Are More Girl Gamers the Answer?

I first began playing video games on the original Nintendo. My partially deaf Uncle Joe, who lived out of a room in my Grandma's house jam-packed with taped videos and Joe Cooool figurines, had a console and sometimes allowed us to play. He had Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, some car racing game, Galaga, and a few others. My cousin Stephanie and I preferred Super Mario Bros over the others, but we never had enough time to beat the game because he never let us stay in his room for very long. So in order to suffice our gaming cravings, when Uncle Joe would lock his door and leave the house to run some errands, Stephanie and I would RUN to the kitchen for a butterknife and jimmy his door open to proceed in our princess-saving tactics.

Soon after, my Dad bought me a Super Nintendo and I played Zelda, Mario Kart, and one of my favorites: Mortal Kombat. When I was in middle school transitioning into high school, I bought myself an orange Nintendo64 and shortly after a PlayStation 2. I don't consider myself a gamer, but I was definitely exposed to some computer games. There is this notion in the articles that the more exposed you are to gaming, the more likely you are to become interested and involved in computer science.

However, I don't think I have ever been curious enough to tear apart my computers or gaming consoles and figure out how to program things. Honestly, to my knowledge I don't think I've ever truly been interested in figuring out how electronic things work. What I'm suggesting is that there are some people innately interested in the composition or engineering of things and there are those who simply like to use technology. This, however, does not help explain why women aren't enrolling in computer science programs-- I will get there.

In reference to the NYTimes article that said there need to be more games for girls, I don't know if I fully agree that the ones out there aren't for girls. When I was younger my cousin had one Barbie game where you had to drive and rollerskate through obstacles, but it wasn't the greatest. Most of the time we favored games like Mortal Kombat, Max Payne, Goldeneye, games that might be considered games targeted to boys. But those were the ones we enjoyed and we played them all the time without thinking twice.

I'm not saying that violence, gore, male heros etc. are completely irrelevant to the fact that girls don't play as much video games, which in turn affects computer science enrollment (supposedly.) I just think there are bigger factors at play. I see it as any other social phenomenon where history plays a large part as well as learned gender roles. When there are no female role models in a field, women tend to not feel as comfortable to pursue them. And for so long engineering, computer science, math and science have been dominated by males. The way our parents and community shape our likes and dislikes according to gender roles also has a large part in what career we choose. It's a complicated issue and one thing can't be named the culprit, but I think actively seeking a female contribution to computer science and attempting to interest girls in technology composition etc. through our school systems will help close the gender divide.