The P-Mate:

the female urinal or the she-pee…

an innovative travel – tool, for all those awkward moments.

Feminizing the Mobile: Gender Scripting of Mobiles in North America, in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies Vol. 21, Issue 2 (2007), Mobile Phone Cultures, edited by Gerard Goggin.This paper discusses the gendering of the design and marketing of mobile phones, using the concept of the gender script (Rommes, 2002; van Oost, 2003. It first provides a brief overview of recent international scholarship exploring gendered uses and development of mobiles. The next section explicates the gender script and examines some print ads for mobile phones appearing in North American women’s and teen magazines. How can we go beyond gender scripts that essentialize women and their uses of mobiles? The paper concludes with reflections towards this end.

Brenda Laurel’s Utopian Entrepreneur , published by MIT Press, details the rise and fall of Purple Moon, the girls software company created in the mid 1990s to counter the male shoot-em-up-car-racing-alien splatter hegemony of the boys videogame and software industry. Its creation was a brilliant move by Laurel and her colleagues, fuelled by some heavy capital from the likes of Interval Research, one of Paul Allen’s investment toys, and a fairly sizable market research agenda led by Cheskin Research. Purple Moon’s software deviated from stereotypes of Barbie, pink ponies, and insipid dating games, and featured Rockett Movado, new girl at Whistling Pines Junior High, who through a series of mishaps and great adventures, made new friends (a true multicultural cast including Miko, a Japanese-American, and Stephanie, an African-American) amidst the familiar environments of bedrooms, school corridors, and bathrooms.See the rest of the review by moi in David Silver’s Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies.

There’s a veritable plethora of scholarly research on gender and gaming. Some of this research is highlighted below, but this is by no means an exhaustive look at what’s being researched and debated in various academic fora – conferences, books, journals…

Suzanne De Castell and Mary Bryson. (1999). Re-Tooling Play: Dystopia, Dysphoria and Difference from From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Girls and Computer Play edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins III and published by MIT Press.

Laura Fantone. (2003). Final Fantasies: Virtual Women’s Bodies. FeministTheory 4(1): 51-72.

M. Hamilton and B. Hokanson. (1999). Gender and Software: Rhetoric and the computer Culture Exemplified by ‘Barbie Fashion Designer’. Professional Communication Conference.

Justine Cassell. (2002). Genderizing HCI. The Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. See her list of publications here .

Jo Bryce and Jason Rutter Killing Like a Girl: Gendered Gaming and Girl Gamers’ Visibility. cgfc_proceedings

Melissa Chaika. (2000?) Ethical Considerations in Gender-Oriented Entertainment Technology. Crossroads.

Game Research

Games, Gamers and Gaming Culture. A fabulous blog…

Women’s Game Conference 2004 in Austin, Texas

Lady Gamers.com

WomenGamers.com

Girl Gamers Webring.

Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis on Beyond Locative Media
Mobile Digital Commons Network info on locative media
Leonardo On-lLine, Vol 14(3)(2006), Locative Media Special

Games and Culture journal
Digital Games Research Association (DIGRA)
Game Studies Journal

Mobilities Journal
Centre for Mobilities Research (Lancaster)

In Maja Mkula’s article on Lara Croft, ‘The Political Valency of Lara Croft’, she asks how we can read her. While there are many contested readings about Lara, there are also a plethora of official and unofficial websites heralding Lara, from the official Eidos gamesite, to the movie sites of the same (featuring Angelina Jolie) to various other fan sites and the infamous nude patch…

Tomb Raider site

The Croft Times

Being Lara Croft in Pop Matters

Wikipedia on Tomb Raider

See Lyle Tuttle’s site…

Sir Winston Churchill’s mother had a snake tattoo circling her wrist….

A Brief History of Tattoos…

Erin Anderssen, Rated Rx: It’s a decade since the advent of the blue pill that, alongside Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress, announced a new sexual era. Critics say the drug makers profit by pushing a shortcut to ‘normalcy’ that narrows our view of human nature. Happy users say, ‘So?’ Globe and Mail, March 21, 2008.

And from Globe and Mail, Best of the Canadian Viagra Ads…

From The Men Who Knit blog

Culture.ca – Stitch’n'Bitch- An Internet Phemomenon

Stitch ‘n’ bitch: it’s a cutesy term for those who like to get together to craft and kvetch. Much like the reclamation of the word “queer” by the gay community, the term stitch ‘n’ bitch is a declaration by hipsters with domestic skills from knitting to crocheting to sewing and restyling clothing. They want you to know it’s not just granny’s work anymore.

The Church of Craft

Etsy- a place to buy handmade goods…

YouTube links:

Here is one to have a baby

http://youtube.com/watch?v=L4ASRkFVYK0
 Man on Man Action
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G5ITdEayWM8

Fun in the spa...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=I-3uG0xzYbk