Jennifer Scanlon

As a scholar of gender studies and popular culture, Jennifer Scanlon recognized two topic areas that have been neglected by current research: girls' early adolescence and board games. To fill those gaps, she did her own study combining the two. In her analysis of board games marketed to young teen girls, she outlines several trends. The overwhelming message is for girls to become consumers and make themselves beautiful by using makeup and fashionable clothes. Obtaining a boyfriend-at any cost-is often the central goal for game players. These elements blend into the typical directives young women get from many areas of popular culture: to please others; to learn dependence on males; to view math, science, and computers as male domains; and to define their worth in relation to their beauty. Scanlon also notes the presentation of white, middle...