It’s everywhere.
Cruising around with my daughter as she peck, peck, pecked
at her cell phone, she snorted in disgust.
“This stupid game,” she sneered. “You
see what I have to deal with?”
At the next stoplight she showed me what was on the
screen. She had been playing some silly
little High School Sim, and at various points the game required the payer to
answer a question. She explained that
these weren’t quizzes, but surveys. Here’s
the survey that caused her mucosal disdain:
 |
| Free to play: just consume our anti-scientific propaganda about the field of science. |
This is an innocent freemium style game, and they just can’t
resist including a survey question designed to remind girls that they are
victims, that they need help, that their natural interests are badwrong and
need to be addressed.
Now, the easy response would be to tell her to shut off the
game, delete it, and move on. This is
undoubtedly the tip of a pernicious iceberg.
Instead, we had a nice (and from her perspective no doubt mercifully
brief) discussion about how this survey question is just another salvo in the
war for her soul.
The good news is that she immediately recognized the
underlying assumption of the question, looked for the response to attack that
assumption, and on finding that questioning the assumption was not on the list,
selected the choice that least served the goals of the game’s makers. The best she could do, as evidenced by the
green check mark, was to respond with a non-committal, “I need to learn more.” And learn more she did.
We ditched the vagueness of the assertions and drilled down
to the notion that the culture warriors are trying to sell her on two ideas
that diametrically oppose each other.
The first that she is a victim forever cast about and directed by the
whims of the bad old patriarchy. The
second that she is a strong and fierce and independent go grrl, or at least she
could be if she simply allowed the culture warriors to save her from herself,
and to do all her thinking for her.
We talked about how, if she surrenders her liberty and
rational independent thought to the feminists, they will knock down all the
barriers that prevent her from making her own choices…provided she chooses to
do what they want her to do with her life.
Like, maybe go into the STEM fields for a living.
“And if I just want to raise a family,” she asked?
I explained that that was just the patriarchy talking. She should just choose to do what the
feminists think is best for her: get a degree, work for twenty years, try to
have one or two children a full decade after her primer fertility years, and
then continue to work in a cubicle farm to pay somebody else to play with her
children.
She thought that sounded dreadful, and then asked how their
deciding that more girls should love science is any better than others deciding
that girls shouldn’t.
I didn’t have an answer for that question – I was just proud
that she asked it. I’d hoped she would,
given that I was leading here right to that point with my own loaded
questions. But then, there really isn’t
an answer for the contradictions and inherent rejection of reality buried deep
in the heart of all feminist thought.
And that’s why I encourage my children to play those sorts
of games and watch those sorts of shows.
They will be exposed to the constant tidal flow of propaganda for their
entire lives, and the only way to inoculate them is to constantly stand over their
shoulder and chant, “Remember thou art being sold a bill of goods,” over and
over. Based on her bringing this little
quiz to my attention, that strategy seems to be working.
Man, I love homeschooling.
So, score one for the video game company – their little app
inspired a conversation all right. I
just don’t think it was the one they’d hoped.
