VIDEO GAME SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR WOMEN

Alicia Crawford (left) is the winner of the latest Gamers In Real Life  (G.I.R.L.) Scholarship from Sony Online Entertainment and Scholarship America, but G.I.R.L. isn’t the only game in town when it comes to scholarships for women looking to enter the video game industry. The Vancouver Film School is currently holding its fourth annual Women In Games Scholarship. 

The scholarship is held partly in conjunction with the Game Design Expo, now in its sixth year, where that years details and other scholarship information is given. According to the VFS website , “Inaugurated in 2009, the Women in Games scholarship is a full-tuition scholarship for one female game designer and aims to increase the profile of, and opportunities for, women in the game industry. Previous winners include Shannon Lee , Annie Dickerson , and Larissa Baptista .”

“Once again I am proud to be a part of our annual Women in Games Scholarship. Our past winners have gone on to do amazing things in the game industry once they graduated, and we expect more great things from our most recent winners,” said Head of Game Design at VFS,Dave Warfield. “Supporting the growth of women in games is something that I feel strongly about; it benefits the industry to gain new perspectives, creativity, and passion that is reflective of how gaming has changed and expanded in the past five years.”

The Game Design program at the VFS lasts one year and the scholarship, hailed as the first of its kind, is for a full tuition worth up to $49,000. Their application  says it, “mimics the game development and production environment, so that our graduates are as prepared as possible to begin their careers in this rapidly growing and exciting industry.”

“In a field traditionally dominated by men, the scholarship is a great opportunity and incentive for women looking to pursue a career in game design,” they write, also promoting past students’ achievements. “Previous recipients of the scholarship include designers who’ve gone on to work at developers like Microsoft’s BigPark studio (Kinect Joy Ride) and Digido Interactive (MotionMaze). Graduates of the program have worked on titles such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dead Rising 2, Prototype 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.”

Sound like something you’d be interested in? Fill out the application now .

(via Gamasutra )

Inspired By GIrls Make Media

Whilst reading Girls Make Media (Kearney, 2006) I became intrigued by the free web-authoring programs. One such program is Angelfire. Although I have not created a website yet I was absolutely fascinated by the idea of creating a "rough" web page. I have found that much of Kearney's findings seem to be true within myself. I have never been interested in HTML or creating source pages; however, possibly through this site I can learn to build a page to represent a cause (or even just for fun!).


http://angelfire.lycos.com

Anderson Cooper asks "Are Girls Growing Up Too Fast?"

In Monday's episode of Anderson talks to two pageant moms about the effect these pageants have on their daughters. One of the pageant mothers, Wendy Dickey, thinks nothing of dressing her three-year-old daughter in a "Pretty Woman" type outfit. Later in the episode one mother discusses finding racy panties in a store targeted towards young girls. It would appear that the pageant mothers and society are trying to make children (even at the age of three) much older and sexualized than they need to be. It's interesting considering how women are supposed to be seen as younger through plastic surgery or products that imply being young (Maybelline's Baby Lips Lip Balm). 

The website includes clips from the episode, one girl's story of her positive pageant experience and discusses the book Cinderella Ate My Daughter. In the book Peggy Orenstein discusses how self-image affects young girls and what steps parents can take to help their daughters. 

  

http://www.andersoncooper.com/episodes/are-little-girls-growing-up-too-fast/

Dr. Phil on "girl toys" for boys

I stumbled across this article:

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/02/09/Dr_Phil_No_Girls_Toys_for_Boys/

It reminded me a little bit of the article we read for this week's course content:

http://spotlight.macfound.org/blog/entry/gifts-for-girls-activities-encouraging-stem-dont-need-to-be-pink/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+macfound%2FiQaL+Spotlight+on+Digital+Media+and+Learning#When:16:23:00Z

The Advocate article discusses how Dr. Phil told a parent on his show to not be alarmed by her son's interest in barbies and girl's clothing and to not be worried that this meant tha her son was gay. He furthermore encouraged her to expose her son to more boy's toys. It seemed to me that this article was opposing the STEM article we read, which encouraged nuetral gender toy options, as well as alternatives to stereotypical "girl toys." I also thought it was interesting that Dr. Phil told the woman not to be worried that this was a precursor to her son being gay, as if this was something she could be worried about. This article shows how media via television can expose an audience to gender-stereotping ideas and therefore proliferate negative gender conotations.