There's nothing we love more at HuffPost UK Lifestyle than people standing up to sexism and kicking misogyny in the balls -- especially when that person is just six years old.
A week ago, an unhappy primary school pupil complained to her mother that there simply weren't enough women characters in the game Guess Who? (a pressing issue for a young girl who always likes to imagine she's a female character).
As a result, her mother, Jennifer O'Connell from Ireland, wrote to the board game's manufacturers Hasbro asking why there aren't as many women as men in the popular game.
"It is not only boys who are important, girls are important too," she told the company
According to the mum's blog, her little girl dictated a powerful letter to be sent to the games company.
Unfortunately the toy manufacturer's first response didn't clear up matters, leaving the daughter more confused than ever. The letter failed to explain the imbalance between the sexes (referring to gender as a 'characteristic') and addressed the six-year-old in a bafflingly inappropriate tone.
"As a company that makes toys for children, I would have anticipated you would communicate with your youngest customers in a more direct and child-friendly way," wrote Jennifer, the young girl's mother
Eventually the O'Connells received a child-friendly letter explaining the characters and why there are just five women.
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.
First response from Hasbro
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.
We hope this information is of help to you.
May we thank you for contacting Hasbro and if we can be of any further assistance, either now or in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Kind Regards,
ASK HASBRO
Second letter to Hasbro
Dear ___,
Thanks for your prompt reply to R__. She has been anxiously watching the post box and checking with me to see if there has been a response to her email, which - I'm sure you understand - it was a very big deal to her to write.
Unfortunately, she is now no clearer as to why there are only five female characters for her to choose from in her favourite board game, compared to the 19 male characters her brother can pick. (Obviously, she could choose to be a male character, but as you know, that's not usually how children work).
If anything, your response has left her more confused than before. She is a smart girl, but she is only 6 and still in senior infants at primary school, so she is a long way from being able to grasp concepts like numerical equations and weighting.
As a company that makes toys for children, I would have anticipated you would communicate with your youngest customers in a more direct and child-friendly way.
But I must confess that, despite being 37 years of age and educated to Masters level, I am equally at a loss.
Why is female gender regarded as a "characteristic", while male gender is not?
Kind regards,
Jennifer O'Connell
Second letter from Hasbro
Dear Jennifer,
We wanted to get back to you since our email did not fully answer your daughter’s questions. We love to hear from all of our consumers, especially children, so we hope this response will help clear up any questions.
Dear R____,
We agree that girls are equally as important as boys and want both boys and girls to have fun playing our games. When you play the Guess Who? game, you have the same chance of winning the game whether you picked a card with boy or a card with a girl.
We love your suggestion of adding more female characters to the game and we are certainly considering it for the future. In the meantime, you will be pleased to know that we have additional character sheets that we can send out to you in the post if you ask your mum to send us your postal address. Alternatively, you can visit http://www.hasbro.com/games/discover/guesswho/Guess-Who-Characters-en_GB.cfm to download and print additional character sheets so you can have lots of different fun people`s faces to choose from. You will be happy to know that our downloadable sports character sheet includes an equal number of boys and girls.
We hope your mum does not throw out your Guess Who game!
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Kind Regards,
Hasbro Consumer Affairs
Hasbro UK Ltd
In HuffPost UK Lifestyle's humble opinion, the mother and daughter duo have raised a very good point.
This team has also suffered at the hands of Hasbro when dealt the blow of picking out a female character.
Everyone knows, it's Guess Who? suicide if you get lumbered with Claire or Susan (poor dears).
The first question your opponent will ask is invariably about gender, and if you've got a girl it's pretty much Game Over.
In one fatal swoop all of the 19 male characters will be slapped face-down on the board leaving just five sheepish looking women to fight your corner.
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There's nothing we love more at HuffPost UK Lifestyle than people standing up to sexism and kicking misogyny in the balls -- especially when that person is just six years old.
A week ago, an unhapp...
There's nothing we love more at HuffPost UK Lifestyle than people standing up to sexism and kicking misogyny in the balls -- especially when that person is just six years old.
A week ago, an unhapp...
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Some well-known male chefs are getting behind a New Jersey girl's call for Hasbro to make a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven.Chefs including Manuel...
Responses to the downfall of CIA chief General David Petraeus - forced to resign after revelations of an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell - have been predictably mixed. But surely the most laughable were suggestions the four star general simply had no right to be cheating with a foxy lady 20 years his junior on the grounds of age and looks alone?
No one seems to care the game has no trans-women or trans-men depicted as characters. This cis-normative bias is a more egregious "ism" than anything else about the game.
Salem1: No one seems to care the game has no trans-women
These young girl and her mom are unclear on the concept: this is an excellent guessing game, based on the search parameter that only 20% of the characters have any particular feature.
In my house I banned the guess, "is it a girl?" because the images does not show genitals. "Does the person self identify as female" is a bit of a stretch too.
jjdre: These young girl and her mom are unclear on the
Do you really think the girl noticed and became offended by herself or do you think it is just feminist indoctrination from the mother ie her mother made a fuss over it and she copied her mother?
Anyone who says you will lose if you have a female doesn't understand how the game works.
It isn't a disadvantage to choose a female any more than it's a disadvantage to choose a bald person or a person with a hat, in fact it doesn't matter at all. The set of 24 people have various traits. For each trait, 5 people do have it, and 19 people don't.
The 5:19 ratio has been chosen makes for a more interesting game than if every trait was 50:50.
If we did make it 50/50 male/female next there would be people wanting 50% white and 50% black. And like the reply said they don't want gender and ethnicity to be the focal points.
Tom8251: Do you really think the girl noticed and became offended
YES .. Change it to half male and half female - but how many complaints will there be
that half the females should look more lesbian or disabled or have the wrong colour face
or not wearing a cross or or or or or -- or maybe she should buy the child
a monopoly game ... maybe not - there might not be enough streets with council estate
names or or or or or .. Christ - i hope the child picks the proper doll .......... or or - MAYBE ....
Sid_Feehan: YES .. Change it to half male and half female
It is a bit of a silly story really and I hardly think sexism comes into it. Surely the point of the game is explained in the title and with the male characters you can have all sorts of facial hair and lack of head hair which you can't with the female characters.
avengercat: It is a bit of a silly story really and
And with the female characters you can have all sorts of make up and jewellery questions, and there's a lot more potential questions there than the three relating to baldness and facial hair (Is he bald, does he have a moustache, does he have a beard). Not to mention women have far more variety in hairstyles than blokes tend to. Your point is pretty invalid.
Joington: And with the female characters you can have all sorts
I doubt that the company released the letter and reply, so the mother, not getting the response she wanted thought she'd try and humiliate the company by releasing the material to server her own purpose. To make things worse Huffington thought this story worthy of broadcasting. What a waste of space.
smsom: I doubt that the company released the letter and reply,
sexist game! what are you talking about i had this as a kid and there used to be a rule in the rule book that you couldn't ask about gender, so there was a fair chance no matter who you chose. bring that back if its not in there anymore. even in that game there were spares and you could make it a game entirely of boys or girls, people want to see something they will.
jgo870: sexist game! what are you talking about i had this
It isn't just laws that need to be changed to have a less patriarchal society, but attitudes and culture as well- the hegemony must be shifted, and that necessitates change in all areas.
The selection of women on this game AND in parliament is important.
interrogador: It isn't just laws that need to be changed to
i believe they have a point. i would like to see the other female characters though, "does your female have a beard?" "does your female have a moustache?" "does your female",Ya get the point!
twinny34: i believe they have a point. i would like to
The real story is '6 year olds 1st ever letter of complaint leads to abusive comments from Huffington post readers', called 'freak' and told 'nobody cares what 6 year olds think'.
shariwazlib: The real story is '6 year olds 1st ever letter
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The Huffington Post UK | By Brogan Driscoll Posted: 21/11/2012 14:29 GMT | Updated: 05/12/2012 12:10 GMT