--- title: LEGO to Start Making Female Scientist Figurines description: Tiny female LEGO scientists will storm toy aisles with their tiny scientific equipment starting this August. canonical: https://time.com/2822921/soon-there-will-be-female-scientist-legos/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-04T20:34:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:25.073Z og:title: Soon There Will Be Female Lego Scientists og:description: Tiny female LEGO scientists will storm toy aisles with their tiny scientific equipment starting this August. og:url: https://time.com/2822921/soon-there-will-be-female-scientist-legos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71da40c6c6900e7a/698696341eebf7409e3714fa/103330270.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4256 og:image:height: 2394 og:image:alt: A child plays with Lego building blocks og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Soon There Will Be Female Lego Scientists twitter:description: Tiny female LEGO scientists will storm toy aisles with their tiny scientific equipment starting this August. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71da40c6c6900e7a/698696341eebf7409e3714fa/103330270.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Soon There Will Be Female Scientist LEGOs > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Twice a week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 4, 2014 8:34 PM UTC  A child plays with Lego building blocks in 2010. A child plays with Lego building blocks in 2010. Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 4, 2014 8:34 PM UTC Get ready, LEGO fans: Tiny female LEGO scientists will storm toy aisles with their tiny scientific equipment starting this August. That’s because the toy company just selected the Female Minifigure Set, which features a female chemist, a female astronomer, and a female paleontologist, as its latest LEGO Ideas Winner. Each scientist comes with their own equipment, including a chemistry lab, a telescope and a dinosaur skeleton, and the collection is called the “Research Institute.” The idea was proposed by [Dr. Ellen Kooijman, ](https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/1-blog/post/11)who wrote in her project proposal that professional LEGO figurines could “show that girls can become anything they want, including a paleontologist or an astronomer.” Anyone can submit a proposal for a new LEGO set to the LEGO Ideas platform. Proposals that get more than 10,000 votes get reviewed by the company as a potential real-world project. LEGO has been criticized for its lack of female toys after a 7-year old girl wrote to the company earlier this year asking why only male toys got to do cool things. In her handwritten letter which went viral, Charlotte Benjamin lamented that there were “more LEGO boy people and barely any LEGO girls” and observed that “all the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs, but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people … even swam with sharks” Benjamin was apparently not excited about the [“Lego Friends” ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEbJQmiZlEk)series, which features pink-clad figurines who get their hair done, make cupcakes, and drive around with their girlfriends. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2822921/soon-there-will-be-female-scientist-legos/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2822921/soon-there-will-be-female-scientist-legos/"},"headline":"Soon There Will Be Female Scientist LEGOs","datePublished":"2014-06-04T20:34:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:25.073Z","description":"New \"Research Institute\" collection will feature women chemist, paleontologist, and astronomer","url":"https://time.com/2822921/soon-there-will-be-female-scientist-legos/","keywords":["Living","gender","girls","kids","Lego","Toys","scientists"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71da40c6c6900e7a/698696341eebf7409e3714fa/103330270.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71da40c6c6900e7a/698696341eebf7409e3714fa/103330270.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A child plays with Lego building blocks","caption":"A child plays with Lego building blocks","creditText":"Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2822921/soon-there-will-be-female-scientist-legos/","name":"Soon There Will Be Female Scientist LEGOs"}}]}] ```