It was disheartening to read the Black et al paper and seeing that even though politically and theoretically we have achieved gender equality to a certain extent, true equality is still a long way to go. It is surprising how the developers of these games (probably a lot of them male) make assumptions about each gender and proceed to make theses games which leads to a vicious cycle. These games in turn probably influence children which leads them to behave a certain way and develop certain interests. These influences then just propagate stereotypes and seem to legitimize these assumptions.

As the paper showed the websites aimed for boys not only had higher language complexity but also less frivolous content. The names of the newspapers alone (Buzz and Goss for girls and Community News and Updates for boys) demonstrate the rooted gender stereotypes in the minds of these developers which unfortunately go on to influence an entire generation of children.

I looked up to see why the Barbie girls website was taken down. I was hoping that it was because of awareness regarding the content of the website and the gendered stereotypes it promoted but that wasn’t the case. It was taken down because the ‘chatroom’ was becoming dangerous as a haven for pedophiles.

I went on the barbie website after that to see if the website had similar content and was happy to see that the home page had images of barbie dressed in different professional clothing telling girls that if they wanted they could be astronauts, doctors, engineer or ‘anything they wanted to be’. However, the categories for the games were ‘Fashion, Sports, Pets, Fairytales’. (I wonder why certain ideas such as girls like fashion and girls like pink exist. None of the girls I know have pink as their favorite color or are into fashion.)