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Women of NASA - Can of Worms
playwell
Member Posts: 2,332
So Women of NASA won the latest ideas review and find it more than a little outdated. The idea that women need special recognition for being women seems to me to be unhelpful if the goal is for everyone to be treaded equal.
I would have rather seen a people of NASA set that included women and people with different ethnic backgrounds as well as white men.
Once again we seem to have yellow minfigures representing white people but I hope we will see them all become fleshy when the set is released.
Saying all this I will pick up the set as I collect all things NASA and there could be some very useful torsos, I hope they all get unique printing and that they don't get skinny waists so that I can buy two sets and create their male counterparts because we wont be getting a Men of NASA set, now that would be sexist wouldn't it?
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Comments
edit: I forgot to also list the ship in the bottle.
I don't really see the point of it though. It's a display set of minifigures that many people probably haven't heard of, but will be produced as they want to be seen to be politically correct, supporting women in STEM. The achievements of the women of NASA are nothing without the achievements of men of NASA (and vice versa). It is a shame they don't produce a more balanced people of NASA - but that isn't what the people wanted or voted for at ideas. The only males they will celebrate are the astronauts themselves.
Disappointing result by TLG.
Let's be honest (and this is coming from a teacher), we know who Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin, Chris Hadfield, and Story Musgrave, but many people can't name many women in the same field with the exception of Sally Ride.
In terms of equality we have a ways to go (but we are making progress) but so much still needs to be accomplished.
Giving more recognition to the women who have also made great contributions throughout history (and NASA's history) is important to everyone but especially young girls who don't conform to the ideaologies of what a woman should act like (another notion we need to still break out of).
that said I may get it as others have mentioned for the torsos and prints, depending on pricing and my disposition regarding this at the release.
A couple of comments from the front page:
"Well since the Brickset comments seem upset I called their decision a "political correctness ploy," I feel it is worth explaining my dissatisfaction with their decision. Was it smart for it to include Katherine Johnson who was depicted in a film recently? Yes. Do these women deserve to be recognized? Yes. But so does John Glen, Warner VanBraun, etc. Furthermore as an American I love NASA, but... let's be honest that the U.S.S.R made an equal contribution to space exploration which Lego deserves to recognize (the U.S.S.R. historically sending women to space first). That is why I called it "politically correct," because it stoops to the modern social political trends to earn Lego "public brownie points."
Just as I think an all male Lego set (like what we saw often in the 90's) was a mistake; I also think an all female set falls into the same error. You can't call one an error while calling the other flawless. If we really want to celebrate space exploration, let's celebrate all of it; and stop trying to draw lines along gender, race, and ethnicity for the politics we want to promote. STEM fields need to be promoted among both boys and girls, not just one or the other. Remember, in the modern US at least; more women are getting degrees then men now in school, suggesting that a method is needed to promote both genders to go to school, not just one or the other.
It's also a lame minifig pack disguised as a set, so it has that against it too."
A couple of comments from the front page:
"As a female scientist, I personally find groupings like "Women in science" pretty patronizing. It's like there are (real) "scientists" and "women scientists" (wow, who knew!), and they are for some reason separate groups. I do understand the need to encourage young females to enter STEM fields, but ghettoizing "women in space," etc. hardly seems like the right approach to me. More useful would be to make a "Heroes of NASA" set, and have 50% female minifigs and 50% male (proportionate to the gender distribution of the population at large).
Also I think the builds on this set look pretty boring, lol. Overall a disappointing choice in my opinion."
I get that Lego have previously had FAR more male minifigures than female and I get that they are trying to address that, but choosing and naming a set, singling out and highlighting a particular sex, is not the way to go in my opinion.
I think this is exactly what ideas was made for. It's different. It's educational. It's pretty empowering I'd say.
Go you TLG.
Go you Ladies.
Considering the lackluster nature of the Research Institute's builds I must concur that this Ideas set is rather ho-hum. However, considering the expensive nature of the past few sets it'd be interesting to see this in the cheaper venue, provided this is in the 40$ range compared to the 70$ we've been seeing for other sets so far.
I'm not going to comment one way or the other on the other subject regards to this particular set, however I would like to see that old fishing store set soon to see what the official set will look like and cost. Shouldn't that be coming out soon? Considering The Yellow Submarine was released around November.
The sets I would have really really wanted were
Adam's family mansion
Merchant House
Mountain Observstory
Banks of Plum Creek.
These are all very large sets. Lego Ideas really only has so much bandwidth they are probably given in manufacturing each year, because of the main lines they have to produce. I believe they have alluded to the point before of having some limitations. I am betting that since they have a large set that is coming out this fall, they either needed to balance things out with a smaller set due to manufacturing constraints or because it is better from a sales perspective to have variation in set size. With the Fisherman House coming out, going with a small set made the most sense. Of the smaller sets, personally, I like vignettes in general, so yes, I would buy about any vignette set. In addition, with how well the previous Ideas vignette set sold, and the recent movie Hidden Figures, it seems a no brainer that this would sell well, AND they do not need to get an approved license. While I would have strongly preferred one of the large sets mentioned, I am always happy to see a small vignette set. Of the smaller sets they had Basically, I think there are very sound reasons they went with this set, and much had to due with the size. Of the smaller sets, there were very few this time. Lovelace and Babbage would not have sold in the US. SpaceBalls would need a license, and of the vehicles the red sports car would do better. The Large Hadron collider, I can not tell if that is a mid-size set or not, but I think the appeal would have been small. The Star Wars set... I am pretty eh on this set, since they have made some versions of this in the past, and I also can not tell size on that. Basically, I think from a size perspective they were probably down between women of NASA and the sports car.
As for the question of should this set have been made because it showcases women, MattPeterson echoes many of my own thoughts.
I could go for a classic PB Bunny CMF now that you bring this up.
I am very disappointed. We need to wait a YEAR for the final product? No way! I can make this in 10 minutes on Digital Designer. What a waste of a slot.
I'm happy to see Voltron is still being considered, because that actually looks good and profitable.
The project is laughably light on detail for an approved/pass, so as stated, one can only assume 'Women' was the magic word.
As per the comments I like the idea of these. I had no idea about any of the women featured in this set. But I can tell you anything you wanted about Buzz Aldrin etc. It's a great way to increase awareness about a relatively unknown area of history. This fits in very well with Lego's mandate - it covers science and history and furthers education. If they could also do one for some other women and guys this would really flesh out any NASA moc.
The reason the women of NASA are less well known than the men is because it was (overwhelmingly) the men who were the astronauts. Like it or not, it's the astronauts who get the recognition, because going into space is the dangerous part of the missions.
With the best will in the world, whilst doing all the calculations and everything like that is obviously important, it's nowhere near as dangerous - and therefore as high-profile - as being an astronaut.
The issue for me is that it's just some minifigs with some pretty poor vignettes. I bought a copy of the RI because I thought the vignettes at least looked cool, but unless LEGO does some massive redesigning on those then there really is not a lot to write home about with this one.
The negative press they would have received for choosing to not produce this set would have far outweighed the relatively small negative reaction they're getting for approving it.
Barely any building, just something to display. It looks like some frame eBayers sell with a Minifigure set.
Personally, I would prefer an actual NASA set with both men and women (all real people). For instance, make a model of one of the rockets from the moon missions and then include minifigures of real people involved, an equal number of men and women. This not only brings recognition to some perhaps unknown people involved in the program, but also provides an actual set. As others have stated, one issue I have is that it's simply a minifig pack with a few small models to justify. It's obvious that those small models were just the excuse to claim it's a set, but really the focus always was about the minifgures. We can be honest and say that nobody really voted for it because they liked the little models.
I have no problem making female figures that represent real people and giving them recognition. But to throw 6 in a box and claim it's a set isn't the best approach to it.
So, it's not a NASA problem but a cultural problem.
To your other point though I think the conversation on the broader is more about Male v. Female scientists in general. I could name plenty of men of the field, Kissinger, Oppenheimer, Einstein, Hawking, etc. where as when it comes to women the only name that immediately jumps to mind is Marie Curie.
Is this because throughout a big chunk of history women were confined to more traditional gender roles? Definitely. Should I still know more famous female scientists? Certainly.
I dont think the point here is to say these women are more famous/important than the Astronauts themselves, but instead to educate about the people whose blood, sweat and tears contributed to mankind going into space, while also shedding some light on female scientists. It also doesn't hurt that female NASA scientists in particular are on the public mind due to the relative success of Hidden Figures.
Discrimination of women wasn't always by men, and it still isn't. Plenty of women used to think that other women should be homemakers and some still do.
In that case, the problem is that they don't commit more resources to Ideas sets (and yes, a NASA theme, perhaps marketed along the lines of Architecture, does seem like a thing they should be considering), not the fact that, like so many other aspects of pop culture, Lego is finally getting round to featuring more women.
It's sort of a bittersweet result for me overall - there were SO many sets in this round that I wanted to see pass, especially the Merchant's House, Addams Family Mansion and Little House on the Prairie. (Fingers crossed that Voltron is just being held up by licensing issues; that set would be AMAZING.) I think Lego are being very circumspect re: the Fisherman's House and are reluctant to do another large building (and the Addams Family one probably was a good deal too large to make it, alas) until they've seen whether or not it sells.
And plenty of people look down on homemakers, like to add value to the world you need to be a scientist or such.
Off to make a homemakers set, don't worry it wont be women only. Although the male minfigures will be seen as modern and enlightened but the female ones... (ok I'll stop here, I seem to have strayed into the danger zone)
so the conclusion for me is that I am relatively happy with it as it gets me something I want. while still arguing against it as I don't think this was worthy of becoming an official set. (I would be perfectly happy with no sets Passing Ideas review this time, and letting Lego catch up with what they have already approved)
I wonder what the pricing if this will be. Double Research Institute would mean about £35. Although £45-50 in today's climate is probably more realistic.
[runs to design and submit a Women in Famous Large Mansion set. Sure to be a big seller]
The general consensus was that both sets were rejected due to their similarity to the Research Institute. Now that today's Ideas choice has shown that can't be the case, I am more curious as to why those two submissions were rejected.
I never said that 'space is dangerous and women shouldn't be there'. I said that 'going into space is the dangerous part'. Therefore as there have been a lot more men in space than women, it follows that a society which makes heroes of people who do dangerous jobs will know a lot more NASA male astronauts than NASA female astronauts.
I did NOT say that 'space is dangerous and women shouldn't be there'. Clearly that's complete rubbish, and my estimation of you sank through the floor when you claimed that I'd said that.
You're also factually wrong in claiming that 'Women have been going into space as astronauts ALMOST as long as men have'. Unless you class 'almost as long' as being 22 years difference. Alan Shepard was the first American man in space, in 1961. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, in 1983. That is not 'almost as long'.
anything would have passed, apart from maybe 'Women of UKIP'.