is this C. Bodin, after whom the new LEGO scientist is named? Some have wondered whether the fig was made in the likeness of Joanne Manaster, a.k.a. the Science Goddess, who was actually one of my first LEGO Scitweeps. But no, it would appear that the real namesake is one Cynthia Bodin, Concept and Product Designer for the LEGO Group, who looks quite like the minifig in real life. It's interesting to note that Bodin's past product concepts include some of the girliest, blingiest, pink-and-purpliest LEGO stuff I've ever seen. These designs were part of the now-defunct Clickits theme that preceded Friends in attempting to woo girls. More recently, Bodin has led efforts to test LEGO products with parents in Denmark, where the company's headquarters are located. I reached out to her for comment, but she could neither confirm nor deny her connection with the new scientist minifig: "I’m not able to provide any detail on my work," she wrote via email, "given that it’s primarily rooted in research and design, which we don’t routinely discuss publicly."

In any case, I am, of course, very happy with Bodin's little plastic doppelganger, and I can only hope the LEGO team decides to produce more like it. ∞

Photo: The minifig that launched a thousand tweets, purchased at LEGO Natick on Series 11 release day.

victory! lady scientist lego minifig arrives

After the pleas (1, 2, 3) and the tease, we will finally have, beginning next month, an official female scientist LEGO minifigure! The "Scientist" fig will appear as part of Series 11, which is set to hit shelves on September 1st in the United States.

Here is the description from the LEGO website:

SCIENTIST: I wonder what will happen if I put THIS together with THAT... The brilliant Scientist’s specialty is finding new and interesting ways to combine things together. She’ll spend all night in her lab analyzing how to connect bricks of different sizes and shapes (she won the coveted Nobrick Prize for her discovery of the theoretical System/DUPLO® Interface!), or how to mix two colors in one element. Thanks to the Scientist’s tireless research, Minifigures that have misplaced their legs can now attach new pieces to let them swim like fish, slither like snakes, and stomp around like robots. Her studies of a certain outer dimension have even perfected a method for swapping body parts at will!

Kudos to LEGO for making her official name "Scientist" instead of adding "Lady" or "Woman" as it has done for certain other female figures (for example, "Lady Robot" in the same series). I must admit, I'm a little disappointed with the stereotypical glasses... But suffice it to say, this fig is a major step in the right direction.

In other female scientist minifig news, the CUUSOO Female Minifigure Set petition has racked up the requisite 10,000 upvotes for an official review by the folks at LEGO. Fingers crossed that these mini-sets will also eventually see the light of day! ∞

Photo by hermipad on Flickr

lady minifigs need your vote

As readers of this blog are well aware, I've been pushing for LEGO to ramp up its offerings of female minifigures in sets and the official minifig series. Last year, after the brouhaha surrounding the introduction of LEGO's Friends series, I noted the clear divide in male-female representation within the company and gave some concrete suggestions for the addition of female figures in stereotype-breaking careers. More recently, I lamented LEGO's changing course on apparent plans for a female scientist fig (though the librarian that came out in the end is actually quite nice).

I now want to share a wonderful proposal I discovered recently that conveys my vision completely—and which needs your support. The minifigures above and below were mocked up by Alatariel, a Dutch geochemist and LEGO fan, for Cuusoo, an officially-sanctioned LEGO crowdsourcing project. Users on Cuusoo (which means "wish" in Japanese) submit their ideas and solicit upvotes for their projects. Proposals with more than 10,000 votes are reviewed by a team at LEGO and may ultimately be created for sale in limited editions. (Examples of winning designs so far include the Hayabusa spacecraft and a Back to the Future set featuring Marty, Doc, and the DeLorean.)


Alatariel's full Female Minifigure Set is beautiful, and exactly what the doctor ordered. It features 13 new minifigures, plus accessories, in roles that include engineer, court judge, chemist, firefighter, astronomer, and paleontologist. Explaining her motivation, Alatariel writes:

Although recently LEGO® has started to design and add more female figures to their sets, they are still a minority. A small set of minifigures, which LEGO® has made in the past for different themes, would provide a great opportunity to add women to our LEGO® town or city communities. I have designed some professional female minifigures that also show that girls can become anything they want, including a fire fighter or a paleontologist (main picture). Being a geochemist myself the geologist and chemist figures are based on me:-) Due to the limitations of LDD the heads and hairstyles I used here are a bit limited. Ideally, Lego would produce some new face and hair designs, but at least I would like to see some 'rare' ones included.

So far the minifig set is about a quarter of the way toward its 10,000-vote goal. Please add your support! ∞

Post was corrected to fix the spelling of "Alatariel" and the fact that she is Dutch, not Swedish.