I'm sitting in a tree house with my friend Whitney. At school, Whitney and I aren't real close. She's been described as "a crabcake and a snob," and I'm not crazy about her. But here in my treehouse I'm seeing a side of her I've never seen before: instead of sticking her nose in the air and walking past me in the hall without waving, her face is crumpling be cause her parents are divorced and her stepmother's trying to throw her a birthday party, and right now she thinks being Whitney is pretty tough.

I know I have a couple of choices: I could laugh at her in order to get her back for all those nonwaves, or I could try to help her out. If I try to help her, she'll tell me even more about what's going on, in such vivid detail that I will be able to see it for myself. If, after hearing all that, I still commit to helping her and being her friend, I can go onto her Secret Path in the forest, where I can look for magical story stones that will help her know what to do about her stepmom's party. Of course, I have to solve some puzzles to find the stones. But if I don't find them all today, I can put the ones I have found in a box and come back for the rest tomorrow. The party's not for a couple of weeks, so I have plenty of time.

Or I could just be nasty to Whitney and diss her.

You've probably guessed by now that I don't really have a tree house or a friend named Whitney. But I do have a computer game that presents a tree house scenario. It's not like most computer games: this one's designed especially for girls.

In high school, a group of my friends voted me "Best Feminist: The Person Who Does the Least to Reinforce Negative Stereotypes About Women," but there are certain ways in which I feel very much like a Helpless Girl. I can't drive a stick shift, and the only thing I know how to do to a computer is turn it on. Neither has proved an insurmountable handicap: I inherited an automatic from my mom, and I have always managed to lure a nearby guy into helping me with my computer.

From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, a collection of essays edited by two professors at MIT, has confirmed that I am not the only woman who is computer clueless. While the computer gender gap may seem obvious to anyone who has ever stepped into a software store or ventured into an arcade, academics have happily churned out scads of research to back up that commonsensical observation. Above all, these studies have shown that when it comes to computers, the gender gap starts young. Ac cording to one study, boys between the ages of 11 and 18 are "at least three times more likely to use a computer at home, participate in computer-related clubs or activities at school, or attend a computer camp" than girls.

Studies that Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins cite in From Barbie to Mortal Kombat indicate that even in school classrooms, boys use computers more often than girls, beginning as early as kindergarten, when "children assign a gender to video games, viewing them as more appropriate toys for boys." One preschool teacher reported that in her class, the boys "took over the computer, creating a computer club and refusing to let the girls join the computer club or have access to the computer."

Not surprisingly, adults evidence the same trend: men are more likely to care about computers and to work in computer-related fields than women. According to a 1996 survey, women garnered only 16 percent of bachelor's degrees in computer science, 20 percent of master's degrees, and 12 percent of doctorates. But boys and men don't just dominate C+ and Java. Computer games, too, are the provenance of boys (and sometimes their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers: one software salesman confided to me that on two separate occasions he has sold men in his town computer games for their sons, who, it turned out, were then in utero). At least 75 percent of the $10 billion game-industry revenues are generated by male consumers. The links between boys' dominance in computer games and men's dominance in computer-related jobs are the raison d'etre of this collection of essays about the girls' game movement.

The girls' game movement, I should explain for those who don't frequent software stores or follow Wired magazine's devoted coverage, is the effort on the part of some software companies—mostly small start-ups owned by women and largely female-staffed—to create games specifically for girls. A 1997 Saturday Night Live skit poked fun at the very idea of a girl's game movement. The SNL "commercial" offered prospective consumers "Chess for Girls." When a brother checkmates his sister in record time, she cries "Chess is no fun!" and sweeps the pieces off the board. Then a voice over announces, "Don't worry, now there's Chess for Girls!" A chessboard occupied by doll-like pieces appears, where girls are shown brushing the queen's hair and prancing princess-like on the beautiful ponies-cum-knights.

Indeed, the notion of a book devoted to gender and computer games may elicit rolling eyes and disdainful yawns: just another thousand trees wasted to produce more cultural studies drivel. But From Barbie to Mortal Kombat refutes such preconceptions. The editors demonstrate that there is a clear link between playing computer games as young children and general comfort and facility with computers—and technology more broadly—as older kids and adults. The volume was written with an academic and industrial audience in mind, but parents of daughters should pay attention to what the contributors have to say about the ramifications of girls' limited participation with computer games.

Some parents don't seem at all troubled that their daughters disdain computer games. One mother of a boy and a girl told me that her son "spends as many hours a day as we let him on the computer, but Jacquie doesn't go near it. It's fine with me; when he's on the computer, she's usually playing outside or reading, which seem like better, healthier activities than sitting in front of a screen all afternoon. This summer Jacquie wanted to go to tennis camp; Sam said he'd rather play on the computer all day than go to camp."

But the contributors to From Barbie to Mortal Kombat argue that the consequences of playing or not playing with computers as a child are long-reaching: "It is not just that girls seem to like today's computer games less than boys do, but that these differential preferences are associated with differential access to technological fields as the children grow older," Cassell and Jenkins write. Thus, it is more important to examine the links between gender and computer games than, say, the links between gender and toy lawnmowers.

Software producers have been complicit in the gendering of computers and computer games, Cassell and Jenkins argue, in a host of ways: computer games are marketed in royal blue ("boy" colors, according to marketing experts); games feature male heroes, whose tasks involve violence, often violence against female characters; television ads for computer games show boys purchasing, playing, and winning. Even educational games are designed with boys in mind. Industry insiders have admitted that they create educational games with a male audience in mind; they design less exciting learning-tools software, such as programs that teach typing, for girls.

But if they have contributed to the association of computers with boys, software producers have also been responsible for the explosion in girls' games. Until about two years ago, girls represented an untapped market for computer game software. The women who are heads of software companies, Cassell and Jenkins write, are "motivated both by a desire to transform gender relations within American culture and to create a new and potentially profitable market."

Girls' games have not garnered unadulterated praise. The very concept of marketing games geared toward girls troubles some mothers, scholars, and activists. As author Kate Bornstein said in a 1996 interview with Wired, "Who's judging what the girls want, and why do we have to label that specifically 'girl'?" One mom, whom Cassell and Jenkins quote, asked, "Why create gender-specific software? Doesn't its generation imply that the myriad of excellent educational programs already in existence is not for girls—the underlying message being that girls can't truly enjoy the currently popular math, science, reading, and problem-solving titles? Or more pointedly, that those titles will prove too difficult for girls, that we need to paint computer software pink to make it girl-friendly?"

Among software designers themselves there is a debate about the fundamental purpose of games for girls: Do these games merely exist to reach an open market, or might they also help transform gender roles? Getting girls playing computer games at all, some argue, subtly affects gender stereotypes, and the software industry should market to girls at whatever cost, even if that means reinforcing lots of other gender stereotypes in the process—hence girls' games that are about shopping and makeup, and are marketed in pink boxes.

But other software designers believe, in the words of Cassell and Jenkins, that "what is needed to breach the gender gap are not new game genres designed specifically for girls but the successful development of traditional boys' games with stronger female characters." As Sherry Turkle of MIT said on Nightline in 1997, "If you market to girls and boys according to just the old stereotypes and don't try to create a computer culture that's really more inclusive for everyone, you're just going to reinforce the old stereotypes."

Questions about catering to versus challenging gender stereotypes go well beyond the color of computer-game packaging. In the six interviews with industry insiders that make up the middle section of From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, women in the field discuss instances where their more substantive goals—such as the desire to speak frankly about contraception in video games—have conflicted with the dictates of the market. The software companies are then faced with a choice: "get your foot in the door or cut off your nose to spite your face," as one software design student told me.

The debate over the content and purpose of girls' games can be seen in two enormously popular examples of the genre: Barbie Fashion Designer, which was launched in November 1996, and Tomb Raider, which hit the shelves a few months later. In Barbie Fashion Designer, the players do just that: design clothes for Barbie. As Pamela A. Ivinski has noted, the game is set up in such a way that you wind up designing "miniskirts and wedding dresses," not police uniforms or surgical scrubs. But, defenders of the game argue, it does get girls playing on, and comfortable with, a computer: more than 500,000 copies of Barbie Fashion Designer were sold the first holiday season it was available.

Further trying to hone their procomputer image, Mattel followed up Fashion Designer with Talk With Me Barbie, who (unlike the infamous "math is hard" talking Barbie) declares that "computers are cool." In their contribution to From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia M. Greenfield observe that it is "surprising" that a game that has "become so influential in providing computer-literacy experiences for girls" should be "regarded suspiciously by feminists and others." Maybe in ten years, they imply, the girls who were designing wedding dresses for Barbie won't be desperately hoping as they move into college that a (male) computer geek will live down the hall; maybe the erstwhile fashion designers will be the computer geeks.

Tomb Raider is a much more traditional game: the protagonist, an archaeologist, reminiscent of Indiana Jones, progresses from easier to tougher levels, killing nasty creatures and solving puzzles. Tomb Raider is atypical, however, insofar as the protagonist, Lara Croft, is a woman. According to Tomb Raider's creator, "Lara was designed to be a tough, self-reliant, intelligent woman. She confounds all the sexist cliches apart from the fact that she's got an unbelievable figure." Moms who eschew Barbie have embraced Lara Croft. "This is a role model I want for my daughter—she's independent and takes care of herself," said the mother of my 11-year-old friend Suzanne.

But Lara Croft is not only a model of female self-reliance. Her "unbelievable figure" has helped sell Tomb Raiderr to boys and men as well as girls. Some cynical critics have wondered if she was indeed designed with a female audience in mind. Rumor has it that one computer hacker has developed a patch that lets you play Tomb Raider with a nude Lara Croft. Within weeks of the game's release, soft-porn Web sites devoted to Lara appeared.

Cassell and Jenkins note that Tomb Raider's parent company has developed marketing strategies that can hardly be described as girl friendly: they hired "a scantily clad female model to impersonate Croft at computer trade shows … [and] develop[ed] … an ad campaign based on the theme 'Where the Boys Are' … showing lusty boys abandoning strip clubs in search of Lara." Less obviously sleazy, but no less telling, is the July release of Canadian Gen-X chronicler Douglas Coupland's Lara's Book: Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider Phenomenon. Described by one reviewer as "a glossy-paged, coffee-table-worthy pinup book" dedicated to the "definitive Gen X pinup girl," Lara's Book underscores that Lara's most devoted following is made up of twenty-something men, not 12-year-old girls.

Some boys have been drawn to girls' games for other reasons. Feminist, pacifist, and Christian parents have begun buying some of the so-called girls' games for their sons. "When Barbie Fashion Designer came out," one Virginia mom told me, "I took a chance that my son would be willing to try it. He actually got hooked! We may have a future Isaac Mizrahi on our hands, but either way, it's a lot better than Mortal Kombat."

My friend Suzanne, her younger sister Kate, and I spent a recent Saturday drinking lemonade and playing video games. Barbie didn't hold much appeal for them, but we played Tomb Raider for a couple of hours in the morning and then hung out with Rockett, a character developed by Purple Moon, a small company offering alternatives to Mortal Kombat and Barbie Fashion Designer.

Rockett is my favorite girls' game creation. A red-headed, rosy-cheeked middle schooler, Rockett is one of many Purple Moon characters who navigate all sorts of real-life situations, from dealing with a fight between friends to negotiating the first day in a new school. Purple Moon games are thoughtful, nonviolent, and fun. As Purple Moon cofounder Brenda Laurel explained in an interview in From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, she tries to create products that facilitate telling stories and building relationships.

You can imagine my dismay when I saw the headline on page 1 of the business section of the New York Times (March 22, 1999): "With the Best Research and Intentions, a Game Maker Fails." Below the headline, there was a capsule obituary: "Purple Moon lightened stereotypes and kept girls smiling on line." But lest you suppose that the company's failure confirms the prejudices of industry cynics, note that Mattel is acquiring Purple Moon's assets and has announced plans for new titles featuring Rockett.

As for Suzanne and Kate, I tried to turn them on to some of the Christian games their mom had left sitting out, but Lara Croft and Rockett just took the cake. Christian software designers have not yet wholeheartedly embraced the girls' game trend. Parents searching for biblically based computer games for their kids say they have trouble finding ones that their daughters like to play. "You'd think it would be pretty easy to find a gender-neutral Bible computer game," one mother in California told me.

It's tough to disagree with her claim that boys are more likely than girls to enjoy most of the "biblical" computer games available. Take Wisdom Tree's popular Spiritual Warfare. If the title of the game and the logo, a brawny, knightlike, sword-brand ishing, shield-bearing warrior, aren't suffcient to tip off potential buyers that this is a boy's game, the blurb declaring, "You're a soldier in the army of the Lord," will. Ditto Willow Tree's Joshua ("Conquer Canaanites, Amorites and Hittites in this fast-paced puzzle maze!"). Where are Deborah, Ruth, and Tamar? How about a Rockettlike character who explicitly uses the Bible in making her tough, eighth-grade decisions?

After playing several games by Willow Tree and a handful of other Christian software companies, Suzanne said, "I like things with girls better. Not all Christians are boys, you know." That comment was much more uplifting than her remark after staring at Lara Croft's "unbelievable figure" for two hours. Lara is clad in short shorts and a skimpy top, and the computer constantly focuses on her double-D cleavage and Scarlett O'Hara waist. Often she bends over to examine something on the ground, and the game-player is treated to a view of her perfect derriere. Even the packaging of the game emphasizes Lara's curves: the lid unfolds into a picture of Lara, reminding one of nothing so much as a Playboy centerfold.

As Suzanne and I shut down her computer and went into the kitchen to fix a snack, she paused in front of a full-length mirror in the hallway. "I look so fat," she moaned, sucking in her stomach. "I think I'll just have celery for a snack. They say that celery actually has negative calories by the time you wind up chewing it. If I don't flatten my tummy, I will never look as thin as Lara Croft!" Rockett, for the record, looks like a real 12-year-old girl.

Lauren F. Winner is Kellett Scholar at Cambridge University.

Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail bceditor@BooksAndCulture.com.