Do girl games reinforce stereotypes?
Despite the educational nature of many of these offerings, last year game maker Mattel commanded 70.96 percent of total revenue for the girl-oriented CD-ROM market with hits like Barbie Fashion Designer and Barbie Magic Hair Styler, according to PC Data (see chart, below). Some argue games such as these simply reinforce traditional female stereotypes related to appearance and traditional work roles, with little impact on moving girls into high-end technology. “Barbie games are OK if they bring young girls to computers, which starts them exploring all kinds of other things,” says Roberta Furger, author of Does Jane Compute? Preserving Our Daughters’ Place in the Cyber Revolution. Furger says she believes girl games should mean more than just dolls, creativity, and some of the more narrowly defined game activities we have been seeing so far. It would be “unfortunate” if Barbie was the only kind of game played on the computer, Furger says. Groppe says the stereotype argument is a misdirec
