riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (07/11/84)
NPR's "Morning Edition" had a short segment today on the "computer
gender gap" and what some see as the solution to it: computer games
written to attract girls and women to use computers. The idea seems to
be that it is computer games which entice children and adults to learn
to use computers, and that fewer females than males take the bait
because of the masculine orientation of most fantasy and space-combat
games. They interviewed several women with rather different views of
the issue.
One was a representative of a California outfit called Two-Bit
Software. Her company is preparing to market a computer game called
"Mad Dash" in which the object is to guide a figure of a woman as
quickly as possible through various obstacle courses which they feel
are more representative of women's interests than the monster-filled
dungeons of more male-oriented games. The example tasks to be
performed by the character in the game: finding her car in a shopping
center parking lot while entering as few stores as possible; arriving
home from work and getting up the stairs to the bathroom before anyone
else does without getting snagged by a crying baby or a boiling-over
pot.
Needless to say, not everyone finds this view of women's interests very
inspiring; the next woman to speak was (I think rightly) incensed by
what she called a "reduction" of a woman's world to work, shopping, and
household tasks.
Also interviewed was a representative of another software firm which
produces computer games with more adventurous themes, but in which the
heroines are women; one of their games involves a woman pioneer alone
in a wilderness who has to find food and shelter and defend herself
from wild animals.
The final point was made by an educator who asked what I thought was a
good question: if we don't give children who are learning to read "boy
textbooks" and "girl textbooks," why should we introduce them to
computers by using "boy software" and "girl software"?
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle