Ms. Monopoly

Submission 20,805

Part of a series on Monopoly. [View Related Entries]

About

Ms. Monopoly is an edition of board game Monopoly inspired by prominent women inventors and created by the toy company Hasbro. In the game, players invest in inventions and innovations made by women such as solar heating, bulletproof vests and chocolate chip cookies. The game rules enforce a monetary gap between female and male players, with the former receiving more money at the start of the game and every time they pass Go.

History

On September9th, 2019, toy company Hasbro announced Ms. Monopoly, a variation of Monopoly board game featuring several differences in gameplay and aesthetic.^[1] Instead of investing in real estate, all players can invest in notable inventions made by women such as bulletproof vests, chocolate chip cookies and ladies' shapewear.^[2]

At the start of the game, banker distributes $1,900 in Monopoly money to each female player and $1,500 to male players. Additionally, each time a female player passes go, they must collect $240 contrary to standard $200 collected by male players.

The game also features other differences such as new game tokens which include a white hat, a watch, a barbell, a glass and a jet plane.

Reception

Following the announcement, users on Twitter, Reddit and other platforms criticized the game for virtue signaling and misrepresenting the issue of the wage gap. For example, a tweet by user @michellemalkin, posted on September 10th, 2019, gained over 180 retweets and 700 likes in one day (shown below, left).^[3] A tweet by user @LeeAnn_Hartford in which they accused the game of being sexist received 140 retweets and 1,300 likes in one day (shown below, right).^[4] In multiple posts the fact that Monopoly was created by Elizabeth Magie as The Landlord's Game, whose idea was later copied and sold by Charles Darrow under a differend name and who wasn't given credit in the Ms. Monopoly editon, was brought up.

On Reddit, multiple memes pocking fun at the game and its mechanics were posted (examples shown below).^[5]

In the following days, multiple news outlets reported on the game and the related controversies, including articles by CNN^[6] and The Washington Post.^[7]

Online Presence

Viral Ad

On May 8th, 2020, Twitter user @baraGodzilla^[8] reposted the commercial for Ms. Monopoly, writing, "im losing my mind. there is no way you're going to be able to predict what this ad is trying to sell you. finally, now more than ever, women can buy our product," gaining over 49,000 retweets and 190,000 likes.

The tweet brought Ms. Monopoly to the internet's attention again, and inspired a new string of jokes and criticisms about the game. Twitter user @lalaulalo^[9] wrote, "Ms Monopoly is such a pitch-perfect storm of soulless 'girlboss' corporate feminism that i have a hard time being convinced it's not performance art" (shown below, left). User @jayhawk618^[10] joked, "Ms. Monopoly claims to be 'self made' but she got her start up capital from her uncle, The Monopoly Guy," gaining over 2,200 retweets and 16,000 likes (shown below, right). The jokes were covered by Junkee^[11] and Mashable.^[12]