![]() ![]() I am surprised by how games like Babysit Krissy and Miley’s Malibu Manicure (a Hannah Montana nail salon game), just like play kitchens and baby dolls, were primarily marketed to young girls. “This made household labor both vital and invisible to society.” Victorian ideals like the “ Angel in the house,” a submissive wife that kept a tidy home without complaint or sweat, baked serendipity and grace into work that can be more accurately described as physically demanding and emotionally draining.īut this isn’t about the perfect Victorian woman, this is about video games. “During the 19th century, Americans conceptualized domestic labor as feminine,” she wrote. ![]() Women who work these jobs are often underpaid (according to a March 2020 report by the Economic Policy Institute, in 2019, women on average earned 22.6% less than men with similar backgrounds) and disrespected by a patriarchal society that still associates domestic-type duties with skilless, simple labor.Īccording to history professor Alexandra Finley in an article for The Washington Post, this association goes back centuries, especially as women’s work often “was performed by female family members, servants, and, in many cases, enslaved women.” What I didn’t know is that the kind of work these games asked players to engage in was a type of domestic labor historically performed by women and often described as “women’s work.” “Women’s work” is a broad term, usually used to describe jobs performed at home and out in the world that fall under the “5 C’s”: cleaning, catering, cashiering, clerical work, and caring. Fuck green helmets in a fantasy Cold War, I wanted to make Krissy, the titular baby in Barbie: Let’s Babysit Krissy, giggle.Īlso, I thought the Salisbury steak graphics in Cooking Mama were good for 2006. I liked these games because they were gentle in their execution, free from the blood, guts, and pressure that the Call of Duty fans in my elementary school esteemed. I brushed my virtual Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with care in Nintendogs, I rushed to serve hamburgers to waiting customers in Diner Dash. I loved filling takoyaki batter with octopus or folding a pale yellow omelette in Cooking Mama. When I was a kid, a lot of my favorite video games involved work.
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