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From: nadel@aero.org (M.H. Nadel)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Parker Brothers' "Careers for Girls"
Message-ID: <1991Jun7.222756.10655@aero.org>
Date: 7 Jun 91 22:27:56 GMT
References: <9106052058.AA15457@mica.berkeley.edu>
Sender: news@aero.org
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org


>
>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.

Working Woman magazine had a brief piece on this game a few months back.
The reporter persisted in trying to talk to people who actually designed
and produced the game.  Despite having been told repeatedly that all of
the people involved were women, when the reporter finally did get to the
game design group, it turned out the game was designed by a man.

Not that that makes it any worse, actually, but it's interesting that
Parker Brothers thinks that letting people know that would turn them off.
>
>I just wish someone had told me that "college graduate" was a career.  I
>would have quit while I was ahead.

Actually college was one of the choices in the original game (I played it
as a kid and always had a rough time deciding between astronaut and
uranium prospector :-) ) but it wasn't enough to win.  You had to have
either completed college or gotten certain experience points before you
could enter some of the careers.  For example, you needed either a college
degree or some number of science experience points to sign up for the
moon mission.  Each career got you certain points in three categories -
money, fame and happiness and, at the beginning of the game, you had decided
on how to divide up 100 points between those as your formula for success.
(Most people divided them up roughly equally, but Jill Robinson wrote in 
_Bed/Time/Story_ that she always went entirely for fame, figuring that if you
were famous money and happiness would follow.)

Incidentally, I've heard the Careers for Girls version is *not* selling
well.  I hope Parker Brothers is as humiliated as Lionel was by their
"girl's train" with pastel pink, blue and yellow cars.  That was back in the
40's I think and girls who were brave enough to play with toy trains then
wanted trains that were normal, not this pastel nonsense.  

Miriam (Pink is Evil) Nadel
-- 
"The dollar fell sharply today, slightly injuring a New Yorker on his way
to work."                                                - Nicole Hollander

nadel@aerospace.aero.org