Greg mentioned us playing Careers this weekend, which has become Joelle and I’s favorite board game of choice recently.
Basically, we both had played a bunch growing up, and were looking for a copy at a couple of board game stores nearby. Turns out, they no longer make it, so before we turned to EBay, we realized that Joelle’s mother still had a 1958 edition in her linen closet; on her last trip out, she brought it over.
It’s amazing the difference in the world view of 1958; the careers people strive for are:
- Politics
- Hollywood
- Uranium Prospecting
- Moon Expedition (including being able to be the first man on the moon)
- Big Business
- Farming
But, having read the Wikipedia article on the game, it’s clear that the game only continued to get even more sexist over time; what were they thinking with this “For girls” version?:
The “careers” available to players of the game have changed over 50 years of new editions, reflecting changes in popular perceptions. For example, “Farming” became “Ecology” and “Uranium Prospecting” became “Computer Programming”. In 1990 Parker released a new version “Careers for Girls”, featuring careers such as “School Teacher”, “Fashion Designer” and “Super Mom”. The strategy aspects of the game were also greatly simplified. This is discussed in the BoardGameGeek discussion thread,”most condescending game ever“.
Even more so when you read some of the strategy differences detailed in the first post in the BoardGameGeek thread:
So, like, in the original Careers, there are these “Experience” cards you can get. To use them, you play them instead of rolling the die. This lets you
control what space you go to instead of going to a random space, and adds a substantial amount of strategy to the game.
Well, they removed those in “Careers for Girls”. Apparently girls can’t handle strategy in games.
Also, in the original game, you got to decide on a secret distribution; this meant that everyone had their own customized goal, and it’s not as easy to tell who is closer to winning.
Well, they removed that in “Careers for Girls.” Apparently all girls should share the same goals.
Oh, and there are the actual careers. First off, there
are six instead of eight. Apparently girls don’t have
as many career choices. Of the surviving careers:
“Politics” has become “Fashion Designer”, because girls
shouldn’t go into politics.
“The Arts” has become “Rock Star”. I guess girls don’t know what “The Arts” mean.
One of the careers is called “Animal Doctor”.
Apparently girls wouldn’t know the word “veternarian”.
Oh, and “Astronaut” is now called “Super Mom”!
While our version does have it’s sexist moments, (get a pretty secretary, gain happiness points, for example), they do try and be a bit ungendered - for example, the square where you can marry a prince is written as prince(ss). Apparently, we were more evolved as a people in 1958 than in 1990. Who knew?
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.