
No Girls Allowed - galaktor
http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed
======
spindritf
Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power
this article ascribes to it?

I hear this a lot lately. Some people believe that media have an almost
magical power of shaping culture and behaviours.

Beauty? Cosmo propaganda. Boys liking different toys than girls? Marketing.

Yet when you dig a little deeper, studies on priming usually get wee p-values
and barely significant, temporary changes in behaviour, if any. And when they
do show something more, they're impossible to replicate, or straight-up fraud.

I don't buy it.

~~~
junto
Having a daughter about the same age so it gives me a bit of insight.

She doesn't get to watch TV. Her playgroup has no major bias towards pink for
girls (actually even deliberate in their avoidance of such stereotyping). My
wife secretly detests pink and girly stuff and is/was a tomboy at heart. We do
not discourage or encourage any particular colour or style.

There are no obvious factors in my daughter's life that should bias her
towards pink girly toys, yet she is absolutely obsessed with girly pink
clothes and toys.

I honestly can't fathom it. Pink attraction seems to be built in. Like a moth
to a flame.

Recently she asked for a pirate ship for her birthday, so it isn't all bad.

~~~
minikites
> There are no obvious factors in my daughter's life that should bias her
> towards pink girly toys, yet she is absolutely obsessed with girly pink
> clothes and toys.

> I honestly can't fathom it. Pink attraction seems to be built in. Like a
> moth to a flame.

Yeah, that doesn't actually make any sense. Pink:blue::girl:boy is 100%
artificial and one recent source has it the other way around:

> For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's
> Infants' Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys,
> and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and
> stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more
> delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was
> flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies,
> pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti.

For centuries prior, both genders were dressed in white.

Here's the article I've quoted from:

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-
St...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-
Wearing-Pink.html)

It sounds like marketing is more pervasive than you may realize.

~~~
twoodfin
Why ascribe this to "marketing"? If marketers could control what colors
children want to wear, they'd change them every year to spur sales. Fashion
isn't that predictable or controllable.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If marketers could control what colors children want to wear, they'd change
> them every year to spur sales.

For children, they work more on subjects than colors right now, though for
adult fashion, changes of "in" colors both annually and by season is normal,
and largely driven by marketing.

> Fashion isn't that predictable or controllable.

It is controllable, but not perfectly so, and there are a lot of competing
attempts to control it. There is not one hive-mind of marketing trying to
drive aggregate demand, there are different marketers working for different
producers trying to drive demand for their particular client's product, so,
naturally, the results are chaotic and uncertain and often surprising, but
they are still very much the product of deliberate marketing efforts.

------
crntaylor
I like the article. I think it's well written, an important subject, and the
world would be better if more people read it and digested its message.

I still wish it didn't repeat the myth that Coca-Cola invented the modern
image of Santa Clause, though.

[http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp](http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp)

~~~
chongli
No, it didn't invent the image but it popularized this one particular
incarnation out of the many that existed.

------
k_os
I myself believe in market dynamics. If girls were interested in what boys had
they'd pursue it. If girls hated barbies they would nag parents about getting
a train or a car and market demand for barbies would dry up. The fact that toy
dolls are a billion dollar industry should make one sceptical about the
supposed 'girliness that society instills in girls'. I find that premise as
silly as thinking boys were somehow 'indoctrinated' into liking computers.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
That argument kind of ignores marketing. If I spend several million (probably
billions cumulatively at this point) telling people that product X should be
associated with characteristic Y which is traditionally assigned more to one
gender than another, then I'm likely to be modifying the market to an extent
that you cannot truthfully say that market dynamics provide a reason for the
disparity that will emerge.

~~~
k_os
Do you believe marketers have an agenda about indoctrinating girls to like
pink?

In the hopes that you are not a conspiracy theorist you must assume marketers
haven't done any research about what girls innately like and are purely
marketing products based on what you might call 'traditional' views.

It's much easier to market sugar than it is to market broccoli so that's what
most foods marketed today contain. I don't believe we like sugarry treats
because of marketing. I believe marketers market flavours of sugar because
sugar is what we're wired to like first and foremost.

~~~
mdisraeli
[http://www.wisegeek.com/have-pink-and-blue-always-been-
consi...](http://www.wisegeek.com/have-pink-and-blue-always-been-considered-
gender-specific-colors.htm)

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-
St...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-
Wearing-Pink.html) \- extract from this:

'For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's
Infants' Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys,
and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and
stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more
delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”'

~~~
k_os
Thanks, I didn't know that. I myself don't know if I dislike pink because i
associate it with weakness or not.

Do you have any articles about toy function being socially conditioned into
genders? Girls toys mostly consist of 'nurturer' stereotypes. For example tea
sets, doll houses or baby dolls with baby cribs.

------
hownottowrite
_In 1983, North America experienced a massive recession in the video game
industry, now known as the video game crash. The crash had devastating
effects, bankrupting game company after game company. At its peak, the
revenues for video games in the U.S. sat at $3.2 billion in 1983. By 1985,
revenues fell a whopping 97 percent to approximately $100 million. There are
many factors behind the crash. The key factor is that by 1983, the video game
market was saturated with low-quality games, which resulted in a loss of
consumer confidence. Anyone who could make a game was making a game, and there
was little to no regulation on the part of the console makers. Players got
burnt. Retailers got burnt. People stopped buying video games. The crash
marked what many believed to be the end of the video game industry._

Sounds like today's "casual gaming" market.

~~~
anonymousab
The crucial bit is that the public had almost no way of knowing if a game was
even playable before buying. Complete opposite today, except for people who
preorder every big name game and are likely satisfied regardless.

I can see some resemblance in the freemium market - consumer awareness and
protections have not caught up with how bad everyone is getting gypped.

~~~
mogrim
> The crucial bit is that the public had almost no way of knowing if a game
> was even playable before buying.

I don't agree: computer games magazines were huge back then, I remember
reading and re-reading the reviews at school with my mates, even without the
internet it wasn't hard to find out if a game was any good or not.

------
ZeroGravitas
I thought the more important point was how much these differences were in the
eye of the beholder rather than actual objective facts.

For example, the various farm sim, candy crush, peggle, word game, social
things that many "non-gamer" women in my life seem obsessed by get quietly
excluded from discussions about games and gamers because they don't fit the
stereotype.

Similarly, Barbie is a "doll", she lives in a "doll house", and boys don't
play with dolls or doll houses. No, the small minature people my son plays
with are action figures and have "bases", or are "knights" and have "castles",
or are lego people, who do have houses (though usually of fairly avant-garde
design). Could you explain to a martian why these are supposedly such
different activities that were encoded for back in the hunter-gatherer days?

~~~
PeterisP
Hah. My kid (3yo boy) got strange questions about going to kindergarten with a
baby-doll in a pram - but that's just naturally "following male role models",
doing as the father does pushing his little sister around.

I mean, in an entirely sexist manner, men should be the ones primarily pushing
baby carriages because, say, pushing them through snow-covered sidewalks at
any reasonable distance requires physical effort that's simply too tiring for
most women, especially soon after childbirth or cesarean. (If you drive
everywhere like in much of USA, then it might be different).

And the current modern society expects grown men to do so... but the same
society doesn't expect little boys to play the same role. How does it make any
sense?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _men should be the ones primarily pushing baby carriages because_ //

Use a baby-sling. They use far less resources to make, far far less. They can
aid the child in learning to talk quicker (face-to-face position). They're
easy to take anywhere you can walk. They pack down almost to pocket-size.
[Though no-one ever held a door open for me like they do for pram/stroller
users].

Both our boys imitated carrying children in slings. They also both loved
playing with toy push-chairs when they were available to them but they did so
in a distinctly different manner to other kids, they never bothered with
having "passengers" on theirs.

Soon after birth or a caesarean a woman should be resting, not pushing a buggy
around just as anyone should be resting after a massive pelvic dislocation or
abdominal surgery.

------
Pxtl
That was really freaking long.

I can't help but notice the recurring theme that the actual game designers are
trying to make fun gender-neutral products but the marketing and leadership is
the source of misogyny. I mean, when they start talking about the PS1 era
their examples are WipeOut (the only "gendered" thing in the game is the
announcer) Tomb Raider (Croft has somewhat absurd proportions but she's a far
cry from the kind of exploitative stuff you see in the Dead or Alive games and
whatnot) and Gran Turismo (masculine only by the technicality that it's about
cars).

I'm a guy, so this is obviously a "check my privilege" thing, but I feel like
the misogyny of the gaming industry (and geek culture at large) didn't really
take hold until console gaming went online and the collective sea of poop-
throwing 4channers got their he-man-woman-haters club into games. The games
were _targeted_ at boys well before then, and the themes got heavily masculine
in the mid-'90s with the FPS revolution... but the active You Are Not Welcome
thing seemed to take hold later.

I mean, obviously geek culture was a bit unsettling for women before then
because the combined awkward sexual frustration of a zillion nerds isn't
exactly _comfortable_ to be around, but I don't think the outright _hatred_ of
women had taken hold.

It seems like the door was open... not so much, anymore.

~~~
johnbm
What articles like this completely ignore is that toy stores are not divided
into a blue boy's section and a pink girl's section. There's the "girl's
section", and then there's "everything else".

They are taking the fact that some things are marketed explicitly to women as
evidence that everything else is marketed to men. It's absurd, but that's
feminist navelgazing for you. Same reason they blame men for women's beauty
standards, even though it's women and women's magazines who enforce them.
Things marketed to women by women as being for women.

And then something like Goldieblox comes around that's like shitty pink
meccano with dumb girlie stories attached to each box set, and behold! It's
somehow going to set girls free of the pink tyranny... by being
stereotypically aimed at girls.

Or you could just buy them ordinary gender-neutral LEGO. The one that boys and
girls alike can enjoy.

~~~
Pxtl
Lego now makes a tonne of girly product, actually, starting with Disney
Princess branded Duplo, and following into Lego Friends for the older girls.
They do seem to avoid just slathering everything in pink, though, so that's
something.

------
jccalhoun
If you look at the early atari 2600 commercials it is clear they were just
throwing stuff at the wall with no clear audience in mind. One that sticks out
in my mind features a "Valley Girl" that is so stereotypical it is hard to
tell if it was supposed to be a parody or not:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ze1neVziE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ze1neVziE)

~~~
dsirijus
Oh, you'll love this one then
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYYOXiEtxM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYYOXiEtxM)

------
thejteam
Okay, so girls get princesses and My Little Pony. Now listen to what they do
with them. My 3 year old is in the next room playing playing with her My
Little Pony dolls right now. Story lines more complex than the typical evening
sitcom. Action and violence. Shouting and passion. They are learning story
telling and narrative. And the narrative is not all tea parties. If the toys
do not inherently give them plots and conflicts, they will build it up for
themselves.

------
kyberias
Very difficult page to read due to ugly color combinations. White on pink,
next white on green. It literally hurts my eyes.

~~~
watty
It sounds like you have some eye issues or perhaps it's just aging. Try
readability, it's great for older folks.

You should avoid magazines though, they often have similar designs yet lack a
real world "readability" :)

[http://www.readability.com/](http://www.readability.com/)

~~~
gabemart
A color combination that works for a printed page may not work well for a
luminescent display due to the inherent superiority of printed material in
terms of readability and eye comfort.

I don't have any eye issues and am not in the "older folks" demo. I still
found the page annoying to read.

------
johngalt
These articles always walk a very fine line between opposing views. How do you
simultaneously claim that pink dolls are marketed to girls and that's bad.
Then also claim that there are no video games that have pink dolls, so
therefore girls are excluded.

As a father, I worry that if we 'encourage' our girls too much to discard
girly pink things, they might receive the message that girly things _are
inherently worse._ It's perfectly ok to ensure your kid isn't forced into some
role because of their gender, but be careful not to preclude/deride things
they may genuinely desire. Don't be worried about attending a tea party with
your girls. The 'message it sends' is that you care enough to play what they
want.

------
bryanlarsen
As a parent of two pre-school girls, this is a concern of mine. But in some
ways I think this issue is worse for boys than girls. Girls are "allowed" (but
not encouraged) to shop from the boys section. My daughters have and use some
boys' clothing, toys, furniture, etc. But a boy wearing pink clothes or
dancing or playing with dolls is setting himself up for extended teasing.

~~~
romanovcode
>As the daughter of two pre-school girls.. Wait, what? ))

~~~
bryanlarsen
Fixed. thanks.

------
cameldrv
Thank god. Video game addiction is destroying an entire generation of boys. We
see the results in declining male college enrollment and graduation. Games
have been tweaked and adjusted until they have become electronic cocaine, and
the result is that boys spend virtually their entire time at home playing
them. The last thing we need is for the girls to go the same way.

------
6cxs2hd6
Although the site looks snazzy, it's annoying that page-down goes one line too
far.

Page-down. Huh? Oh. Line-up. Ah.

Page-down. Huh? Oh. Line-up. Ah.

. . .

Frustrating reading experience that distracts from the message.

~~~
dsirijus
For me, it was annoying in a general sense (can't pin-point it). I was going
to article and out of it 3 times.

trying to read it / gah, can't / but there's interesting comments on hn about
it / trying to read it / dammit! / it's being upvoted almost to #1 / ok, ok.
i'll go through exruciating pain of reading it / it wasn't worth a read anyway

------
pistle
They get the 80's crash analysis all wrong. There was never a demand implosion
due to uncertainty of quality. These were 8 bit sprites. Crap was standard.
Crap was good. All 8-bit console games look low quality compared to the first
8-bit computer games. We still bought. Something way more important was the
first widely-available consumer 8-bit computers. Compare Atari 2600 Pac-man to
Atari 400 Pac-man... and that's not the Atari XL line.

No consideration of a sudden shift in early adopters to Atari XL and Commodore
64 computers?? What year did those drop 82-83? The games for those PC-
precursors were 1) way better and 2) pirate's booty. The abilities of those
machines moved beyond what could be packed into consoles and the margins
seemed higher. The price for a game went to free. That meant you could buy
second floppy drives, 300 baud modems, dot matrix printers (24 pins FTW!)
instead of games.

Computer clubs were not uncommon and literal swap meets of 5.5" floppies.
Early modems gained access to BBS's and created cornucopias of free software -
legit and not.

They should also review Master's of Doom and get insight into the
personalities behind the seminal FPS. There were no marketers outside of the
dev team there. They were making something they loved to play and they loved
the thrill/hilarity of over-the-top power and gross-out humor. If you want to
empower or blame the feedback loop of marketing driving development, you
shouldn't ignore all the history prior to the present-day machine.

Thank goodness they are writing an article which confirms that the world is
changing because women aren't sitting quietly by, letting history be written
by loud-mouthed men any more.

But it's an awkward dance to read trying to fill enough space to provide ample
vertical scrolling to get a sense for why it took so many people to construct
the page...

------
xmonkee
I dunno if it's just me, but I usually skip an article that starts with
something like "Four-year-old Riley Maida stands in a toy aisle of a
department ...." and then there's a mile of scrolling to do. At least tell me
what your central thesis is going to be if you're asking me to invest so much
time and emotion into a story.

~~~
rmk2
The underlying thesis is _literally_ expressed in the subtitle, even _above_
the beginning of the article:

> Unraveling the story behind the stereotype of video games being for boys.

This tells you that there exists a stereotype. This stereotype suggests that
video games are for boys. It also suggests that an unravelling is intended,
i.e. a disentanglement of multiple connected strands related to the
persistence of a stereotype. Furthermore, calling something a stereotype
outside psychological research suggests that something is regarded as "a
preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a
person, situation, etc." (as defined by the OED).

This suggests a thesis that

a) disagrees with the premise that video games are, indeed, only for boys

b) will try to portray how this stereotype came into existence, i.e. it will
try to trace its genesis.

~~~
xmonkee
Thanks for all the condescension. That a gender stereotype exists in gaming is
hardly new information. I would've liked something like "Shaky marketing in
the 80's helped establish the current stereotype" and then I would've known
that the article presents arguments to support this.

------
numeromancer
I, for one, look forward to the glorious day when all children are grown in
vats and reared in communal nurseries by hermaphrodites, so girls will never
have to be subjected to the horrible sight of a mother nestling her baby,
which unjustly conditions them to prefer baby dolls to Tonka trucks.

------
analog31
I wonder if it's a simple market differentiation factor, like why there are
100 different kinds of breakfast cereal. Creating two immiscible classes of
toys effectively doubles the variety, and the floor space devoted to toys in
stores. It makes hand-me-downs less appealing if you've got one kid of each
kind. That factor alone would create a noticeable sales bump for toy stores,
even if the differences were totally arbitrary. But the differences have to be
strong enough so that the toys of each sex invoke the yuck response in the
other sex.

------
mankypro
There's a reason most boys gravitate towards guns, monster trucks and blow-em-
ups. There's a reason why most girls gravitate towards dolls, ponies and puppy
dogs. It's called evolution aka 200,000 years of it. Many iterations,
regression testing etc.

Put quite simply, it works for the propagation of the species.

You can argue all you want with 200k years of evolution and or civilization,
isn't going to change a thing. We are first and foremost made to procreate and
natural systems are all about efficiencies - White Knights and Jezebels
notwithstanding.

------
memracom
For the first several years of her life, I would not buy anything pink for my
daughter. Her baby clothes were white and yellow and powder blue ( a great
color for a red headed girl with blue eyes). Then when she got older it became
harder to avoid pink in new clothes shops, so we went to second hand shops
instead and found wonderful things like a dark purple dress with a metallic
green waistband. We also always check the boys section for clothes that are
not blatant marketing stuff and buy a few items for her, mostly darker colors.

~~~
DanBC
There's a niche in the market for gender neutral clothing with positive
messages.

"HERE COMES TROUBLE" or "DADDY'S LITTLE PRINCESS" are sub-optimal.

------
znt
White font on bright pink background is not a pleasant combination. Maybe use
paler colours next time?

~~~
watty
Are you a designer (serious question)?

------
xradionut
I'm not seeing the big issue being raised here. I think much of how a child
turns out in life depends on their parents.

My wife likes pink, but she's also better at repairing cars, playing video
games, repairing smart phones and target shooting than myself. She would be an
awesome programmer or system admin, but likes project management and people
more than I do. She is the one in her family that bought the gaming consoles
starting with the NES.

------
C1D
It was a very interesting and eye-opening article though I don't think we can
wholly blame this on the marketing of video games. I have a sister who has
never liked video games and instead spent her time with dolls even though me
and my brother had always tried to get her into video games.

I remember when we got our first Tamagotchies. My sister fried her's by
sticking it in a bucket of water. When we got her another one she used it for
a few seconds and then played with her dolls.

I think -as seen in a article recently posted- that since boys brains are
wired differently we are into different things and that is natural.

Also there isn't anything stopping girls from playing video games. To be
honest I think a girl that plays video games is more attractive and I bet most
men would.

NOTE: I am in no way saying "toys" are limited to boys or trying to imply
anything sexist but what I am saying is that the division of boy toys and girl
toys isn't wholly because of marketing.

------
etler
Outside the fps genre are video games really that gender based? Pretty much
every Nintendo game is enjoyable by boys and girls. Many ubisoft games are
gender agnostic, all puzzle games are. I'm not a big fps guy so looking at my
personal library, almost all my games are gender neutral.

------
probably_wrong
Sorry about the off-topic: does anyone knows whether the caricatures that
illustrate the article belong to a concrete category and/or are associated
with a particular style? I'd really like to read more about it, but the books
I've found about cartooning are very different from this style.

~~~
gk1
It can be called illustration or cartoon illustration. "Cartooning" alone
usually refers to strip comics, gag cartoons, or political cartoons. I'm not
aware of a more specific term for this style.

------
jheriko
i am a liberal fan of freedom and equal rights - within reason.

i applaud the sentiment but this is just one of many symptoms of 'women don't
like taking risks and don't like stem fields'

whats more i like to think that women are allowed that freedom of choice - so
its a double edged sword.

the side effects suck but these scenarios /come from/ freedom and equal
opportunities for women. why is nobody looking at cultures which are
oppressive to women or have lower quality of life as counter examples? not
only do they not have this kind of marketing... but actually more women enter
stem fields and do 'male' traditional roles out of necessity or societal
pressure.

its a horribly complicated problem. extra sad that i can't make a 'sexist'
joke here as a punchline for fear of reprisal...

~~~
normloman
Did you even read the article? This has nothing to do with women entering stem
fields. It's about how video game marketers exclude women from their target
demographic.

Poor guy can't even be sexist. Boo hoo.

~~~
jheriko
Yes, I read it in its entirety. The key point it seems to make is that men
made games for men and the marketers cottoned on to the trend and ran with it
- this is precisely to do with women not entering stem fields (computer games
development).

Also, since we are picking faults its about /why/ they are excluded. Its
pretty damned obvious how it happens...

... and yes it is a shame that I can't make a joke about women complicating
things. They do, its measurable, its funny, its not sexist unless you somehow
assume that men are exempt from the same criticism, which they are not.

------
romanovcode
Not another one of _these_ posts..

~~~
steveklabnik
Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to
its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there
is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that
you did.

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
tsax
The Nurture Assumption -> [http://www.amazon.com/The-Nurture-Assumption-
Children-Revise...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Nurture-Assumption-Children-
Revised/dp/1439101655)

------
scardine
The text is too long, but I really enjoy the cartoons from David Saracino.

[http://davidsaracinoart.com/](http://davidsaracinoart.com/)

------
Pxtl
Brevity.

------
knowitall
While I think the history of marketing of games is interesting, to be honest
to me this read like "bla bla bla... Video games were heavily marketed as
products for men, and the message was clear: No girls allowed.... bla bla bla"

Meaning the conclusion "no girls allowed" is just randomly inserted somewhere
in the middle of a wall of text.

Just because boys and men were identified as a large audience and targeted
with marketing does not imply that girls are not allowed.

Nobody is forcing you to choose either aisle in the toy shop. Just the other
day I bought a playmobil horse for my son that came in a pink box. Whatever...

What exactly do they mean by girls not allowed? Girls are not allowed to play
first person shooters? How would such a rule even be enforced?

Or the right games are not being made for girls, then there would be more
female gamers? I think whoever believes that should go out and make those
games. Put their money where their mouth is.

Never mind that there are already lots of games that are being played by lots
of girls/women. "No girls allowed" simply has no foundation in reality
whatsoever.

~~~
dsirijus
To my eyes, they're trying to bring attention to a non-existant problem (that
has been solved pretty darned well with casual games ages ago) to increase
readership on a pretty flamey topic, together with their twitter buddies.

I believe there are very fundamental differences between males and females and
that the optimal game design would target very specifically those differences
(or at least be very aware of them), unless the core of the design is the
actual male-female dynamic or ecosystem. It is also more optimal to target one
or the other because of the ad networks in today's world.

~~~
knowitall
Psst, you are not allowed to say that :-)

I don't know - there certainly are women who play "hardcore games".

The more I think about it, the less understand what the problem is? For
whatever reason, women seem to play less hardcore games. OK - but what is
their problem? Do they think women unfairly miss out on all the fun? Then why
don't they just tell women "hey, there is this thing called games, it's fun,
try it" instead of whining that society made them miss out? Or do they
complain that the wrong games are being made - which would be rather weird,
because people are apparently buying these games. Or in other words, to me it
seems a bit like saying "I would really like spinach, if spinach would taste
like chocolate". Yeah, but spinach doesn't taste like chocolate, if you want
chocolate, eat chocolate, but leave people who like spinach to their spinach.
No need to convert all spinach to chocolate.

~~~
dsirijus

      Psst, you're not allowed to say that :-)

I get these ^ all the time these days, including HN. Whenever anyone says
something like that, I know I'm on the right track. :)

As far as spinach/chocolate analogy goes, the result they're going after is
even worse - it's a spinach-flavoured chocolate, or chocolate-flavoured
spinach.

Spinachocolate!

------
knowitall
My first girl-friend threatened to leave me in case I bought a game boy. It's
not just stereotypes from the media, it's also an experience that lots of men
have made in their lives. But that doesn't mean we don't like the idea of
women playing games. Quite the opposite. I still remember the first time I saw
a woman wearing an Atari T-Shirt. I could hardly believe my eyes... Turns out
by then Atari didn't really exist anymore and was being rebranded by whoever
bought the Trademark, but still (I was attracted, but I didn't talk to her, so
no further story to that).

It's just that it feels like a waste of time trying to get women interested in
games. If they want to play, fine, but why try to make them? (Speaking from
the consumer perspective - game makers of course have different incentives).

Next week I plan to have a C64 revival party. I will invite women, curious to
see how many of them will also play...

My advice for women interested in computer games: just do it/try it. Don't
waste time wondering if you are allowed to do it.

~~~
xerophtye
Yep, gamer girls = supremely attractive! I always get jealous of gamer couples
i encounter on real life and online. My own gf is a hardcode mobile gamer
(there hasnt been a single app game that i can beat her at. and i have been
gaming all my life!) But i wish she'd try the more complex games... like FPS
or top-down strategy or atleast LoL!!

~~~
berrypicker
"Girl gamers" are well-known on the Internet for being some of the most
obnoxiously annoying people on the planet.

~~~
xerophtye
Really? Haven't had much experience with those types yet. Most i have ran into
were really great!

------
LekkoscPiwa
This is idiocy beyond comprehension. Why not to complain that there aren't as
many dresses or boys in department stores. Maybe sue them to, huh?

~~~
normloman
Nobody's complaining in this article, and nobody's suing anybody. It's just an
article about video game marketing. Why do you feel threatened?

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
All this Political Correctness BS is a threat. We have to deal with Al-Quaida
and others who want to destroy our Western Civilization from outside and then
we have Leftists who do all they can to destroy it from inside.

Boys are usually more interested in computers. Males are more inclined to
manipulate _things_ (manipulate like in play, try to understand how they work,
etc.) and relations that have to do with things. Females are more inclined to
manipulate _people_ (manipulate like in play, try to understand how they work,
etc) and relations that have to do with people. And no, I don't have a
scientific research to "prove" that. It's an observation that derives from
common sense.

Ever noticed how women enjoy watching soap operas, but don't give a damn about
a football game? Ever notice how men enjoy watching football game, but don't
give a damn about a soap opera?

Because what men see in a football game that women don't is: strategy,
tactics, manipulations, doing everything to win the game. Females don't see
that there. They just see a bunch of brutes running around trying to get hold
of a some stupid ball.

But women can definitely appreciate a soap opera. Because there they will see:
strategy, tactics, manipulations, doing everything to win the game. Males
don't see it there. Because this is not about things. It's about people and
their relations. They are blind to that as females are blind to see
interactions among objects. Males just see there a bunch of crazy people
dramatizing.

Now, to expect this little girl not to play with dolls to mimic social
interactions but to play with objects is BS. And pure Politicall Correctness.
And that's a threat. I don't need my daughter to waste her life trying to
compete in a game where males have natural advantage in their DNA. I'd rather
have her spend her time analyzing people. Not objects.

That's all common sense dude. I'm threatened by you spreading enemy propaganda
in my country. What about that? Go and teach that in Russia. Mess up their
country. Not our own.

~~~
brimtown
I'll just say up front that I'm not going to debate your worldview, but your
ideas are fucked and it saddens me that people like you visit this website.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
and _exactly_ the same goes back to you. Have a wonderful day!

------
milliams
No GirlS... we're allowed one.

