Characteristics
James Taranto’s excellent Best of the Web Today column details the following letter exchange between a young girl and Hasbro:
My name is ______. 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.
Le réponse:
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.
Finally, from the mum:
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)… . 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?
While the mum and daughter sound like world champion eyebatters with the tone of those notes, the company’s response is an interesting illustration of the blinding effect of mental models. The company rep did in fact see female-ness as a “characteristic,” might we say a “peculiarity,” but actually saw the game as remaining balanced despite an obvious imbalance in place. Belief in the structure of the game overshadowed an obvious imbalance.