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CNN reports that "One of America's most recognizable board games is getting an upgrade. Hasbro is debuting a new game celebrating women's power---MS. Monopoly."
"The twist," CNN says, "is in MS. Monopoly, female players will get more money."
However, Rachel Greszler, economics, budget, and entitlements expert says, "This isn't helpful."
Be informed.
CNN says:
"The idea, according to the game maker, is to raise awareness about the 'gender pay gap'---where women make less than men who are doing the same job."
Hasbro executive, Jan Boswinkel told USA Today,
"With all the things surrounding female empowerment, it felt right to bring this to Monopoly in a new fresh way. It's giving the topic some relevancy to everyone playing it that everybody gets a turn---and this time women get an advantage at the start.
The Monopoly advantage.
Unlike the classic game, Hasbro explains, women will collect 240 Monopoly bucks when they pass "Go", while male players will collect the usual 200.
The Washington Post notes that "The banker gives $1900 in Monopoly money to females, but only $1500 to each male."
The Post says,
"Investments in real estate from the original game have been replaced by investments in innovations made by women, such as bulletproof vests, WiFi, chocolate chip cookies and 'ladies' modern shape wear."
And it says,
"MS. Monopoly's premise is a not-so-subtle nod to the gender imbalances in modern work places, including pay inequality, and the ways that women's experiences and contributions have often been played down---or erased altogether---from history."
Hasbro says they hope the game will spark discussions. Well, it has.
Let's discuss it in the broader framework of the culture.
Mother: "This isn't helpful to the situation."
Rachel Greszler, a research fellow in economics, budget and entitlements for the Heritage Foundation---and mother of 6, three boys and three girls---says, "MS. Monopoly isn't helpful to the situation."
She says,
"I think this is actually teaching both boys and girls, men and women, the wrong message. It's suggesting that women need a head start in order to be on par with or succeed men--and that's the wrong thing we should be telling women."
And she adds,
"And then what happens if the girls win? The boys say, 'Well, they only won because they got a head start'. And what happens if the boys win. They say, 'whoa, the girls must have been so much inferior to [us] that even with a head start they weren't able to catch up'."
I personally believe that God has given men and women mutually beneficial gifts and strengths. There should not be discrimination between men and women in the workplace or the culture.
However, the drive to make men and women the "same" is futile, because they aren't. Equal? Yes. The same? No.
Science.
I agree with the mother of six. This whole isn't helpful.
Psychology Professor Richard Haier of the University of California has, along with many others, established that men and women's brains are different.
Findings generally reveal that men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women. Women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.
In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers.
The results from these studies explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks.
Neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico explains why men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.
Dr.'s Haier and Jung actually study head injuries---not sociology or theology, but their findings affirm what the Bible says about human sexuality and gender, We're different. And meant to be complementary to one another.
However, our culture is bent on establishing gender fluidity as normal. And progressives work tirelessly to rewrite nature's laws.
The social experiment.
A while back, Dennis Prager wrote an article in which he expressed concern because the Left is trying to feminize boys.
He said that ideology is causing big box stores like Target and others to dispense with gender-specific toys.
However, he notes that the toymakers, like Mattel, who are not motivated by a social agenda so much as they are by money have found that boys and girls are different. And they like different things.
Mattel found the difference in action figures---among many other toys.
"For boys," they said, "it's very much about telling a story of the good guy killing the villain...Girls would tell us: 'Why does the girl have to kill the villain? Can't we just be friends with the villain'?"
Prager says this difference can actually shape the future of America and of the world.
He notes that the fact that more and more American boys are being raised by their single mother, and most often taught in public school by a woman, they are becoming feminized. Purposefully so.
The "toxic masculinity" movement isn't helping. Boys sometimes, in this environment, are being taught to be ashamed of their masculinity and their masculine nature and to reject masculine virtues.
While this has a direct implication on our preparedness as a nation, it also diminishes the quality of our young boy's lives.
He says Mattel's research has told a truth that America and the world need to pay attention to.
"The Left has done many destructive things to America," he says, "it is quite possible that none will prove to be more destructive than its attempt to obliterate gender distinctions."
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful.