Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University?s Center for Technology & Social Behavior, has written about the efforts in the 1990s to create computer games that would appeal to girls and, ultimately, increase the representation of women in computer science. In commenting as a co-contributor in a new book, ?Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming,? Ms. Cassell writes of the failure of these efforts, ?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.? She said last week that some people in the field still believed that the answer to reversing declining enrollment was building the right game.
What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?
Sunday November 16, 2008Luci Gutiérrez
By RANDALL STROSS
Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University?s Center for Technology & Social Behavior, has written about the efforts in the 1990s to create computer games that would appeal to girls and, ultimately, increase the representation of women in computer science. In commenting as a co-contributor in a new book, ?Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming,? Ms. Cassell writes of the failure of these efforts, ?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.? She said last week that some people in the field still believed that the answer to reversing declining enrollment was building the right game.
More at the NYT.
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