Awesome Six-Year-Old Girl Writes to Hasbro About Gender Inequality in Guess Who

[Starry Messenger]

http://jezebel.com/5961710/awesome-six+year+old-girl-writes-to-hasbro-about-gender-inequality-in-guess-who

<snip>

A six-year-old girl wrote Hasbro to let them know they only have bros (HIGH FIVE!) in their game, Guess Who. You know, the game that's like memory but all the characters have googly eyes, dodgy mustaches, and bad toupees? Well, guess who's not in the game? Women. Actually, no, that's not fair, there are five girls and nineteen boys. Five girls and nineteen boys.

She writes:

Dear Hasbro,

My name is R______. I am six years old. I think it's not fair to only have 5 girls in Guess Who and 19 boys. It is not only boys who are important, girls are important too. If grown ups get into thinking that girls are not important they won't give little girls much care.

Also if girls want to be a girl in Guess Who they'll always lose against a boy, and it will be harder for them to win. I am cross about that and if you don't fix it soon, my mum could throw Guess Who out.

My mum typed this message but I told her what to say.

So awesome.

Hasbro, completely not getting it, writes back:

Dear R___,

Thank you for your email. Please find below an explanation which I hope your mummy will be able to explain to you.

Guess Who? is a guessing game based on a numerical equation. If you take a look at the characters in the game, you will notice that there are five of any given characteristics. The idea of the game is, that by process of elimination, you narrow down who it isn't, thus determining who it is. The game is not weighted in favour of any particular character, male or female. Another aspect of the game is to draw attention away from using gender or ethnicity as the focal point, and to concentrate on those things that we all have in common, rather than focus on our differences.

<snip>

[Journeyman]

1. I would think, one thing this child has in common with half of everyone, is she's a female. . .

Perhaps Hasbro needs to at least focus on that commonality before they seek to prove we're "all the same."

[Starry Messenger]

2. I remember noticing at a much later age.

She's a sharp kid. With me it was a stamp kit of famous artists, with only one woman represented. The games I like are also bad about this. "Civilization", which should be a reflection of historical society, has female leaders in the game, but very few of the other characters represented get female avatars. Even the workers are all male. It burns me.

[MadrasT]

3. Wow, that went right over Hasbro's collective heads.

And yay for the 6 year old girl and her mum.

[Lugia]

4. Every. Little. Thing.