It seems that Hasbro has moved on since stealing the idea of Monopoly from a woman (who, ironically, originally conceived it to be anti-capitalist) and have brought out a new version of their ever-expanding franchise called Ms. Monopoly. Ms. Monopoly has many of the standard things you’d expect from Monopoly; chance cards, community chest, jail and a bank you wish was stocked with real money. The twist though is that instead of property, players get a chance to invest in well-known products invented by women, from wifi to chocolate chip cookies. The real kicker that’s got Twitter all worked up? Women get paid more than men. While men still get $200 for passing go women players now get $240! Turns out men don’t like the pay gap so much when it affects them, who would have thought it?
To top it off, Hasbro announced this new game with a video featuring 3 young female inventors working on projects including detecting safe drinking water and sinkholes and shows Hasbro investing in their projects. I didn’t cry. Nope, not at all.
As usual with these corporate attempts at feminism, there is a dose of reality here. Hasbro wants to make money and has recently been tapping into issues such as socialism to sell more games and this could easily be read as a cynical attempt to exploit the pay gap to line their own products but, if you ask me, drawing attention to the issue is important in almost any form. Plus, many people have no idea how many things they use every day were invented by women and this game will demonstrate just how many female inventors have been overlooked. Besides, anything that pisses off men on Twitter this much is fine by me!
