From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games by Henry Jenkins (Editor), Henry Jenkins

Many parents worry about the influence of video games on their children's lives. The game console may help to prepare children for participation in the digital world, but at the same time it socializes boys into misogyny and excludes girls from all but the most objectified positions. The new girls' games movement has addressed these concerns. Although many people associate video games mainly with boys, the girls games' movement has emerged from an unusual alliance between feminist activists (who want to change the gendering of digital technology) and industry leaders (who want to create a girls' market for their games). The contributors to From Barbie to Mortal Kombat explore how assumptions about gender, games, and technology shape the design, development, and marketing of games as industry seeks to build the girl market. They describe and analyze the games currently on the market and propose tactical approaches for avoiding the stereotypes that dominate most toy store aisles. The lively mix of perspectives and voices includes those of media and technology scholars, educators, psychologists, developers of today's leading games, industry insiders, and girl gamers. Contributors: Aurora, Dorothy Bennett, Stephanie Bergman, Cornelia Brunner, Mary Bryson, Lee McEnany Caraher, Justine Cassell, Suzanne de Castell, Nikki Douglas, Theresa Duncan, Monica Gesue, Michelle Goulet, Patricia Greenfield, Margaret Honey, Henry Jenkins, Cal Jones, Yasmin Kafai, Heather Kelley, Marsha Kinder, Brenda Laurel, Nancie Martin, Aliza Sherman, Kaveri Subrahmanyam. Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review This book explores the complicated issue of gender in computer games -particularly the development of video games for girls. One side is the concern that the average computer game, being attractive primarily to boys, furthers the technology access gap between the genders. Yet attempts to create computer games that girls want to play brings about another set of concerns: should games be gendered at all? And does having boys' games and girls' games merely reinforce the way gender differences are socialized in play? Cassell and Jenkins have gathered the thoughts of several feminist and media scholars to explore the issues from multiple perspectives, but this is not a work confined to ivory-tower theorizing. Alongside the philosophical explorations are pragmatic investigations of the hard-nosed, real world of computer-game manufacture and sales. Particularly enlightening is a section featuring interviews with several leading creators of games for girls. And while all agree that it's good to be past the days when women in computer games were limited to scantily clad background figures or damsels in distress, the visions of an appropriate future are both diverse and well defended. There is no pretense here of easy answers, but there are many excellent questions. --Elizabeth Lewis From Publishers Weekly In this intriguing anthology of essays, studies and interviews, voices from both academia and industry discuss what the experience of computer games is and should be for girls. While game creators have recently discovered the young female consumer, few of these authors are happy with the offerings, which tend to push domesticity and an obsession with looks. Almost all the contributors share some basic belief that the marketplace is dominated by games promoting bad values while shortchanging values identifiable as truly feminist. As Cassell points out, feminism in this context can mean values not pertaining exclusively to gender. The resulting proposals for video games are filled with such buzzwords as subjective, creativity, community and collaboration (all good) as opposed to violent, competitive and conquest (all bad). It is always nice to see theorists come down from the clouds to enter into discussions of everyday-life subjects such as the ramifications of the Tomb Raider character Lara Croft's ample endowment. The best move of the editors is to conclude the volume with commentary by girl gamers, many of whom worry that the contributors' solutions will underequip girls for the ugly real world. Says one: I don't want to be friends! I want to be King! Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly In this intriguing anthology of essays, studies and interviews, voices from both academia and industry discuss what the experience of computer games is and should be for girls. While game creators have recently discovered the young female consumer, few of these authors are happy with the offerings, which tend to push domesticity and an obsession with looks. Almost all the contributors share some basic belief that the marketplace is dominated by games promoting bad values while shortchanging values identifiable as truly feminist. As Cassell points out, feminism in this context can mean values not pertaining exclusively to gender. The resulting proposals for video games are filled with such buzzwords as subjective, creativity, community and collaboration (all good) as opposed to violent, competitive and conquest (all bad). It is always nice to see theorists come down from the clouds to enter into discussions of everyday-life subjects such as the ramifications of the Tomb Raider character Lara Croft's ample endowment. The best move of the editors is to conclude the volume with commentary by girl gamers, many of whom worry that the contributors' solutions will underequip girls for the ugly real world. Says one: I don't want to be friends! I want to be King! Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist This book brings together the perspectives of feminist activists and media scholars in a thought-provoking discussion of the gendering of video games. Until recently, women have appeared in computer games mostly as eroticized competitors to the male protagonist, distressed maidens, or other victims or objects. Recently, the girls' games movement has taken the computer-game industry to task for the use of these misogynistic images. Contributors discuss this issue as well as myriad related concerns: the cultural definition of computer games as boys' toys; girls' access to the technology and interest in it; and the complications of creating gender-neutral play space. In addition, girl gamers have a chance to discuss factoring their interests into the development of action games. There are no simple solutions to the often troublesome relation between gender and technology, but this book's presentation of the problems and possibilities makes academic reading relevant again. Philip Herbst Review In From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, cultural theorists, software designers, game players, media professors and developmental psychologist, among others, offer thoughtful perspectives, in essays and interviews, on the medium's potential to enable kids to forge their own identity... The book's editors... have created an imaginative, original and complex volume that crystallizes feminist dilemmas regarding the origin and persistence of gender roles. -- Sandra Hackman, The Women's Review of Books, March 1999 In From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, cultural theorists, software designers, game players, media professors and developmental psychologist, among others, offer thoughtful perspectives, in essays and interviews, on the medium's potential to enable kids to forge their own identity... The book's editors... have created an imaginative, original and complex volume that crystallizes feminist dilemmas regarding the origin and persistence of gender roles. -- Sandra Hackman, The Women's Review of Books, March 1999 It's an unrelenting din, but this handful of women thinking seriously about gender and gaming agree on at least one thing: Girls need access to technology early on, something boys already take for granted. -- Karen Eng, Wired, March 1999 The editors demonstrate that there is a clear link between playing computer games as young children and general comfort and facility with computers(and technology more broadly(as older kids and adults. The volume was written with an academic and industrial audience in mind, but parents of daughters should pay attention to what the contributors have to say about the ramifications of girls' limited participation with computer games. -- Lauren F. Winner, Books & Culture, A Christian Review,) May/June 1999 There are no simple solutions to the often troublesome relation between gender and technology, but this book's presentation of the problems and possibilities makes academic reading relevant again. -- Philip Herbst, Booklist, October 1998 This comprehensive volume examines girlware and its discontents from every angle... -- Margot Mifflin, Entertainment Weekly, December 11, 1998 This comprehensive volume examines girlware and its discontents from every angle... There's no easy answer, but this book does a fine job of unpacking the issues. -- Margot Mifflin, Entertainment Weekly, December 11, 1998 Read the full review for this book. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games takes a critical and passionate approach to an often overlooked aspect of digital technology -- women and the gaming industry. The growing fear that women (girls in particular) are falling through the cracks of computer literacy has prompted a number of feminists, academics, and programming professionals to question the role gender plays in computer games and to search out inventive ways to promote the assimilation of women into this predominantly male industry. As we become increasingly dependent upon the computer, women are finding their way back into the digital world, and the market is beginning to notice. This book is a collection of academic essays and interviews that seeks to facilitate the discovery and creation of a girlsÂ' place in a boysÂ' world. Although the tone of the essays is somewhat formal, it is still highly engaging. And it may be of particular interest to programmers seeking to create a domain that consciously appeals to girls (as well as boys).The narrative construction of From Barbie to Mortal Kombat is divided into three sections, which, when taken as a whole, reveal the nature of this book to be a dialog, not an answer. --Amy Lincicum, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal About the Author Henry Jenkins is Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. He is the coeditor of From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (MIT Press, 1998). About the Author Henry Jenkins is Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. He is the coeditor of From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (MIT Press, 1998).