In celebration of Women’s Equality Day (thanks previous generations!) I put on my Equality Pants and mowed the backyard. Now give me my 23.5% raise.
Staff picnic
The staff picnic is today. There are a few firsts this year, including the availability of beer (gasp!) and wine (eek!) provided by our generous overlords. This is a controversial move. Alcohol and Campus Events are a lawsuit-attracting combination, and it takes a brave administrator to go down the Dark Road of Official Permission Forms. 
Unless, of course, the intent is to butter up potential funders, in which case let the vino flow!
Mary, my mentor, boss, and friend has foolishly volunteered to orchestrate an hour of children’s games. In the interest of preserving her sanity (that I might make use of it in the future), I have volunteered to help.
Mary’s plan: lots of candy.
My plan: Superhero games.
Who can jump the highest?
Who can turn invisible?
Who can talk to animals? Quick! Rescue that heiress!
Over there!
Waaaaaaay over there!
For your amusement, the HeroMachine. My superhero has bat wings and an electrical aura. Neyah.
Wish me luck.
Wedding registry does good
It’s about time the Wedding-Industrial Complex held up its end of the social contract. The clever people at the Bowery Mission Women’s Center have set up a wedding registry to help collect items they need for the 18 formerly-homeless women who live at center as they develop the skills to live on their own. You can donate by going to Bed Bath and Beyond or by entering registry #1718811 on the BB&B site. (yoinked from Salon’s Broadsheet which you should subscribe to and read because dang it’s good)
Food poisoning
Who knew the bathroom floor could be so comfy? Thanks, McDonald’s baked chicken salad!
Overheard at SXSWi
Liz Henry from BlogHer describes how to hide content on the Internet:
“Obscurity through verbosity”
I think this also explains the reason why many academic websites have trouble finding readers. Digital Librarians take heed! Avoid unnecessary words.
A Stack of Librarians
Could one of my dear library worker readers tell Doppelganger here at 50 books what we call a (collective noun) of librarians? You know my thoughts on the matter.
My Conference Can Beat Up Your Conference
Hi there sexy library creatures. I’m spending this weekend doing prep-work for the upcoming South by Southwest Interactive conference. In my case, this means re-dying my hair, e-shopping for warm weather gear, and drinking a lot of water. Chris and I are flying to Austin on the 9th – we’ll be hunting down margarita machines and Shiner Bock soon thereafter.
The cool local burlesque troupe that I wanted to take you guys to isn’t performing this month. Still, I promised a party so I’ll do what every good librarian should: utilize existing resources. I’ll meet everybody at the Frog Design party (they had belly dancers last year). I’ll be handing out Librarian pins and buying beer for anyone with a library degree. If are going to be in town, lemme know and I’ll send you my cell number. Chris is an Austin native, so we’ll be hitting some good Mexican food joints throughout the week. Finally, I’ll leave you with a list:
The Ethos of ALA vs SXSWi
| ALA | SXSWi |
| Gobs of free books | Gobs of free drinks |
| Shoulder Pads | Electronic Notepads |
| Informative panels about last year’s technology | Informative panels about next year’s technology |
| The Caldicotts | The Bloggies |
| Meet Winnie-The-Pooh | Meet famous pornographers |
| Nuclear politics | Nuclear tacos |
| Blue hair | Pink hair |
| Power suits and eye shadow | Power symbol t-shirts and iBooks |
| Sponsored by: Demco | Sponsored by: Tito’s Homemade Vodka |
I will shoot you with my Barbie Gun
Ladies and Gentlemen: I’m coming out. As a gamer.
I game. I play video games. I enjoy shooting digital things. I have the ability to navigate three-dimensional space. There, I said it.
I don’t know what I was afraid of. I’m not going to be stereotyped. As far as I can tell there are no stereotypes of female gamers. It’s not like admitting “Hey you guys I love to shop” or “Gosh I love me some Jesus.” There are no social assumptions about being a female gamer because up to a few years ago, female gamers didn’t statistically exist.
These days however, I’m in good company. New generations of tech-savvy women are reshaping the game industry. According to the charmingly titled 2004 ELSPA report Chicks and Joysticks, female gamers make up 39% of US gamers. We’re only at 25.1% across Western Europe, but in Japan we rule a whopping 65.9%. Plus, in the US, women buy 53% of all PC games. We love The Sims. We love World of Warcraft. We can whoop you at Dance Dance Revolution. Female gamers exist, and we’re starting to eat up market share.
So what’s the problem? Nothing we haven’t handled before. The success of first-person shooters has left the market flooded with Uber-violent 3D games that don’t appeal to women (Well – women who aren’t me. Battlefront, anyone?) And, of course, decades of male-dominated gaming have left a legacy of seriously sexist game characters. Big-boobed wasp-waisted mistresses of the martial arts still grace the covers of RPG manuals and fighting games. I’ve included a few here for your amusement.
In a great article titled Why is my girl repellent chasing off all the hot chicks? Mythago describes the lament of the clueless male gamer: “Why aren’t there more female gamers, especially when we go to such lengths to make it clear they aren’t welcome?” He claims that the abundance of porn ladies gracing video and RPGs sends a simple message to potential girl gamers: “You don’t exist. We only think of females as sex toys.”
This whole rant got started because I just attended a nifty lecture here on campus by Michigan State Communications prof John Sherry called “Sex Differences in Video Game Play: What the Industry Doesn’t Know About Why Girls Don’t Play First-Person Shooters”. MSU is doing some cool cognitive psychology-type research on the relationship between game preference and cognitive abilities. It made me nostalgic for East Lansing, Midwestern accents, and Social Science research with its delightful openness to interpretation. It’s pretty damn difficult to say why most women seem to prefer one type of game over another, but I had a good time listening to the theories.
To finish off, and perhaps cleanse your eyeballs from all those huge electronic breasts, why not have a go at the fully girl-created online game Sissyfight 2000 which lets you become a bitchy schoolgirl fighting on the playground. Scratch, tease, and gang up on other girls, then try and look innocent. Then shoot them with your huge My Little Pony gun.