Girl Power

Interview With Suzanne Freyjadis-Chuberka

I think that a good start for the industry would be simply to stop alienating potential female gamers through their marketing of the games and the presentation of games in game magazines. This would limit the economic liability, but still increase sales. However, the industry seems so tightly tied to the ideal gamer as being a white male 18-34 that I am not certain whether they yet feel the need to increase their market share.

You're not only a scholar and gaming enthusiast, but also a mother. Though it's of course impossible to lay out a blueprint, what changes do you hope will have taken hold by the time your own children are old enough to become parents, both within and outside of the gaming industry, that will make it a more inviting place for women?

My goal as a mother of a daughter and a son is to raise people who view gender as something that is driven by society and not a set of unchangeable rules. People love to use anecdotes of their children to reinforce gender stereotypes. However, people do not realize that the way we see and define people by gender simply reinforces these stereotypes. So my hope is that the world is more gender-blind by the time my children are adults. That the games that people chose to play is seen as driven by their personalities, and not their gender.

M. Junaid Alam is a journalism student at Northeastern University, a political commentary writer for the university paper, and a freelance reporter for The Sun Chronicle in North Attleboro, MA.