Thursday, February 25, 2010

Blog #7 - A Positive Role Model?

In the article "Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons?" There is a section about Lara being a positive role model to girls and women. Many of the games or other media for female depict a frilly little world where no wrong is ever done and everything is perfect. However this is seldom the case in real life. These types of interactions don’t help females to learn from these experiences or practice problem solving skills. It is said that in games such as Tomb Raider there are puzzles to solve and situations that require getting out of. Therefore the players are required to problem solve in order to continue in the adventure.

Personally I never did spend much time playing computer or online games, but I have seen some of these frilly “girl” games they are talking about. These are games about Barbie’s Fashion show, Slumber Party, or some other seemingly ridiculous and meaningless theme. What is the point of putting different clothes or completing a make-over on virtual dolls? Does it somehow teach them to dress better? And if it does, does that really matter in the real world?

When I played board games or card games I enjoyed games with a challenge. Games that make you think are always the most rewarding (in my mind). I think that we are doing females such a disservice by only encouraging them to play games with little to no educational value. I don’t always agree with the theme of the games that boys are playing now days and I don’t think that games are the only way to learn or that they should be played all the time. I do however think that if we are going to provide problem solving games that appeal to boys we should do the same for our girls.

I believe that one of the reasons why women are known across the board as having less computer knowledge than men is partially due to the fact that boys were more drawn to computers as kids, giving them more experience with computers even on a basic level. Do I think women are less able to thrive on computers than men? Not at all. I do however think that we need to give our girls just as many opportunities as we give our boys so that they have a better chance of succeeding.

2 comments:

  1. I wrote about the same passage, and we defiantly agree.

    Quoting your post "I believe that one of the reasons why women are known across the board as having less computer knowledge than men is partially due to the fact that boys were more drawn to computers as kids, giving them more experience with computers even on a basic level."

    I wonder why boy are more drawn to video games?

    Here are a few of my thoughts. I took a class called Psychology of Women a few semesters ago, and we talked about how boys and girls are raised/treated/educated. It starts at birth that boys and girls are talked to differently, given gender specific toys, and dressed in blue or pink. This pattern continues in school where if a boy does not do well in math or science they are coached and pushed, but typically girls are said to be doing the best they can and therefore not encouraged in the areas of math and science.

    This in turn equates to video games and their accessibility to females (and even enticement). With boys there are fighting games, and as you said the ones for girls are "frilly". Girls have been associated with frilly things and therefore that is what they gravitate too, the same for boys they are told that it is ok to be rough so they like rough games.

    I do think that the education of girls and boys is changing and that today's educators are encouraging girls to enjoy math, science, and technology.

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  2. I agree. I really get frustrated with my little sister playing these silly games online. I have my brother who mastered Halo at age 9 and has super advanced gaming and comprehensive skills now at 13 that blow my limited gaming knowledge out of the water. Now my sister is 9 who's gaming world progresses only as far as dressing up her virtual Bratt dolls on her Leapster or on the Bratt's website. She has no interest in the internet at all and considers it "for the boys." This is definitely the way society is segregating genders through gaming and technological knowledge and interaction. Girls are forced to play "boys" games if they want a challenge or something to curve their interests. Games definitely need to be created FOR the girls as well.

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