Even before I read the New York Times article, What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?, I have always had a hypothesis regarding gender divide in computer science: the computer games are the culprit of the gender divide in this field.
When I was in an elementary school, I used to play hours of computer games with friends. The games created common ground between me and my friends. We would always talk about it such as how to defeat the boss, how to get to the highest score, what kinds of games came out and so on. As a result of this male-bonding process, we’ve accidentally picked up various computer skills that women of our age couldn’t learn. Girls seldom played computer games. Rather, they would chat, play with toys, draw, and read books. At least this was how it was for my generation.
The New York Times article discusses an attempt to engage more women by introducing computer games to them. It says the attempt to create computer games that would appeal to girls have failed. To quote the director of Northwestern University’s Center for Techonlogy & Social Behavior, “The girls game movement failed to dislodge the sense among both boys and girls that computers were ‘boys’ toys’ and that true girls didn’t play with computers.”
I am somewhat surprised by this notion. Is this still the case today? I thought a lot more young girls (elementary or middle school kids) started to play computer games with their friends. There are lots of girly games available. Then why do these young girls still view games as ‘boys’ toys’? Maybe parents' influence?
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