All in the Family: Changes in Gender Roles within Nuclear Family

What was the genesis of the nuclear family?  In Family Structure, Institutions, and Growth, author Avner Grief asserted that the nuclear family was dominant in Europe by the late medieval period, taking the place of kinship groups, which had “secured the lives and property of their members and provided them with social safety nets” (Grief, 2006).  The medieval church compelled the nuclear family – a social group consisting of a husband, wife, and children – into widespread existence.  Today, Britannica Online states that while the adult couple is typically a man and a woman, same-sex marriage has expanded the definition of the nuclear family to include gay and lesbian couples.  As such, pop culture demonstrates how gender roles in the nuclear family have adjusted accordingly. 

First, look at how entertainment showed the nuclear family in the 1950-60s.  Classic television (Father Knows Best) and traditional films (Life with Father) presented the stay-at-home, docile mother who dealt with domestic chores alongside the dominant father who generated the family’s income and doled-out discipline.  However, same-sex couples challenge traditional parenting roles.  Consider the television sitcom, Modern Family, which includes a gay couple, Mitchell and Cameron.  The couple, who adopt children, argue vehemently on how to raise their children.  This deviates from earlier television shows because not only is there a stay-at-home dad and a working-dad, but there is conflict as to parenting style.  So, as the nuclear family changes to include same-sex parents, gender roles have less significance in dictating how the nuclear family operates.

Next, look at another effect that challenges gender roles in the nuclear family.  In “Dad-Mom Role Reversals” Sara Eckel discussed issues arising when the unemployed father stays at-home and the mother is responsible for earning a living.  The conventional responsibilities of the male and female adults in the nuclear family had to be adjusted, causing angst for both parents.   Eckel’s article is not about dealing with the conflicts that occur when dad stays home.  As a student of culture and gender, I see the underlying message:  Gender roles are not cast in stone; they are instead fluid constructs of society in need of change to fit the family’s new circumstances. Eckel made another important commentary that I think bears some investigation.   

Eckel stated that “men with a very traditional view of gender roles will refuse to do housework, as a way to gain control.”  The author further presented that oftentimes these role-reversed men felt out of control, possibly powerless, when they not only lost their job, but had to stay home doing women’s work;  the men struggled with their sense of confidence. Does this build up anger and resentment which can spill out elsewhere? I think it may.

Consider this:  75% of the jobs lost in recession belonged to men.  This coincides with the meteoric rise in popularity of gonzo pornography.  The men whom Sara Eckel interviewed talked about the ego blow of not providing for their families, that they do not bring value in their stay-at-home role, and being unable to find fulfillment.  Compare this to Gail Dines statement in The White Man’s Burden that “what constitutes hegemonic white masculinity is itself a moving target that depends on the socioeconomic dynamics of a given time and place (368).  

So let’s connect the dots:  a man’s job is downsized due to the recession.  He feels emasculated because “In the United States…there is a general consensus that a real man (read: white) works hard, puts food on the table…” (Dine, 368).  Based on this, the man with no job is not a real man.  He is further subordinated by performing the subservient role of stay-at-home parent.  The man feels weaker; he builds resentment.  How does this manifest itself?  The man seeks the safe world where he can vicariously release tension caused by his indecisive masculinity – viewing gonzo pornography.   Having read both Eckel’s article on role reversal’s impact on the nuclear family and Dines’ discussion of the rise in gonzo pornography, I say, there must be a connection. 

Works Cited

Grief, Avner.  “Family Structure, Institutions, and Growth:  The Origins and Implications of
          Western Corporations.”  (2006):  308-312.  Web. 20 Feb. 2015.

Eckel, Sara.  “Dad-Mom Role Reversals.”  Working Woman.  N.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.

Summary of Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture by Sut Jhally

If asked, would most Americans say that family, community, ethnicity and religion are the major ideologies that define contemporary culture?  If they did, Sut Jhully would vehemently disagree.  That is because this author of Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture asserted that advertising and our marketplace economy are the major tools that constitute today’s commercial society.  He argued that advertising, which has become an insidious force in our society, stresses consumerism by connecting the acquisition of commodities (goods and services) with happiness.  While surveys indicate that people define happiness within the context of social interactions, such as having valued friendships, relations with family, and the ability to control your own life, advertising touts objects as the focal point for achieving happiness.  This misplaced emphasis on acquisition of material items for self-satisfaction has two ultimately toxic downfalls.  The first issue is that while consumers are promised happiness, they become disgruntled when they seek but do not realize the guaranteed satisfaction.  Additionally, Jhully warned that environmental damage, caused by overuse of resources that promote consumerism, has created devastating effects which cannot continue unchecked.

What prompted society’s focus on objects? It began in the 1920s with the need to sell non-essential goods that were being produced by the fledgling manufacturers whose products grew out of the industrial revolution.  Interestingly enough, these early advertisers relied on selling products based on social values (family structure, status, authority) whereas their predecessors in the period from 1880-1920 focused on product strengths and utility.  As technology mass-produced images, starting with magazines, advertisers combined visual materials with written messaging to teach early consumers how to interpret images.  By the post world war period when consumers were introduced to television, they had become sophisticated in decoding advertising.  The commodity-image system had begun.  

What exactly is a commodity-image system?  It’s one where the core of a person’s identity (how they perceive their place in society, and how they gauge success) is defined by materials.  Since advertisers could not directly dispense positive identity, they used products to show worthiness.  For example, fulfillment can be derived by owning a certain car.  Jhully emphasized that a commodity-image system provides “self-validation connected with what one has rather than what one is” (252). 

What aspects of our culture did the commodity-image system influence?  Sut Jhully discussed four impacts.  First, gender became synonymous with sexuality, especially for women, because advertising took advantage of marketing products based on it.  Further, political opinion shifted from being issues-based to emotionality – voters being influenced by which candidate made them feel good.  Next, girls and boys were polarized as toy manufacturers expanded their market by defining male versus female play.  Last, cultural forms, such as music videos, were impacted, becoming a marketing experience.

 Jhully’s proposal to add high school course in visual literacy was decent, but not encompassing enough to make an impact.  In a world where advertising reinforces that style and appearances trump substance, a greater shift of public perception is needed. Just as public television can no longer advertise cigarettes and hard liquor, the Federal Communications Commission would have to exercise authority over commercial messaging, shifting it away from the commodity-image mode of today.  However, given the strength of materialism and its role in our economy of consumption, this would be impossible for one agency to administer.  In addition First Amendment Rights would likely be invoked should a government agency attempt to censor advertisers.  In summary, it would have to be the people’s voice, or bank account, that would have the final say.  If consumers failed to be wooed by commodity images, and correspondingly held back from purchasing products, then the message would get through.  Anything short of that would simply not have an impact. 

Music Videos Imagery and Lyrics: Transforming Gender Ideologies in Music Videos

Change begins with awareness. That is, in order for transformation to occur, society needs to be aware of its shortcomings.  For example, in late 19^th century, suffragettes in the United States marched with banners showing the need for women to participate in the democratic process.  This was a movement that made others aware there was a need to change. In the 1960s, reformers gathered and marched in Alabama, in cities now renowned for their civil rights activism, such as Selma.  These marches remain of interest in the media today because of how they drew the nation to change.  Today, music video now has the power to transform us.  It can stir our consciousness to seek change – to free individuals from society’s constraints, including the restrictions of our culture’s gender ideologies. These are two examples.

Patrick Wolf’s Lycanthropy challenged gender dynamics.  His lyrics compel us with the statement: ‘Send all your barriers into the fire.’  Those barriers refer to ones which prohibit us from freely expressing ourselves.  Wolf’s lines ‘cut my penis off’ or ‘sewed my hole up’ are figurative references to being free to experience life outside of preset gender roles.  He referred to removing yourself from preconceived responsibilities of what society requires of those who are male versus female.  ‘Now you please yourself and fight your own wars’ is a message of awareness – that it will be a struggle to be freed from gender roles.  It is today’s fight, much the same as suffragettes and the civil rights activists battled inequality in the past.  Wolf’s message, ‘be your own hero/be your own savior,’ speaks to empowering yourself to succeed outside of gender roles.  Lycanthropy was not negative against society’s boundaries, but instead compels us to break with boundaries when they are ineffective to do our best as individuals.

In the Spa Day music video rapper,  Le1f, also challenged preconceptions of accepted sexuality with his seductive connotation:  "Now what you wanna do? And who you wanna do it with?"  This lyric is a direct contrast to David Nylund’s statement in When in Rome: Heterosexism, Homophobia, and Sports Talk Radio that, “The mass media industry, therefore, often mobilizes pleasure around conservative ideologies that have oppressive effects on women, homosexuals, and people of color.”  Instead, Spa Day clearly associated pursuit of pleasure with the freedom to choose partners.  Additionally, the rapper appeared in pink socks and robes, openly sporting typically female clothing styles, giving license to freedom from the barriers of conventional appearance.  In stating, ‘When I butterfly, passersby look and get shook,’ Le1f was clear that he will attract attention, but that the rapper was not concerned about his unconventional ways.   It is interesting that the video showed men and women of different races, smashing the notion that only certain groups are interested in breaking conventions with existing gender roles. Le1f’s rallying call, where he asked the listener to persuade others to follow:  ‘Tell your phobic homey they should get into it/Unless they not feeling ready for revolution.’  In so doing, Le1f is no different than Janice Radway in Women Read the Romance in that both rapper and writer seek to raise consciousness about the failures of existing institutions.  

Summary of When in Rome: Heterosexism, Homophobia, and Sports Talk Radio

Hero or hypocrite?  The reader of “When in Rome:  Heterosexism, Homophobia, and Sports Talk Radio” must decide.  Author David Nylund, depicted The Jim Rome Show, a popular sports talk radio program, as both promoting hegemonic masculinity as well as challenging practices that promote a dominant social position of heterosexual men.   Jim Rome, the show’s host, has been revealed in this article being regularly and openly derisive toward gay men and women.  In regular broadcasts, Rome was capable of reinforcing sexism.  Yet, Rome had also shown intolerance for homophobia.  How does one radio personality succeed with this wide span of positions?  Perhaps Jim Rone is a master showman – a modern P.T. Barnum who said “Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.”

Who comprises the American public that listens to talk radio?  It’s middle class men – white men, that is – in the age range from 24-55.  Unlike more typical ‘talk’ show formats, Rome did not directly interact with callers in an exchange of ideas.  Instead, Rome broadcast callers’ comments that he found favorable while disconnecting callers if their viewpoint was deemed unacceptable.  Rather, Rone’s observations were made after the caller completed his/her comments. 

At first, the author discussed the boisterous and disorderly style of Rome’s remarks, which were often sexist and misogynistic, referring to women as “skanks” and “tramps” as well as prejudicial of homosexuals.  What drove the popularity of this format?  Nyland explained that men crave affiliation with other men, hungering for approval within their peer groups.  To be accepted, men will banter about and ridicule others outside the group.  Thereby, a hostile form of bonding occurs in the context of disrespecting others – especially those who are different from their cohorts.  The author would have us believe that male unity against a common aggressor is the source of Rome’s popularity.  That is, men connect through sports talk radio as a form of bonding whereby they confront their loss of dominance in society to homosexuals and women.  

Later in the article, however, the author lauds Jim Rome’s efforts to undermine hegemonic masculinity.  Three specific instances are given as to when Rome used his “authority to stand against the intolerance often engendered by homophobia” (234).  He admonished Julian Tavarez for his homophobic comments about San Francisco Giants fans.   Rome also respectfully interviewed former professional athletes who had declared their homosexuality, allowing them to be conspicuous in the public eye, but not condemned.  Additionally, Rome’s interview with baseball veteran Eric Davis, who spoke of the discomfort among ballplayers of having a gay teammate, was handled with respectability.  In fact, in Rome’s monologue he disagreed with Davis’ concerns about showering near a gay teammate. Clearly, Jim Rome shared a range of perspectives, not all of which encouraged hegemonic masculinity.

The central premise was whether Rome’s radio program reinforced social inequality, homophobia, and sexism thereby promoting male superiority and dominance.  Some men interviewed by Nyland pointed to entertainment value as their reason for listening to Rome’s radio program while others identified more deeply-seeded anxieties with their role in society as well as their needs to bond and uphold their masculinity with other males.  The Jim Rome Show reminds of a modern version of ‘The He-Man Woman Haters Club’ popularized in Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals) a comedy which began as silent short films in 1922.  One could surmise that men began to question their dominance in society as early as 1920, when the 19^th Amendment granted women the right to vote.  It has been a century since then.  Yet, men continue to flock to mass media, such as sports talk radio, where their social dominance can be reaffirmed with other men.  When will men become comfortable with their role in society?  Whenever that occurs, it will make media circuses, such as The Jim Rome Show, obsolete.

You Tube, I Tube, We All Tube

             This post compares and contrasts the role of gender, the target audience, and the effectiveness in reaching the target audience from the perspective of two television dramas: AMC’s Mad Men and CBS’s Madam Secretary.

Mad Men is a popular television show depicting the 1960s culture of a New York-based advertising firm (see YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfuMhXcLa-Q).  While both men and women are employed at the agency, men dominated it.  Males held and exercised positions of influence and power, while the women were primarily depicted in support roles such as secretaries and switchboard operators.  A stereotypical interaction of dominant men and subservient women in a 1960s workplace is portrayed.  Gender roles in Mad Men additionally typecast women as sex objects, capable of manipulation of-and-by men, while men were aggressive with other men and emotionally disconnected with women.  

In part, Mad Men’s males embody the husbands of Smithton women, who were emotionally unattached and unavailable to their wives.  Similarly, the women in Mad Men, like the stay-at-home Smithton women in Janice Radway’s article, appear rebuffed by a betrayal that life was not what they were promised.  While the Smithton women sought refuge using romantic fiction to rejuvenate them from dissatisfaction with the failures of patriarchal marriage, the women of Mad Men challenged their gender roles by manipulation, using sex as a form of power to maneuver men and challenge their control.  Oftentimes this approach backfired as Mad Men’s males became increasingly distant and indifferent toward women who were their sexual conquests.  Smithton women and the female characters in Mad Men craved nurturing and devotion from males.  Each found an outlet for their unanswered need, but neither was successful in attaining the emotional connection they craved. 

In her doctoral thesis “Feminism without Feminists” (2010), Linda Jin Kim asserted in that middle-class white women gained the most social benefit from the women’s movement and the civil right movement (24).  Lead character and Secretary of State, Elizabeth McCord, in Madam Secretary personified how a white female has been accordingly advantaged.  Appointed to assume a dominant role in American government, McCord is typecast as the powerful woman struggling in a male-dominated setting – quick to emphasize boundaries for her male public relations staffer and rebuff use of a stylist to improve her physical appearance (see YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZttHcUO5ND0).  McCord is portrayed as the modern, mainstreamed female – someone who can operate in a high stakes occupation and nonetheless juggle the demands of a personal life.  As such, she is remarkably unoriginal, representing Linda Jin Kim’s assertion that “today’s portrayal of feminism on television is commodified as a lifestyle rather than political ideology” (11). 

 

The target audience for Madam Secretary appears to be white women ages 25-50 who revel in the rigors of McCord’s efforts to lead the post-feminist lifestyle in a male-dominated workplace while balancing relationships with spouse and family.  White men and women ages 25-50 would be the target audience for Mad Men; both grasp the domineering male persona, oblivious to female needs for emotional connectivity.  According to “TV Series Finale,” the ratings for Madam Secretary were initially low, causing CBS to question if it would be cancelled after the show’s debut in fall 2014 whereas “The Hollywood Reporter” stated that AMC’s Mad Men, which first aired in 2007, enjoyed ratings growth into its sixth season (O’Connell).  Although planned for its final season in late spring 2015, Mad Men’s ratings are 8.7 and 8.8 out of 10 per IBDb.com and TV.com, compared to ratings of 7.3 and 7.0 for Madam Secretary from the same sources.

The ratings data could indicate that audiences gravitate to media showcasing stereotypical gender roles and, if so, that this attraction could be reinforcing the power of males over females in American society.  James Lull’s article, titled Hegemony, contends that “Hegemony requires that ideological assertions become self-evident cultural assumptions” (Dines 40).  It could follow, then, that the male-dominated workplace of Mad Men with its subordinated and sexually- manipulated females, which appears to be favored by men and women ages 25-50, might be representative of the mass media perpetuating male-centric power in our society.  It would be interesting to expose the Smithton women of the 1980s to several episodes of Mad Men and also to Madam Secretary, gauging their reactions compared to that of current audiences of these shows.  Would the Smithton women perceive the social roles in Mad Men as interconnected with the lack of nurturing they experienced?  Would the Smithton women react more favorably to Madam Secretary’s role of women than current audiences do?  While this is impossible to gauge because of the relative time periods involved, it could provide fascinating viewpoints on how mass media influences ideas and opinions of American consumers from different generations. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Dines, Gail and Jean Humez. Gender, Race and Class in Media. Thousand Oaks:  Sage, 2014.
          Print.

O’Connell, Michael. “TV Ratings:  Mad Men Returns with Steady 3.4 Million Viewers.”  The
          Hollywood Reporter. 8 April 2013. Web. 8 February 2015.

 “Madam Secretary: Cancel or Keep the New CBS Drama?”  TV Series Finale.  5 October 2014.   
          Web. 8 February 2015.

Summary of “Women Read the Romance” by Janice Radway

            Radway’s purpose in this article, published in 1983, was to demonstrate how patriarchal institutions, the systems of society controlled by male-dominated gender themes, were dysfunctional and thereby, causing dissatisfaction for women.  While the focal point of the article was a study of how and why women escape their disappointments through romance novels, the existence of novels was not to blame.  Radway did not intend to criticize women’s interest in romantic fiction nor chastise their collective dissatisfaction with performing unappreciated, mundane tasks.  Instead the author was condemning societal dogma, which held that women be ultimately satisfied with the role of wife and mother as the pinnacle of their competence.  Janice Raday adeptly crafted her ‘call to arms’ for social awareness around the central question: What urge drives women to escape into romance novels?  She skillfully illustrated the need for social change using the reading preferences of Smithton women and the central character, Dot Evans, a protagonist who understood women’s romantic fiction preferences.

            Dot Evans was almost 50 years old when the 1980s interviews were conducted by author Janice Radway.  Thereby, Dot was born and raised during the Great Depression in the 1930s and 40s, and would likely have been married after WWII, when the model of a women’s success was to be supported by her husband, run a household, and raise children in a safe neighborhood.  Husbands at that time, who were also raised during the Depression and served as soldiers during WWII, would have been thought themselves successful if they could be ‘providers’ of the family’s basic needs for sustenance and security.  The men and women of Dot’s era did not strive for Maslow’s esteem or the pinnacle of self-actualization; their focus was on fulfilling basic physiological needs and safety – bottom rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Thus, as America changed in the post war years, while Dot was raising her family, the needs of its citizens changed yet the social institutions had not kept pace.  Radway was underscoring this in “Women Read the Romance.”

            We know from the article that Dot was extremely bright and articulate.  So, Dot would say that the women of her generation gladly assumed a role in society with which they were satisfied initially, but once their fundamental needs for safety and security were met, they soon discovered their role did not nourish their growing needs for a healthy self-identity – concepts which arose after WWII and evolved as the country entered the social revolution of the 1960s. 

            From the article, it was clear that Dot and her peers were unprepared for the arduous, and oftentimes unrewarding, work of the caregiver.  They temporarily escaped feelings of overwhelm and inadequacy through romance novels, which allowed them to embrace fictional women, and vicariously project for themselves, as entities to be nurtured.  Unlike their husbands, who had not been raised as (nor did they evolve into) nurturers, romantic heroes were able to express emotional closeness and connectivity.  Romantic heroines sought a pathway to identify the root cause for their husband’s indifference. As such, Radway explained that Dot’s peers best identified with a romantic heroine whose husband was disconnected at-first, oftentimes cruel or aloof, but who transformed into someone tender and passionate after having his wife free him from a previous hurt, which had been hindering his full range of emotional engagement in the relationship.  Dot’s peers identified with this circumstance because it answered women’s need to awaken their husbands’ consciousness, gain their emotional connectivity, and engage them in helping to realize their wives’ fullest potential (self-actualization). 

            On the surface, Radway’s article appears to be a dissection of Smithton women’s preferences in romantic novels, their reasons and rationale for escaping their everyday toil and frustrations into a fantasy world of astonishingly masculine, yet fundamentally compassionate heroes.  However, caught in marriages of convenience, and stifled by expectations that do not allow them to realize their potential, Smithton women are a vehicle for the author to reflect on the male hegemony that limited women’s aspiration to childrearing and wifely duties.  Radway’s article used a discussion of women’s need to fantasize through romantic fiction as a way to rally for the need to raise collective awareness that change in social institutions was needed. 

Superbowl Bingo Card

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B32Oz0Oo7Vc_TGQ4YTh0cmtYWkk/view?usp=sharing

The Third Sex

Before viewing the video, I would have defined gender as the expectations, activities, and outcomes of belonging to a specific sex but those sexes in my definition would have been restricted to the biological male and female – that is, born as either a girl or a boy and thereby destined to take-on distinct roles and responsibilities thereafter.  Thus, to me gender meant the way our society expects its male and female citizens to operate.

However, reflecting on The Third Sex, some cultures have a more expansive definition of gender.  Using these, my definition was self-limiting in that I was constrained to ‘biological male and female.’ The Third Sex demonstrated a broader gender context through the experiences of the Hijras of India , the five-gender beliefs of Indonesians living on Segeri Island, and the sworn virgins of rural Albanian who gain respect in their society by dressing like and taking on the role of men.  These aspects of Indian, Indonesian, and Albanian cultures deviate from the strictly two-gender models of western civilizations.  However, these beliefs are not typical or widely-accepted within their own respective cultures.  As The Third Sex pointed out, Albania’s sworn virgins may number as few as 40 representatives because Albanian society has been modernized, reducing the need for this gender, while Hijras are marginalized in their culture, rejected by family and society.  However, in April 2014 India’s Supreme Court officially recognized Hijras as a “third gender” with quotas set-aside to bolster Hijra participation in colleges and inclusion in government (see http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/16/india-third-gender-claims-place-in-law).  This mirrors the US landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the related creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to end racial discrimination.  So, while Hijras may be socially outcast according to 2102’s The Third Sex, there was more recent legislation enacted to increase Hijra’s inclusion and participation within modern Indian culture.   

I would also offer an additional perspective now that I think of third gender as discussed in another course I took at TCNJ last semester:  Early China (HIS 131).  As early as the Han Dynasty (221 B.C. – 220 A.D.), men who were not born into the royal family sought to influence and rule the unified Chinese empire as eunuchs.  These men were educated and accepted as advisors at court.  They ultimately became powerful and corrupt, seeking to influence the emperor and/or plotting to overthrow those whom they could not dominate by placing young blood-Han relations on the throne.  Clearly, these men were given the honor of serving the emperor and became highly influential on the rise and development of their society.  So, I would offer the eunuchs of China as an example of another “third gender” which was both accepted and revered by an early, developed Asian society.  What could be done is to include a third gender discussion regarding the high-ranking Chinese eunuchs in the Early China class to expand student awareness of the cultural aspects of gender within our studies.

"You Play Like a Girl!”

What deters females from engaging in the technologically-complex digital games that males do?  Elena Bertozzi’s article "You Play Like a Girl!" offered insights into the cultural conditioning that prohibits females from participating with males in cross gender competition.  Bertozzi’s interest in this topic stems from what she regarded as a vital connection between involvement in “mental rotation games” – complex PC games – and competence with digital technology.  Because digital game players are predominately male, and since females who choose to participate in these complex games will have to play against them, gender norms surface.  Since players bring their preconceptions to the digital game room, Bertozzi explained that both genders must supersede traditionally held cultural beliefs in order to interact in digital gaming. Both females and males have to challenge norms in order to interact productively. 

What are these traditional, cultural play lines that need to be crossed in order for females to enter the male-dominated digital arena?  Bertozzi described them as their belief systems regarding male-and-female interactions which stems from cultural conditioning.  For example, women in society are supposed to be weaker and in need to protection from men.  Females are not considered the equals of males, especially in areas of physical duress or conflict.  So, female avatars and participants in gaming situations are expected to follow feminine norms of passivity whereas male avatars can be aggressive with other males, yet protective of females.  Thus, when females enter the gaming arena, they bring with them the social order of the lives they know outside of gaming.  In order for females to compete with males in cross gender challenges, there are rules to be broken and new rules to be overlaid.  Specifically to entice females to embrace technology, Bertozzi suggested that game designers need to acknowledge the nuances of cross-gender play, creating more female characters and new non-stereotypical avatars (i.e., aggressive and strong as well as sexually attractive).  These will remove barriers to female participation.

It is not surprising that both men and women bring their preconceived notions of gender into their digital game play nor is it a revelation that women need to embrace technology if they want to realize expanded career opportunities.  Since we have not done so as a society, it is difficult for males and females to overlay a new set of rules just for their interactions in digital gaming.  Bertozzi made salient points as to why females are disconnected from digital gaming, however, her conclusions on how to proceed were anemic.  The digital gaming industry needs to grasp the untapped market that female gamers represent so that the industry will work on related product design, marketing, and packaging.  Female gamers need to compete against other women in “mental rotation games”, learning to express their aggression through competition, to view their self-worth through skill attainment, and to work productively with other females in a hierarchy – all female shortfalls according to Bertozzi’s article – prior to and in preparation for addressing cross gender competition in digital gaming.  By doing so, females will be readied to express, view and work in ways that are more cohesive with the competitive environment.  This will serve to ‘level the playing field’ so that both males and females can compete with a common understanding of the process, goals, rules, and outcomes of productive competition.