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From: jym%mica.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.berkeley.EDU (Jym Dyer)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Parker Brothers' "Careers for Girls"
Message-ID: <9106052058.AA15457@mica.berkeley.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 91 21:20:09 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen party Line
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu

o+o The attached is from Desperado, a wonderful on-line magazine
started by a wonderful tech writer at DEC.
    <_Jym_>

========================================================================
From:	MRKTNG::DUGDALE      "Susan Dugdale, VMS Service Product Management"
To:	CLOSET::T_PARMENTER
Subj:	For Desperado

While I can't say that I particularly think of Desperado as a feminist rag,
the following excerpt from the New Hampshire NOW Newsletter was so
outrageous that I had to share it.  So as my first ever contribution, I
offer you ...

Parker Brothers' New Game "Careers for Girls"

The head of the US Small Business Administration cited Parker Brothers as
showing "insensitivity to modern realities" in a game that lists "supermom"
and schoolteacher as key careers for girls.  SBA Administrator Susan
Engeleiter stated, "Parker Brothers is sending the wrong message to young
girls.  Even Barbie dolls come with business suits these days."

"Careers for Girls" is a new board game targeted for girls ages 8-12.
Players select from six "careers": supermom, schoolteacher, rock star,
fashion designer, college graduate, and animal doctor.  Instructions for
the game, packaged in a hot pink box, include "Show us how you slow dance
with your main squeeze," "Describe your dream husband," "Tell us the names
of your eight children," and "Burn all your chocolate chip cookies."

Parker Brothers' spokesperson Patricia McGovern stressed that the game is
purely for entertainment and "is certainly not to communicate that only
certain careers are limited to women."  The game was designed by a woman,
art was managed by a woman, and the product manager was a woman, she said.

Ironically, "Careers for Girls" is an update of the 1957 version that
listed such professions as big business, prospecting, politics, going to
sea, expedition to the moon, farming, Hollywood, and college.

			      -*-

I just wish someone had told me that "college graduate" was a career.  I
would have quit while I was ahead.

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Please think of Desperado as a feminist rag.  We're all for more everything
good and less everything bad over here.  As we used to say back in the 60s,
"Life to the Life Culture and Death to the Death Culture".
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Not an official publication.  Forward with daring and whimsy.  Circle the earth