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From: bradley@cs.utexas.edu (Bradley L. Richards)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: computer games & women/girls
Message-ID: <19171@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 18 Apr 91 17:43:18 GMT
References: <13947@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <7060003@hpdtczb.HP.COM> <14193@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Dept of Computer Sciences, UTexas, Austin
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lisa ann farmer writes:
>David Merrill writes:

>>It seems to me that 
>>fewer women than men are interested in computer games because fewer
>>women are interested in computers.

>If more women were in computer science would more girls play computer
>games and be interested in computers at a young age?  Do you need to
>appeal to young girls first or do you need to get more women into the
>CS field first?  Each one complements the other in my eyes.

>My theory is
>that since women/girls don't play computer games they aren't as
>comfortable with computers to begin with and therefore get discouraged
>quicker than boys/men/ and other girls/women who have played computer
>games.

There's another factor to consider, that I haven't seen mentioned yet
on the net.  I recall hearing about an experiment done at (I believe)
the high school level, which involved boys and girls playing computer
games.  The games chosen were derivatives of then-popular video games;
one that I recall being used was "missile command" (which suggests
that the study was probably mid-80's).

The researchers found no difference in the abilities of males/females
playing the games, but they did find a big difference in enjoyment.
The attitude of the girls playing missile command, for example, seemed
to be "yea, I can play it, but why do I want to pretend to be fighting
a war?"

The conclusion the researchers drew was that most video and computer
games are oriented toward a male audience by being violence oriented;
we still have the early socialization, to a large extent, that boys
play with toy soldiers, while girls play house.

While many newer games are still very violence oriented, there are
also many (Tetris, Klax, et al) which are not.  I wonder if this will
interest more girls in palying these games.

Bradley