Feminism has ruined "guess who" for me

[susannahmoodie]

I was in a cafe with ds aged 4 today and there was a chest of old board games...I got Guess Who out and taught ds to play, but then realised there were only about 5 female characters compared to about 15 men. So I had to put it away in disgust. It's a shame as I was thinking I should get a new version but worried in case it's still as sexist? Anyone know?

It is still as sexist.
Dd2 got it for Christmas from my aunt, and there is a "people" version, with 7 women and 13 men, but there's also an "animals" version. The problem with the animals version is that it can be difficult to identify what sort of animal is in the picture. I think you can get themed versions, which would possibly be a bit less sexist.

Yep, it's still the same. I presume the reason is that it makes it harder to wipe out half the board with a single question ('Is yours a woman?'), but that's a pants reason, especially when anyone with an ounce of imagination can come up with a question that has the same effect ('Does yours have facial hair?' is a favourite opener in our house!)

I can always remember noticing as a child the lack of female characters. We rarely chose those as it was too easy for the other person to guess. Likewise characters with blue eyes. We have an updated version, I'll have a look at it later.

This cropped up a couple of years ago, when a 6 year old wrote to Hasbro to complain.

Hasbro came back with a classic response to explain that 'female' is a characteristic, like blue eyed, and so there couldn't be too many characters with the same characteristic or it would make the game too easy. Male is not, you see, a characteristic but rather a default state of being. (They didn't actually say that, I should add, I am merely interpreting their response).

I'm sorry but I am tired of feminist issues always end being some idiotic issue about how there were more males than females in a board game or deck of cards. This is ridiculous. Can we PLEASE find something more pressing to complain about?

You can print off more sheets online apparently but no idea if they are less sexist.

Danielle, it's he small things that slowly chip away at children's perceptions of gender and their place in society as they grow up. These 'small' issues are not unrelated to the more important issues relating to gender equality.

I don't think this is an idiotic issue. Ok it's obviously not as important as FGM or education for girls in Afghanistan or equal pay or whatever but why can we only talk about the most important issues and nothing else? In all other topic areas, it's ok to discuss a range of issues, from the very serious to the utterly trivial.

Things like children's games are all part of the subtle message that boys and girls get as they grow up that somehow males are more mainstream than females, that they are the default. This leads to so many results, including girls not thinking certain professions or roles are for them or girls seeing themselves as less important than boys.

Danielle..

I kind of see where you're coming from. A bit. However, I'd say that the fact that Hasbro said that being female is merely a characteristic, like blue eyes or wearing a hat or glasses, suggest that they believe that the default is male. You know, like society does. I would suggest that having male as default as the basis of a game for small children isn't teaching them good things about women.

If formative images of women are that they are other than default, then what might that mean for the future? I don't think anyone is suggesting that Guess Who? is some great misogynist conspiracy, targeted at making small boys into rampant MREs, but the small things often build up into a bigger picture, don't you think?

The Robinson's golly was a small thing in the grand scheme of racism, however, when we look at it in the wider context of how people view PoC, then it takes on greater significance.

Plus, of course, most people are capable of being pissed off about the big things, while also recognising that the small things don't help either.

We have "Who's Who" which must be another company's copy of the original game. 10 female & 13 male characters, so better.

Yup Kim, it normalises the othering, depicts them as less than people. People being white, straight men.

I might have a look for that rosy71, thanks. DGD is just getting to the right age for games like this.

Yes, I don't think it's a question of either tackling FGM or Guess Who, is it? And the topic is Feminism Chat, which I think is generally for a range of issues from 'god I hate the Asda Christmas advert' to more serious manifestations of the same basic problem, which is the lack of equality in all areas of life between the sexes. Guess Who is an example of 'othering'. The lack of non-white emojis is another - did Martin Luther King have a dream that one day he'd be able to do 'OMG face' and 'crying face' and 'cross face' in Whatsapp without having to choose white faces to represent his feelings? Well, I don't think it was in an early draft of his original speech but the idea certainly was.

In fact under the equations underpinning Guess Who the only way to prevent one gender from being a characteristic and the other not is either to make all the characters one gender or to make the faces deliberately so androgynous you couldn't tell. Which would rule out facial hair as a characteristic.

My very wise DW has just recalled that if you had a female card, you were almost certain to lose. The first question is almost always m/f which narrows the options down massively. There is a clear advantage to being male. Maybe the game is merely holding a mirror up to the world?

I'm not saying I agree with this but there is a reason the genders aren't split 50/50:

The ratio of any identifying characteristic is always 1 in 5. So out of 25 total people there are 5 with hats, 5 with moustaches, 5 with glasses, 5 bald people, 5 with dark skin etc etc.

"if you had a female card, you were almost certain to lose"

Not quite. It's like saying if you had a bald person you were almost certain to lose since there are only 5 bald people, or if you had a hat since only 5 wear a hat.

And while we're at it, where is the outrage that only 5 characters are of an ethnic origin other than white?

Perhaps the EDL will release their own version in which over time the white male faces start to be outnumbered by ever browner and be-turbaned or hijabi.

What is the proportion of black and minority ethnic in the uk? Does it at least reflect that if not gender?

Having any specific characteristic set to 50/50 would certainly ensure asking for that characteristic would be always be the first Q asked since a response of either "yes" or "no" would both allow the asker to eliminate half their possibilities.

The ratios are set the way they are so each time the asker asks a Q they will end up either eliminating a small number or a larger number, which IMO would be more fun than if both a "yes" or "no" response always resulted in halving the remaining number of possibilities

Agree with fayyive and not just because of their name...

We have the electronic one and, as far as I can remember, it's pretty equal. I haven't played for a while though. There's only so many times you can say, "Are you a man? Do you have red hair? Are your Douglas?"

It sounds wonderfully objective to reduce it to a question of numbers...but why are females automatically in the minority? It's clearly not just about odds and ratios.

It may sound trivial, but when combined with the fact that the majority of characters in children's books and television are male, it does send worrying messages about the place of females in society.

And yes, I also find the dominance of white characters in books/tv/games problematic.

Now i registered to ask questoins (My name says it all doesnt it?) now the thing is why think its sexist? just ignore the genders just pretend these little figurines DONT have genders! why be all uptight about sexism even if some things actully lean to the balance of women? like jailtime, and other things like if a man is abused.raped,assulted,murdered by a woman thye just brush it off as a femenist i would protest for mens AND womens rights because sometimes you gotta think about the opisitoin in life you know they do say "opistioin makes a true freindship" :)