While gender has always played a role when it comes to games and toys, those lines have not always been clearly defined. From western Chess to Mall Madness, we’ll explore how game mechanics can change who gets to play, and how marketing pressure and seemingly unrelated TV deregulation can restructure a whole industry. We’ll examine some surprising parallels between more recent games like Twister and older parlor games, and see how gender roles have changed through the years – and stayed the same.
