May 3, 2021 • 29 mins
Anney and Samantha take a trip down memory lane and reminisce on the sexist board games of their youths.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
I ever told you protection of I Heart Radio. So
today I don't think we should do you a question
because I got a lot of ground to cover. We're
gonna we're gonna get real, real into the weeds on
(00:28):
some memories that we've had growing up about board games,
specifically geared towards girls. Yes, and that's when we were
restarting and looking through everything. I am. I have a
lot of remorse of not having these games. Of course,
I had a little house fire when I was growing up,
so I lost a lot of my games. But I'm like, man,
these are worth some money. I really wish I had
(00:50):
these games. Yes, Yes, and shout out to the website
board Game Geeks, who is helpful for me and researching this.
But they had great pictures of some of these games,
but they didn't have one of the one of the
ones I'm going to talk about something like, I need
to I still have it. I need to go home,
take some good pictures, upload them. You know, we really
(01:10):
do need to be played. Just playing these all these
old games. I would love to. I would absolutely love
to shout out to Blair Erskin who actually did this
entire column about all of the board games and how
it was so bad at one point in time, and
it was it was kind of like, uh, can we
talk about these games and how awful these are for
(01:33):
girls in general? So shout out to our skins to
go back and remember all of those things, including all
the stereotypes. And we have talked about topics around this
a lot, like we talked briefly about Old Maid. I
don't think we ever did a full thing on it.
We've talked about stuff for Jetto which you can play online.
It's free, and I still think we should play Samantha,
I'm ready. We talked about the rebrand of Monopoly Mrs
(01:56):
Monopoly and how people hated it, whether or not that
was a good thing her And in the passing ten
episodes on women in board games and women in board
game design, so check those out if you're interested. I
did want to say I feel like, I know we
always say this, but I think we could do a
whole episode because researching this, I found the nine seven
(02:17):
cover of Battleship, the board game that depicts presumably a
father and some just having a grand old time playing
the game while in the background, you can see the
mother and daughter doing dishes, and they have these huge
smiles on their faces as if like they're watching the
(02:37):
father and son played the game, like oh look how
much fun they're having, right, of course, and it's battleship,
so obviously if it's about war or any of those things,
it's gonna be men. I I definitely have a picture
in my head too, of and I can't. I don't
know if there's life but the old school games, where
is this supposed to be the whole family for some reason?
Typically the mother is behind either the father or the
(02:59):
son with her hands on their shoulders or serving them popcorns,
like I'll remember this picture specifically, So it's supposed to
like give you the feeling that's a family game night.
But yet she's still kind of on the outskirts of
whether or not she plays a game. And I grew
up in a family that did not play games, so
a lot of my tales have me playing by myself.
(03:19):
Don't start with me. But also the fact that my
brother and I were very competitive and didn't get along
so well. We were very like Vickery, So my father
would threatened to throw away these games or burn the game.
So yeah, I got contentious. So family game that was
not a thing for us. So maybe that's why I
saw those pictures on likal. That's so nice. I wish
my mother would sit with me and make me popcorn.
(03:41):
I guess we loved our board games in our family,
but it reached a point where the dreaded video games
like overtook so we really only played as I got
older if the power went out, And that was one
of the reasons I actually really loved it when the
power went out as a kid. Yeah, like you get
those like candles out, you cook the over a fire,
and we would play board games and I really really
(04:02):
enjoyed it. You know what, I think I do have that.
So the big storm, it was it of ninety two,
the winter storm when our power went out. We all
had to be in my parents bedroom because it had
a fireplace so we can also enclose all of the
spaces and we would play card games. Yeah, that was
a good memory for me. Yeah, I mean that's one
(04:22):
thing kind of like what you were saying, Samantha, where
you know the competitiveness, and then in my case, when
we played board games with the entire family, we never
played my quote girly games never right, So we usually
played like Monopoly, which I never want, even though I
cheated multiple times. Are like guests who are are cheetah Monopoly.
(04:47):
That's the whole different story. But bank okay, I got you,
know I got you. Now I know this. We will
not you will never be the banker in this in
any of the case, which, by the wait, So we
actually played life because you know, I had been reminiscing
about the old school game and the traditions of what
(05:07):
that game was. It's very heteronormative in every sense. And
I remember, of course with any game, I think you
have your own traditions, uh, and you make up you're
kind of your own things. And then when I played
I've talked about this before, my sister would make us
name the husband, oh yeah, or the or this or
the wife, and of course it was again very heteronormative
(05:28):
ideas I have named the kids and then all of
these other things. So I was kind of trying to
embarrass you into telling them your crush or whatever whatnot.
As well as this game is nonsensical in itself, the
whole you get twins, you don't get twins. You get
money for this, you get a heritage, maybe you go
to college. Maybe you don't like all those things. But
you and I played, and you got really mad about this.
(05:51):
But because of these bad things that happened to you
in life quote quote unquote yes, yes, So Samantha and
I tried to We decided to revisit it because we
were both curious. We played it as children, and we
were curious if it was really sexist, like we remembered
it was heteronormative, but we wanted to know, like is
(06:13):
it super sexist and we're just not remembering that. But
we played an updated version where you can get pets,
and so you can, you can, I can, but you
have to yes. And I was infuriated that I had
no choice but to get a pet, and not only
that I had so many children, none of which I wanted,
(06:35):
by the way, that I had to buy a second card.
I had like I had cars, carloads of children and
a pet that I had to pay for, none of
which were wanted, other that I had a choice in.
And I'm still I'm getting mad about it, as we
may are. I love it. I think one of the
best parts that I gain was you have that route.
(06:56):
Do you want to start a family? Do you want
to just advance in your career here? And you were
like in the family, absolutely not, and you ended up
having like eight kids, Like congrats. Yeah, I landed on
pretty much every space where it's like, surprise you had
rous You're like, first of all, I can't be surprised.
(07:18):
Me and my wife did not plan for this. Yes,
I also had a wife. I was trying to get
outside of the heteronormative game play, so it was a
real surprise. It was a surprise. Yes, Uh, I'd be
interested to revisit it again, but I'm still mad about it,
so I don't know. I do get really I also
(07:40):
get really competitive, and I was not happy about the
whole thing. Perhaps in the future I did want to
talk about I I learned a couple of things when
I was researching this, because we're gonna be pretty brief
in our reviews, but I found that there's a game
from nineteen seventy one called Sexism, where the goal was
to get out of the dollhouse um and move into
the White House, and it was meant to be a
(08:02):
really humorous look at the women's liberation movement. You would
draw these personality cards that say things like go back
two steps. Because you're a woman, you just as well
get used to this, while a man might draw a
card that says, I stauntily defend motherhood God in country.
I'm against giving more money to a d C A
two dependent children for each child. I'm against abortions. I'm
(08:24):
against women earning as much as men. I'm against paying
taxes for free child care centers. Go ahead, three steps?
Um yeah. Yeah. The cards are really like cutting because
of how much they still are relevant but funny, and
you can find them online. It's hard to find a game,
but you can still find pictures of the cards. And
then on the opposite side of that. A couple of
(08:47):
years ago, Kristen the past host and creator of the
show and Now I'm Ladylike and I we made this
video at MOTA, which is this modern art museum in Atlanta,
and it was about women in gaming, and it had
this board game exhibit of sexist games, and there was
one that really stuck out to me. It was from
ninety six and it was called what Shall I Be?
(09:08):
The Exciting Game of Career Girls, and the goal of
the game was to be the first to become a
career girl. The careers in question we're teacher, ballet dancer, model, actress,
airline hostess, and nurse of course, of course, And you
would draw these heart shaped cards that might say something
(09:28):
like you are overweight, bad for airline hostess, ballet dance
and model. Wow, that's a real card. O theres said
things like you are pretty, you are emotional, you have
a nice smile, your makeup is too sloppy, you are
a slow thinker, which, by the way, was bad for
airline hostess and nurse and nobody else. I guess, um,
(09:49):
And you think you get too excited. You can find
some of the cars for this online as well, if
you want to be offended and laugh. There was a
second up they did addition, where you could be things
like surgeon, jockey, astronaut, news commentator, theater director, and lawyer.
I couldn't find any of the personality cards for that
(10:10):
one though, so I don't know if they were better.
And then there was a boy's addition. The professions open
to them were statesman, scientist, athlete, doctor, engineer, at astronauts,
so kind of different. Well, obviously only a man could
be a scientist, a doctor. Recent engineer or an astronaut.
I need to see their personality cards so badly, but
(10:30):
I could not find them anywhere. But I can't imagine
there's one that's like, you are overweight bad for Wow.
Can you imagine just the eating disorders that were created
from a game alone? I can't be this well, which
we always hear anyways, it was part of the media anyway.
I saw a tweet just recently about how apparently the
(10:51):
TikTok generation saying that they, you know, feel like social
media and all that has made them really self conscious
and having like body dysmorphia and someone's which to yo
were the millennials in the eighties. We all got out
eating disorders from TV. It's not anything new, And not
to say the pressure is not higher, but the less
level of acceptance of body image in this period of
(11:13):
time so different. I mean, in a game about careers
you could have that you're playing as a child, you
can't have this career if you're chubby, And those are
only your six options. So that's a third of your option,
that's your options out rude, Yes, But okay, let's talk
about some of our more personal experiences. And I'll start
(11:36):
because I also have an embarrassing memory of playing a
board game by myself. So when I was in middle school,
unbeknownst to me, my mom had invited some of the
popular girls over, like girls I would have never imagined
would be entering my house over, and they walked in
(11:58):
on me playing the board game Polly Pocket by myself.
How did your mother an who the popular kids were,
b had their number to invite them over. There's so
many questions. My mother would not go to this level,
so I'm very confused by this whole gesture. I was
really confused to my mom was like she volunteered a
(12:19):
lot at the elementary school. I'm not sure she knew
they were popular so much as she just knew their
moms and we were friends at one time. I was
I think until third grade, I was really good friends
with most of the popular girls. And then third grade
came and it was like weird to be friends with
a smart kid. Not that they weren't smart, but I
(12:39):
was like the one that was like the kid really
reading all the time and stuff like that. So they
walked in on me playing it. I in my head
I'd handled it really well, and I told them I
was trying to learn the rules before I played it
with somebody there. I'm not sure that they believed it,
and untill high school they would they would bring it up.
(13:04):
And it's especially ironic because the aim of this game
is to buy presents for your friends and stuff and
get invited to things. Yes, the game play is basically
it's really simple. You roll and move and you are
trying to get these invitations to a birthday party. There
are four possible invitations. Once you've got an invitation, you
(13:25):
had to go buy a gift delivered to the party,
and you get a balloon for your efforts. You'd attached
that to your car figuring, and then the first person
who gets all four balloons and gets home first wins.
There were four exclusive Pollypocket characters included. I'm pretty sure
that's why I wanted it. It was very pretty and colorful.
I don't think I ever played it with another soul,
(13:47):
which is again quite funny, but I mean the message
of that game is pretty much like be popular? Are you?
The commercials I do remember of Polypockets, you're supposed to
have collections of them. They come with different sets of
things I remember correctly, And it's always to have a party, right,
They always end up having a party at someone's whatever
pocket house it is, So I would guess the game
(14:10):
would be similar to that. And when I was researching this,
I did come across several games where it seems like
popularity was how you won you had really popular in
school or something. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. So one of my
favorite memories one of my favorite games growing up with
Mall Madness, which apparently still around and as in fact,
(14:31):
I think it was like the second or third edition
finally had a male picture included on the cover. So
typically it was all just these girls just looking really
happy talking about going shopping, and I really liked it.
I got my brother to play with me one time
because he loved the effect of putting the credit card
and it talks to you. You put it into the
(14:52):
little machine and it says charge it you bought the
blah blah blah. So the game is set up like
it is a two story mall and you go into
these different stores. I think it's a pretty popular game people.
Well back then, it was one of the few games
that I actually owned, because I didn't own a lot
of games. Typically I would go play all of these
(15:12):
really girly games with my friends. So this is one
that I actually did own. I did get play to
people to play with me, Like I said, I got
my brother to actually play with me once. But this
is also one of the games I played by myself
a lot. So there's that we're coming out in terms
of that real like, you know, what if you got
to play a game by yourself, why not? But there
(15:34):
are very like a lot of stores in here, and
I just wanted to name a few of the stores
that you could go to. It's pretty funny. It's like
I am the initials coughing drug store, cork it over
kitchen store, Made in the Shade sunglasses, which I was like, yeah,
two left feet shoes, suits me fine men's shop from
the fashion boutique. So like you could go on and
(15:56):
there's definitely a lot more stores in there. And the
whole objective of the game is you have to be
the first person to get all six items, and I
forgot this part. I just remember the machine honestly all
six items on their list and make it to their
respective parking spots, which is the or a final destination.
Apparently I don't know that might be a version of that,
(16:16):
and whoever gets to all of this done wins, And
I just remember, like, wow, this is such a very
capitalistic Yeah. Also, the idea of having a credit card
was such a novel um rich person idea that it
was hilarious. Also, you may have an exotic parrot as
one of your things to buy on the list, just
(16:37):
so you know. And this is one of those games.
That's where I take a hundred and fifty dollars now
if you have it in good shape. Yeah, of course,
like I said, there's still newer editions, but the old
school vintage. And I guess since it was in nineteen
nine nine, it's thirty years old. Yeah wow wow. So okay, uh,
(17:03):
there was already math involved with this credit card, so
you did have to have cash, so they gave you
a hundred and fifty at the beginning of it. You
do have a banker, which you will never be able.
You will never be the banker. So you have to
be able to pay off your credit card and you
have to go the ANTM and you do get declined.
We'll get declined. Oh no, yeah, Well that's I mean,
(17:23):
that's interesting because that I mean, a message from that
would be that women are kind of shopoholics, and this
is important INLD where we belong. They win is they
can buy these things yea clearance, typically on clearance, like
you have to. They love doing the little like throughout
they'll tell you if the store has a clearance, So
(17:43):
you're trying to get to that store to get your
object first. Oh yeah, okay. Also, that's a place called
aunt Chby's Pizza Aunt Chovies. I gotta look at pictures
of this, I really do. Um. Well, the next entry
on my list is quite short because apparently no one
knows about it but me. I have no idea, but
this Barbie Butterfly Princess. This might be the least popular
(18:09):
of many Barbie based board games because I couldn't find it,
and all these other board games were coming up, including
a nineteen sixty Queen of prom Barbie game, um, which
I'm really intrigued about now, where apparently to win you
have to have a steady boyfriend. Oh that's the game
throughout a lot of these games. Oh no, um, so no,
(18:31):
this this game was a game where the goal was
to collect three butterflies to win. There was this wand
spinner that when you spun it. It made the wings
of the butterflies flutter, and it came with four Barbie figures,
and you could also wear the butterflies rings. I know
it's kind of hard to visualize, but there are magnets
in the wand in the butterfly wings and you would
(18:54):
just put them in the garden, but you would pull
them out and they were rings. And that's why I
wanted it, I think because of the toys and the rings. Um,
so it seems like I just wanted tories. Again. I
don't think anyone in my life ever played that with me,
but I would just spin it and be like, oh,
pretty pretty. Yeah, So that's it for that one. I
guess it was teaching me, like if you still I
(19:18):
have both of these still, okay, Just as a reminder,
I feel like we need to find that game and
this game that I'm talking about, which is Girl Talk,
which is a series of games, and I think many
people will remember this actually was created by Catherine Rondo,
so it was created by a woman in the early nineties. However,
there are three specific renditions that I'm thinking of, and
(19:39):
I've played all three of them. These are the games
that I've never owned myself, but my friends had and
so especially one friend that I had that I would
spend pretty much the entire summer with her and then
like we would play these games. So the first edition was,
of course the Truth or Dare, which is the original
is exactly what you think it is. It is a
Truth or Dare. So it's all these things and the
(20:02):
commercial go check out this commercial because it's quite hilarious.
You have all of these girls sitting and talking about it,
but in between the clips of them taking turns doing things,
you have a guy stepping in and talking about these girls,
like once that's so and so doesn't kiss and tell?
And then she really, you know, that's part of the
truth about your first kiss. And then some of the
(20:24):
just like so is those not silly like other girls
just like this, and before she does whatever the dare is,
and then another one it's like so and so is sophisticated.
By the way, we're talking about middle school girls here,
by the way, So this is quite hilarious. So these
commercials are just even better because they're definitely got the
wonderful eighties here, do you know, the winds, the girls,
(20:46):
the bangs, everything, and uh so the whole point of
the game is you have to win all of these
random points from getting random cards by doing all of
these different things, and if you refuse to do something,
you have to put a ZiT sticker on your face.
So it's just literally a red dut sticker that you
put on your face to show that you refuse to
(21:08):
do it. And the person who wins, of course, so
you have to collect. At the beginning, you get a
top secret fortune card that you can't show anybody from
each of the categories, and according to one of the instructions,
you get an extra treat if you win. As a winner,
you get the chance to take a fantasy trip into
a future and reach a special girl talk future and
one of the uh one of them, it literally is
(21:32):
like a fortune cookie. This is one from the child category.
It says you will give birth to an identical twins
five days after your twenty third birthday, so that's one.
Um one of the other other marriage ones, you will
marry a man with the same initials as your favorite uncle.
Oh god, it is a very freaking specific. So it's
(21:53):
kind of like you're kind of like, wait, I wonder
and I really wish I to remember any of these
sportsnes and that I would have had to see if
any of these came to Of course, we've got that
twenty three year old thing and I'm like, you a liar.
You're a real big liar. And then you have the
dateline version, which this commercial is just as bad, and
(22:14):
it is stereotype of a stereotype of a stereotype. Essentially,
you have people, uh, I mean, we got a Brad
who apparently one of his likes maybe something along the
lines of doesn't like double dates but love soccer. Like
all of these random things. You also had the Nerd.
(22:34):
They were titled the Nerd, the Hunk, the jock, and
you had to pair them with the right people and
you would put like the two pictures of the people
and see if their match. It was hilarious. I also
have Secret Diary, and I'm not I can't quite remember
everything from Secret Diaries. I do remember. So you get
(22:55):
a book. Do you remember those friends Only book did
you ever have growing up? It's like Hello, Kitty, Friends
Forever book and friends Only book and it would be
like questions you're supposed to write. I have some I
need to find them as stickers in there. All of
these things and your questions about you write about your
own future, and then you write you ask your friends
to fill out pages. Well, it's similar to that you
(23:18):
have an entry in a journal in a book and
it tells you. So one example, Peter took me on
a bike ride to the pool. He was so embarrassed
when his chain fell off. I put it on for
him in only two minutes. But the question is, and
you have to answer this, is are you afraid of
showing up a guy? Yeah? Yeah, so it's kind of
(23:38):
like all of these super you're not supposed to be
that strong Girlly had to get a boyfriend type of conversation.
And I can't remember the objective of this game. I
just remember going through and writing all these confidential things
that made no sense to me obviously then, but I
just thought it was hilarious. Yeah. I'm trying to figure
(23:59):
out how you would win this one. I guess it
would be you get the dude in the end. The
detail for this game says the game of sharing secrets
and surprises. Yeah. I don't like that at all, you know,
like nervous as you should. I feel like these games
(24:19):
and I really would like to replay some of those
just for the memories and being so fascinated because also
these were all rich kid games to me, so as
a person who did not have these games a I
only had a brother. Again, I played by myself often.
These were not the games that I would get, and
they were really expensive, if I remember, I would say,
they like thirty bucks a pop and back then holy crap.
(24:41):
And I just I was like, oh, yeah, I want
to fin in be cool with my girls, and this
is what we would do trying to figure out who
likes us. And I remember going through these cards because oh,
you have to go through the calendar, that's what it is.
You have to collect all of these boys from each
calendar date or months, um and get all twelve I think.
And I remember we would go through these cards and
pick and choose who we would date and who we
(25:03):
wouldn't date, who was our type, and then make fun
of the other if we didn't like their choices. Obviously obviously,
but speaking of the boyfriend's thing that you were talking about,
just a kind of like honorable mentions of the game
Sweet Valley High, which I did find as well. It's
also worth a pretty good amount of money and it's
based on the book series. I don't know if you've
(25:25):
ever played it, but the whole objective of this game
is to find their three items. So you had to
get something from the locker, something that has something to
do with their personality, something else, get a chaperone, and
your correct boyfriend. And it's kind of like memory plus
teenage angst, Like you just have all these things. And
I just remember my mother would not let me read
(25:46):
Sweet Valley High when I was younger because it was
too risque. They had boyfriends and made out and skipped school.
Oh and yes, I played this one by myself, but
there's a chaperone. No, that's what I thought too, because
in The Babysitters Club, which is also a game, it
was like what would you do? Plus a truth or
(26:06):
dare You had to find your boyfriend and that one too,
I think. But they also had cards that you had
to answer questions off and you would roll the die
and it could be something else, them as what would
you do? So, pretend that you're trolling a baton while
leading a marching band, so you have to do that
to get this card. You have to answer specific questions
about the show or a book. So you have to know.
(26:30):
And there are like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books,
so you better be a die hard fan. And then
another one is this the kids your babysitting you want
to play Marching Band, but they don't have any instruments.
What do you give them to use? Oh, yeah, this
is how you play the game. I guess it's a
little better than the other ones where it's just find
your boyfriend and see if they'll date you. Yeah, this
(26:52):
is really interesting. I don't think I've ever played games
like that, so it's been interesting hearing about this. And
it is also, oh yeah, pretty not great message to
send two young girls on top of like all the
movies they're watching at that age a lot of times,
which is changing. But yeah, if it's like your goal
(27:13):
in life is to find the perfect match and then
you've won and that's it, and hope they don't reject you,
because they can reject you on the games, gosh, oh
my gosh, and then you'll be happily washing dishes in
the background while they play board games without you. A
little more competitive thought provoking about to say these aren't
(27:33):
thought provoking, because I mean questions about you know, while
your babysitting truck Fibers delivered twelve live chickens to the
front door. He won't take them back. What do you do? Well, now,
I'm going to be thinking about that all day. What
would I do wild chickens showed up at my house
whiles babysitting the twelve? Yeah, and I would be I
(27:54):
would have questions, why are they? That's a great question. Yeah.
I hope we can hut of these down and maybe
play them. I didn't want to shut out. I know
we didn't talk about it, but I've talked to my
mom before about the dating game. She played that as
a child, and I remember her telling me about it.
I think I was in high school or maybe college,
and I was looking at her like what I want
(28:19):
to say? My sister may have had a version of that,
because it seems so familiar that I feel like I
may have actually played that with my sister not knowing
what was happening. It was pretty popular, so highly likely
or at least somewhat likely likely. Yeah, well, listeners, if
(28:39):
we miss any games, this has really been a blast, Lane. Yes, yes,
we would love to talk about them. Please send those
any pictures or some games from your past. You can
email those two us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
I Hurt Me and dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at
Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our
(29:01):
super producer Christina. Thank you, Christina, and thanks to you
for listening. Stuff Onder Told the Prodection I Heart Radio
from More podcast from I Heart Radio, visit Dieart Radio, app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
I ever told you protection of I Heart Radio. So
today I don't think we should do you a question
because I got a lot of ground to cover. We're
gonna we're gonna get real, real into the weeds on
(00:28):
some memories that we've had growing up about board games,
specifically geared towards girls. Yes, and that's when we were
restarting and looking through everything. I am. I have a
lot of remorse of not having these games. Of course,
I had a little house fire when I was growing up,
so I lost a lot of my games. But I'm like, man,
these are worth some money. I really wish I had
(00:50):
these games. Yes, Yes, and shout out to the website
board Game Geeks, who is helpful for me and researching this.
But they had great pictures of some of these games,
but they didn't have one of the one of the
ones I'm going to talk about something like, I need
to I still have it. I need to go home,
take some good pictures, upload them. You know, we really
(01:10):
do need to be played. Just playing these all these
old games. I would love to. I would absolutely love
to shout out to Blair Erskin who actually did this
entire column about all of the board games and how
it was so bad at one point in time, and
it was it was kind of like, uh, can we
talk about these games and how awful these are for
(01:33):
girls in general? So shout out to our skins to
go back and remember all of those things, including all
the stereotypes. And we have talked about topics around this
a lot, like we talked briefly about Old Maid. I
don't think we ever did a full thing on it.
We've talked about stuff for Jetto which you can play online.
It's free, and I still think we should play Samantha,
I'm ready. We talked about the rebrand of Monopoly Mrs
(01:56):
Monopoly and how people hated it, whether or not that
was a good thing her And in the passing ten
episodes on women in board games and women in board
game design, so check those out if you're interested. I
did want to say I feel like, I know we
always say this, but I think we could do a
whole episode because researching this, I found the nine seven
(02:17):
cover of Battleship, the board game that depicts presumably a
father and some just having a grand old time playing
the game while in the background, you can see the
mother and daughter doing dishes, and they have these huge
smiles on their faces as if like they're watching the
(02:37):
father and son played the game, like oh look how
much fun they're having, right, of course, and it's battleship,
so obviously if it's about war or any of those things,
it's gonna be men. I I definitely have a picture
in my head too, of and I can't. I don't
know if there's life but the old school games, where
is this supposed to be the whole family for some reason?
Typically the mother is behind either the father or the
(02:59):
son with her hands on their shoulders or serving them popcorns,
like I'll remember this picture specifically, So it's supposed to
like give you the feeling that's a family game night.
But yet she's still kind of on the outskirts of
whether or not she plays a game. And I grew
up in a family that did not play games, so
a lot of my tales have me playing by myself.
(03:19):
Don't start with me. But also the fact that my
brother and I were very competitive and didn't get along
so well. We were very like Vickery, So my father
would threatened to throw away these games or burn the game.
So yeah, I got contentious. So family game that was
not a thing for us. So maybe that's why I
saw those pictures on likal. That's so nice. I wish
my mother would sit with me and make me popcorn.
(03:41):
I guess we loved our board games in our family,
but it reached a point where the dreaded video games
like overtook so we really only played as I got
older if the power went out, And that was one
of the reasons I actually really loved it when the
power went out as a kid. Yeah, like you get
those like candles out, you cook the over a fire,
and we would play board games and I really really
(04:02):
enjoyed it. You know what, I think I do have that.
So the big storm, it was it of ninety two,
the winter storm when our power went out. We all
had to be in my parents bedroom because it had
a fireplace so we can also enclose all of the
spaces and we would play card games. Yeah, that was
a good memory for me. Yeah, I mean that's one
(04:22):
thing kind of like what you were saying, Samantha, where
you know the competitiveness, and then in my case, when
we played board games with the entire family, we never
played my quote girly games never right, So we usually
played like Monopoly, which I never want, even though I
cheated multiple times. Are like guests who are are cheetah Monopoly.
(04:47):
That's the whole different story. But bank okay, I got you,
know I got you. Now I know this. We will
not you will never be the banker in this in
any of the case, which, by the wait, So we
actually played life because you know, I had been reminiscing
about the old school game and the traditions of what
(05:07):
that game was. It's very heteronormative in every sense. And
I remember, of course with any game, I think you
have your own traditions, uh, and you make up you're
kind of your own things. And then when I played
I've talked about this before, my sister would make us
name the husband, oh yeah, or the or this or
the wife, and of course it was again very heteronormative
(05:28):
ideas I have named the kids and then all of
these other things. So I was kind of trying to
embarrass you into telling them your crush or whatever whatnot.
As well as this game is nonsensical in itself, the
whole you get twins, you don't get twins. You get
money for this, you get a heritage, maybe you go
to college. Maybe you don't like all those things. But
you and I played, and you got really mad about this.
(05:51):
But because of these bad things that happened to you
in life quote quote unquote yes, yes, So Samantha and
I tried to We decided to revisit it because we
were both curious. We played it as children, and we
were curious if it was really sexist, like we remembered
it was heteronormative, but we wanted to know, like is
(06:13):
it super sexist and we're just not remembering that. But
we played an updated version where you can get pets,
and so you can, you can, I can, but you
have to yes. And I was infuriated that I had
no choice but to get a pet, and not only
that I had so many children, none of which I wanted,
(06:35):
by the way, that I had to buy a second card.
I had like I had cars, carloads of children and
a pet that I had to pay for, none of
which were wanted, other that I had a choice in.
And I'm still I'm getting mad about it, as we
may are. I love it. I think one of the
best parts that I gain was you have that route.
(06:56):
Do you want to start a family? Do you want
to just advance in your career here? And you were
like in the family, absolutely not, and you ended up
having like eight kids, Like congrats. Yeah, I landed on
pretty much every space where it's like, surprise you had
rous You're like, first of all, I can't be surprised.
(07:18):
Me and my wife did not plan for this. Yes,
I also had a wife. I was trying to get
outside of the heteronormative game play, so it was a
real surprise. It was a surprise. Yes, Uh, I'd be
interested to revisit it again, but I'm still mad about it,
so I don't know. I do get really I also
(07:40):
get really competitive, and I was not happy about the
whole thing. Perhaps in the future I did want to
talk about I I learned a couple of things when
I was researching this, because we're gonna be pretty brief
in our reviews, but I found that there's a game
from nineteen seventy one called Sexism, where the goal was
to get out of the dollhouse um and move into
the White House, and it was meant to be a
(08:02):
really humorous look at the women's liberation movement. You would
draw these personality cards that say things like go back
two steps. Because you're a woman, you just as well
get used to this, while a man might draw a
card that says, I stauntily defend motherhood God in country.
I'm against giving more money to a d C A
two dependent children for each child. I'm against abortions. I'm
(08:24):
against women earning as much as men. I'm against paying
taxes for free child care centers. Go ahead, three steps?
Um yeah. Yeah. The cards are really like cutting because
of how much they still are relevant but funny, and
you can find them online. It's hard to find a game,
but you can still find pictures of the cards. And
then on the opposite side of that. A couple of
(08:47):
years ago, Kristen the past host and creator of the
show and Now I'm Ladylike and I we made this
video at MOTA, which is this modern art museum in Atlanta,
and it was about women in gaming, and it had
this board game exhibit of sexist games, and there was
one that really stuck out to me. It was from
ninety six and it was called what Shall I Be?
(09:08):
The Exciting Game of Career Girls, and the goal of
the game was to be the first to become a
career girl. The careers in question we're teacher, ballet dancer, model, actress,
airline hostess, and nurse of course, of course, And you
would draw these heart shaped cards that might say something
(09:28):
like you are overweight, bad for airline hostess, ballet dance
and model. Wow, that's a real card. O theres said
things like you are pretty, you are emotional, you have
a nice smile, your makeup is too sloppy, you are
a slow thinker, which, by the way, was bad for
airline hostess and nurse and nobody else. I guess, um,
(09:49):
And you think you get too excited. You can find
some of the cars for this online as well, if
you want to be offended and laugh. There was a
second up they did addition, where you could be things
like surgeon, jockey, astronaut, news commentator, theater director, and lawyer.
I couldn't find any of the personality cards for that
(10:10):
one though, so I don't know if they were better.
And then there was a boy's addition. The professions open
to them were statesman, scientist, athlete, doctor, engineer, at astronauts,
so kind of different. Well, obviously only a man could
be a scientist, a doctor. Recent engineer or an astronaut.
I need to see their personality cards so badly, but
(10:30):
I could not find them anywhere. But I can't imagine
there's one that's like, you are overweight bad for Wow.
Can you imagine just the eating disorders that were created
from a game alone? I can't be this well, which
we always hear anyways, it was part of the media anyway.
I saw a tweet just recently about how apparently the
(10:51):
TikTok generation saying that they, you know, feel like social
media and all that has made them really self conscious
and having like body dysmorphia and someone's which to yo
were the millennials in the eighties. We all got out
eating disorders from TV. It's not anything new, And not
to say the pressure is not higher, but the less
level of acceptance of body image in this period of
(11:13):
time so different. I mean, in a game about careers
you could have that you're playing as a child, you
can't have this career if you're chubby, And those are
only your six options. So that's a third of your option,
that's your options out rude, Yes, But okay, let's talk
about some of our more personal experiences. And I'll start
(11:36):
because I also have an embarrassing memory of playing a
board game by myself. So when I was in middle school,
unbeknownst to me, my mom had invited some of the
popular girls over, like girls I would have never imagined
would be entering my house over, and they walked in
(11:58):
on me playing the board game Polly Pocket by myself.
How did your mother an who the popular kids were,
b had their number to invite them over. There's so
many questions. My mother would not go to this level,
so I'm very confused by this whole gesture. I was
really confused to my mom was like she volunteered a
(12:19):
lot at the elementary school. I'm not sure she knew
they were popular so much as she just knew their
moms and we were friends at one time. I was
I think until third grade, I was really good friends
with most of the popular girls. And then third grade
came and it was like weird to be friends with
a smart kid. Not that they weren't smart, but I
(12:39):
was like the one that was like the kid really
reading all the time and stuff like that. So they
walked in on me playing it. I in my head
I'd handled it really well, and I told them I
was trying to learn the rules before I played it
with somebody there. I'm not sure that they believed it,
and untill high school they would they would bring it up.
(13:04):
And it's especially ironic because the aim of this game
is to buy presents for your friends and stuff and
get invited to things. Yes, the game play is basically
it's really simple. You roll and move and you are
trying to get these invitations to a birthday party. There
are four possible invitations. Once you've got an invitation, you
(13:25):
had to go buy a gift delivered to the party,
and you get a balloon for your efforts. You'd attached
that to your car figuring, and then the first person
who gets all four balloons and gets home first wins.
There were four exclusive Pollypocket characters included. I'm pretty sure
that's why I wanted it. It was very pretty and colorful.
I don't think I ever played it with another soul,
(13:47):
which is again quite funny, but I mean the message
of that game is pretty much like be popular? Are you?
The commercials I do remember of Polypockets, you're supposed to
have collections of them. They come with different sets of
things I remember correctly, And it's always to have a party, right,
They always end up having a party at someone's whatever
pocket house it is, So I would guess the game
(14:10):
would be similar to that. And when I was researching this,
I did come across several games where it seems like
popularity was how you won you had really popular in
school or something. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. So one of my
favorite memories one of my favorite games growing up with
Mall Madness, which apparently still around and as in fact,
(14:31):
I think it was like the second or third edition
finally had a male picture included on the cover. So
typically it was all just these girls just looking really
happy talking about going shopping, and I really liked it.
I got my brother to play with me one time
because he loved the effect of putting the credit card
and it talks to you. You put it into the
(14:52):
little machine and it says charge it you bought the
blah blah blah. So the game is set up like
it is a two story mall and you go into
these different stores. I think it's a pretty popular game people.
Well back then, it was one of the few games
that I actually owned, because I didn't own a lot
of games. Typically I would go play all of these
(15:12):
really girly games with my friends. So this is one
that I actually did own. I did get play to
people to play with me, Like I said, I got
my brother to actually play with me once. But this
is also one of the games I played by myself
a lot. So there's that we're coming out in terms
of that real like, you know, what if you got
to play a game by yourself, why not? But there
(15:34):
are very like a lot of stores in here, and
I just wanted to name a few of the stores
that you could go to. It's pretty funny. It's like
I am the initials coughing drug store, cork it over
kitchen store, Made in the Shade sunglasses, which I was like, yeah,
two left feet shoes, suits me fine men's shop from
the fashion boutique. So like you could go on and
(15:56):
there's definitely a lot more stores in there. And the
whole objective of the game is you have to be
the first person to get all six items, and I
forgot this part. I just remember the machine honestly all
six items on their list and make it to their
respective parking spots, which is the or a final destination.
Apparently I don't know that might be a version of that,
(16:16):
and whoever gets to all of this done wins, And
I just remember, like, wow, this is such a very
capitalistic Yeah. Also, the idea of having a credit card
was such a novel um rich person idea that it
was hilarious. Also, you may have an exotic parrot as
one of your things to buy on the list, just
(16:37):
so you know. And this is one of those games.
That's where I take a hundred and fifty dollars now
if you have it in good shape. Yeah, of course,
like I said, there's still newer editions, but the old
school vintage. And I guess since it was in nineteen
nine nine, it's thirty years old. Yeah wow wow. So okay, uh,
(17:03):
there was already math involved with this credit card, so
you did have to have cash, so they gave you
a hundred and fifty at the beginning of it. You
do have a banker, which you will never be able.
You will never be the banker. So you have to
be able to pay off your credit card and you
have to go the ANTM and you do get declined.
We'll get declined. Oh no, yeah, Well that's I mean,
(17:23):
that's interesting because that I mean, a message from that
would be that women are kind of shopoholics, and this
is important INLD where we belong. They win is they
can buy these things yea clearance, typically on clearance, like
you have to. They love doing the little like throughout
they'll tell you if the store has a clearance, So
(17:43):
you're trying to get to that store to get your
object first. Oh yeah, okay. Also, that's a place called
aunt Chby's Pizza Aunt Chovies. I gotta look at pictures
of this, I really do. Um. Well, the next entry
on my list is quite short because apparently no one
knows about it but me. I have no idea, but
this Barbie Butterfly Princess. This might be the least popular
(18:09):
of many Barbie based board games because I couldn't find it,
and all these other board games were coming up, including
a nineteen sixty Queen of prom Barbie game, um, which
I'm really intrigued about now, where apparently to win you
have to have a steady boyfriend. Oh that's the game
throughout a lot of these games. Oh no, um, so no,
(18:31):
this this game was a game where the goal was
to collect three butterflies to win. There was this wand
spinner that when you spun it. It made the wings
of the butterflies flutter, and it came with four Barbie figures,
and you could also wear the butterflies rings. I know
it's kind of hard to visualize, but there are magnets
in the wand in the butterfly wings and you would
(18:54):
just put them in the garden, but you would pull
them out and they were rings. And that's why I
wanted it, I think because of the toys and the rings. Um,
so it seems like I just wanted tories. Again. I
don't think anyone in my life ever played that with me,
but I would just spin it and be like, oh,
pretty pretty. Yeah, So that's it for that one. I
guess it was teaching me, like if you still I
(19:18):
have both of these still, okay, Just as a reminder,
I feel like we need to find that game and
this game that I'm talking about, which is Girl Talk,
which is a series of games, and I think many
people will remember this actually was created by Catherine Rondo,
so it was created by a woman in the early nineties. However,
there are three specific renditions that I'm thinking of, and
(19:39):
I've played all three of them. These are the games
that I've never owned myself, but my friends had and
so especially one friend that I had that I would
spend pretty much the entire summer with her and then
like we would play these games. So the first edition was,
of course the Truth or Dare, which is the original
is exactly what you think it is. It is a
Truth or Dare. So it's all these things and the
(20:02):
commercial go check out this commercial because it's quite hilarious.
You have all of these girls sitting and talking about it,
but in between the clips of them taking turns doing things,
you have a guy stepping in and talking about these girls,
like once that's so and so doesn't kiss and tell?
And then she really, you know, that's part of the
truth about your first kiss. And then some of the
(20:24):
just like so is those not silly like other girls
just like this, and before she does whatever the dare is,
and then another one it's like so and so is sophisticated.
By the way, we're talking about middle school girls here,
by the way, So this is quite hilarious. So these
commercials are just even better because they're definitely got the
wonderful eighties here, do you know, the winds, the girls,
(20:46):
the bangs, everything, and uh so the whole point of
the game is you have to win all of these
random points from getting random cards by doing all of
these different things, and if you refuse to do something,
you have to put a ZiT sticker on your face.
So it's just literally a red dut sticker that you
put on your face to show that you refuse to
(21:08):
do it. And the person who wins, of course, so
you have to collect. At the beginning, you get a
top secret fortune card that you can't show anybody from
each of the categories, and according to one of the instructions,
you get an extra treat if you win. As a winner,
you get the chance to take a fantasy trip into
a future and reach a special girl talk future and
one of the uh one of them, it literally is
(21:32):
like a fortune cookie. This is one from the child category.
It says you will give birth to an identical twins
five days after your twenty third birthday, so that's one.
Um one of the other other marriage ones, you will
marry a man with the same initials as your favorite uncle.
Oh god, it is a very freaking specific. So it's
(21:53):
kind of like you're kind of like, wait, I wonder
and I really wish I to remember any of these
sportsnes and that I would have had to see if
any of these came to Of course, we've got that
twenty three year old thing and I'm like, you a liar.
You're a real big liar. And then you have the
dateline version, which this commercial is just as bad, and
(22:14):
it is stereotype of a stereotype of a stereotype. Essentially,
you have people, uh, I mean, we got a Brad
who apparently one of his likes maybe something along the
lines of doesn't like double dates but love soccer. Like
all of these random things. You also had the Nerd.
(22:34):
They were titled the Nerd, the Hunk, the jock, and
you had to pair them with the right people and
you would put like the two pictures of the people
and see if their match. It was hilarious. I also
have Secret Diary, and I'm not I can't quite remember
everything from Secret Diaries. I do remember. So you get
(22:55):
a book. Do you remember those friends Only book did
you ever have growing up? It's like Hello, Kitty, Friends
Forever book and friends Only book and it would be
like questions you're supposed to write. I have some I
need to find them as stickers in there. All of
these things and your questions about you write about your
own future, and then you write you ask your friends
to fill out pages. Well, it's similar to that you
(23:18):
have an entry in a journal in a book and
it tells you. So one example, Peter took me on
a bike ride to the pool. He was so embarrassed
when his chain fell off. I put it on for
him in only two minutes. But the question is, and
you have to answer this, is are you afraid of
showing up a guy? Yeah? Yeah, so it's kind of
(23:38):
like all of these super you're not supposed to be
that strong Girlly had to get a boyfriend type of conversation.
And I can't remember the objective of this game. I
just remember going through and writing all these confidential things
that made no sense to me obviously then, but I
just thought it was hilarious. Yeah. I'm trying to figure
(23:59):
out how you would win this one. I guess it
would be you get the dude in the end. The
detail for this game says the game of sharing secrets
and surprises. Yeah. I don't like that at all, you know,
like nervous as you should. I feel like these games
(24:19):
and I really would like to replay some of those
just for the memories and being so fascinated because also
these were all rich kid games to me, so as
a person who did not have these games a I
only had a brother. Again, I played by myself often.
These were not the games that I would get, and
they were really expensive, if I remember, I would say,
they like thirty bucks a pop and back then holy crap.
(24:41):
And I just I was like, oh, yeah, I want
to fin in be cool with my girls, and this
is what we would do trying to figure out who
likes us. And I remember going through these cards because oh,
you have to go through the calendar, that's what it is.
You have to collect all of these boys from each
calendar date or months, um and get all twelve I think.
And I remember we would go through these cards and
pick and choose who we would date and who we
(25:03):
wouldn't date, who was our type, and then make fun
of the other if we didn't like their choices. Obviously obviously,
but speaking of the boyfriend's thing that you were talking about,
just a kind of like honorable mentions of the game
Sweet Valley High, which I did find as well. It's
also worth a pretty good amount of money and it's
based on the book series. I don't know if you've
(25:25):
ever played it, but the whole objective of this game
is to find their three items. So you had to
get something from the locker, something that has something to
do with their personality, something else, get a chaperone, and
your correct boyfriend. And it's kind of like memory plus
teenage angst, Like you just have all these things. And
I just remember my mother would not let me read
(25:46):
Sweet Valley High when I was younger because it was
too risque. They had boyfriends and made out and skipped school.
Oh and yes, I played this one by myself, but
there's a chaperone. No, that's what I thought too, because
in The Babysitters Club, which is also a game, it
was like what would you do? Plus a truth or
(26:06):
dare You had to find your boyfriend and that one too,
I think. But they also had cards that you had
to answer questions off and you would roll the die
and it could be something else, them as what would
you do? So, pretend that you're trolling a baton while
leading a marching band, so you have to do that
to get this card. You have to answer specific questions
about the show or a book. So you have to know.
(26:30):
And there are like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books,
so you better be a die hard fan. And then
another one is this the kids your babysitting you want
to play Marching Band, but they don't have any instruments.
What do you give them to use? Oh, yeah, this
is how you play the game. I guess it's a
little better than the other ones where it's just find
your boyfriend and see if they'll date you. Yeah, this
(26:52):
is really interesting. I don't think I've ever played games
like that, so it's been interesting hearing about this. And
it is also, oh yeah, pretty not great message to
send two young girls on top of like all the
movies they're watching at that age a lot of times,
which is changing. But yeah, if it's like your goal
(27:13):
in life is to find the perfect match and then
you've won and that's it, and hope they don't reject you,
because they can reject you on the games, gosh, oh
my gosh, and then you'll be happily washing dishes in
the background while they play board games without you. A
little more competitive thought provoking about to say these aren't
(27:33):
thought provoking, because I mean questions about you know, while
your babysitting truck Fibers delivered twelve live chickens to the
front door. He won't take them back. What do you do? Well, now,
I'm going to be thinking about that all day. What
would I do wild chickens showed up at my house
whiles babysitting the twelve? Yeah, and I would be I
(27:54):
would have questions, why are they? That's a great question. Yeah.
I hope we can hut of these down and maybe
play them. I didn't want to shut out. I know
we didn't talk about it, but I've talked to my
mom before about the dating game. She played that as
a child, and I remember her telling me about it.
I think I was in high school or maybe college,
and I was looking at her like what I want
(28:19):
to say? My sister may have had a version of that,
because it seems so familiar that I feel like I
may have actually played that with my sister not knowing
what was happening. It was pretty popular, so highly likely
or at least somewhat likely likely. Yeah, well, listeners, if
(28:39):
we miss any games, this has really been a blast, Lane. Yes, yes,
we would love to talk about them. Please send those
any pictures or some games from your past. You can
email those two us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
I Hurt Me and dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at
Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our
(29:01):
super producer Christina. Thank you, Christina, and thanks to you
for listening. Stuff Onder Told the Prodection I Heart Radio
from More podcast from I Heart Radio, visit Dieart Radio, app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
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