The Difference Between Sims and Humans

Our society's need for organizing things often takes precedent over what might actually be more efficient to fill the gaps in what it needs. It is easier to file people under the two categories- on a form there is only so much space for boxes to check. You are male or you are female. You are straight or you are gay. You are mother or you are father. But, in truth, humans are way too complicated for every single one of us to fit into these boxes. The ideals that are being held on to only perpetuate institutional sexism and, especially in developing countries, holds us back. Children, and therefore our future, are heavily affected by the idea of mothering to be inherently female. Nancy Chodorow wrote in The Reproduction of Mothering "equal parenting would leave people of both genders with the positive capacities each has, but without the destructive extremes these currently tend toward".Clearly, the mold that exists for our definition of family is not working. Chodorow was on to something back in the 70's and it's still a progressive idea now.

On holidays or family gatherings, it is often my job to entertain my 9 year old cousin. Every time, without fail, she wants to play The Sims, a very popular life simulation game for those who don't know. Since she could click a mouse, when she comes over she plays the sims. Every time she begins a new game and creates her household. And every time, every single time, she creates the same family- varying only in names, hair color, and clothing. She creates a woman, a man, a male child and a female child.They are always white and thin. All of them will either be brunette with brown eyes or all of them will be blonde with blue eyes. Upon finishing her household and starting to play the game, she employs the man as either a politician or businessman, and she does not employ the woman but instead improves her cooking and painting skills at home. She has both of the children excel in school, and on the weekends the male child dabbles in creating potions and the female child dabbles in baking on her easy bake oven. Not only is this an extremely boring method of playing, it is quite shocking to me, considering that she is Chinese, adopted by my single aunt. Every week they meet with other single mothers with adopted daughters.  So why does she create the same family over and over again? How far in her head has this model been drilled? The game itself does a fairly good job at not perpetuating norms aside from the gender binary- your sims don't have any concept of gender or race when interacting with others or in the workplace, they can have literally whatever skin color you please- even green, and even beyond death they are playable. 

The virtual world her family of sims reside in might not be struggling with gender constructions, but ours definitely is. Your sim may not have any kind of relationship with their children and they'll turn out fine. Humans are not as simple. Child psychology is a very complex and ever changing field of study. We can't know how these constructions of what a mother is and isn't are affecting us as we don't really have an example of someone growing up without them. Even in a household that might differ from the norm, kids see it everywhere on TV. It would take a multitude of generations of change for these barriers to be broken- as Chodorow wrote: "this outcome is historically possible, but far from inevitable". It will take an active effort to reverse the negative affects of this ideology.