I'm a fan of puzzle games, a la the Myst franchise. I tried to download Portal but it won't play on my XPS 1330 so I have to figure that one out. That has a female "hero" -- does it count as 'feminist' or just a bitchin' game?

It's just bitchin'. There's really no emphasis made on your character being female whatsoever. In fact your identity at all is not really a point of plot or gameplay, and it's rare that you even have an opportunity to see that you are female as the player, given that it's first-person.

Great game, though. Definitely worth a look.

this person is an academic? She reinforces my perception that academia is overrun by man hating people of both sexes when crap like this statement is taken seriously.

There's a kind of [male] techno culture that goes along with this stuff. For example, when I was working in the game industry in the '90s, a company down the road allowed guys to have porn hanging in their offices.

From this above statement, it hits on many major hot button issues, many of which are demonstrably false. "male techno culture" implies that this is a men's club, one which is unjoinable, unattainable or unconquerable by women. Also, it implies that the very nature of computer gaming is somehow rooted in the male gender and that the two go hand in hand.

So, it would surprise nobody, I suppose, if women read the above paragraph ready to rip guys' heads off.

Yet the reality is that small one and two person shops throughout the US are constantly creating new, fresh games that are then picked up by the big conglomerates. To take this further, those games can be distributed through alternate channels, be it direct download from a website, by teaming with unorthodox but female friendly enterprises such as magazines or retailers, through the educational system, or any of myriad distribution channels available in this UTTERLY PANCAKE FLAT MARKET whose sole criteria is that the game being produced has qualities that people WANT.

The reality is that Lawrence Summers was more right than you people want to believe. All he asked was WHY women and girls did not want to become involved in science and computers. You cannot go blaming men, boys, and society for not making games that girls like. [NEWS FLASH: Boys are NOT girls.]

you can, however, blame girls and women for sitting on their money, not engaging their talents, and not bothering to become programmers that WOULD create a generation of games that women and girls COULD applaud.

It is execrable to read MAN HATING junk such as that girls are bullied into playing boys games when the girls and women are sitting on their hands rather than being active creators of their reality.

Time traveling with your teacher to meet famous role models? If you make games that sound like lame Sesame Street episodes and ones that are blatantly designed to teach you "self-confidence", and tout them as "girl games" as opposed to those silly neanderthal "boy games", is it any wonder that women in the gaming world aren't taken seriously when you're basically insisting that they should be treated like little children with fragile egos?

Ask yourself this question: why don't guys feel offended and insecure at the preponderance of bare-chested, muscle-bound heroes? Certainly none of the male gamers I know bear any resemblance to Kratos or the dudes from Gears of War. What if girls approached games in the same way - instead of looking at the big-breasted female warriors in chainmail bikinis as some unfair demand on them to measure up or something offensive to their dignity, they could maybe learn to distinguish between fact and fiction and knowingly revel in being able to inhabit something so ridiculously and awesomely unrealistic?

The proportion of girl gamers has been drastically increasing in recent years, both in regards to inventive non-traditional games like Katamari and the Guitar Hero series, and believe it or not, the traditional "boys games" that Flanagan is so disparaging towards. But having oversensitive professors who clearly have a detached and limited view of the gaming world create lame, childish-sounding games with ham-fisted socio-political agendas and pronounce them as "girl games" is a step backward. Nobody wants to play games that preach at them.

Have you ever worked as a woman in the technology sector? I didn't mind staying up until 4am troubleshooting code, but the "good ol' boy" environment was exhausting.

Luckily it's changing, but the time line has been sluggish.

I'm seconding the "how's the gameplay?" comment. Having a game that plays like an encyclopedia isn't going to get your message out very well. And while Lara might be the iconic female video game character, she isn't the only one. Off the top of my head:

• Samus Aran (Metroid)

• Alyx Vance (Half-Life 2)

• April Ryan (The Longest Journey)

• Zoe Castillo (Dreamfall)

• Jade (Beyond Good & Evil)

• Dr Tenenbaum (Bioshock)

Yes, yes, there exist non-Laras who might as well be her, but if you're trying to advance feminism with a game clearly created for the purpose, well, good luck.

create lame, childish-sounding games with ham-fisted socio-political agendas and pronounce them as "girl games" is a step backward.

Given the choice, most women would rather relax with Rock Band or Resident Evil, unless maybe the politically motivated game in question allowed me to slay zombie clinic protesters. :)

.... they typically suck. Or books. Look at Ayn Rand. Look at "Lions for Lambs". The political overtones makes them unreadable (unwatchable). Meanwhile, if you have a good story, or a good thought process, you can really push buttons. See "million dollar baby" as a feminist movie that is clearly more complex than just a movie about feminism.

Video games, especially the best "movie-like" games, connect you to your characters in ways that have subtle effects on your viewpoints and emotions. Games like "dreamfall" do an excellent job of pushing feminist characters and going beyond a "feminist-centered" plot.

Portal not only has a female lead characters, but one of its lead developers is female: Kim Swift. Her talk at IGS 2007 is available on Google video. No "-ism"ing, no "women rock", just a lecture on turning a kick-ass senior project into a kick-ass game. And, I hope, a kick-ass sequel.