申論題

Passage 1
       Ms. Monopoly is putting a fresh spin on an old game.
       The new version of Monopoly aims to empower women. It also wants to change business as usual — specifically, with the gender pay gap. Women, despite doing equal work, consistently make less money than men in workplaces. The game makes this clear from the start with a clever rule change.
       The company Hasbro, which makes Monopoly, said the game celebrates female leaders. It says it is the first version "where women make more than men," officials shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
       The new game went on sale in September at major national stores for a suggested price of $19.99. It also includes several modern updates, such as rideshares instead of railroads and Wi-Fi instead of waterworks.
       Jen Boswinkel is senior director of global brand strategy and marketing for Hasbro Gaming. She said the game is designed for today's kids and highlights a subject they may not know about yet.
       "With all of the things surrounding female empowerment, it felt right to bring this to Monopoly in a fresh new way," Boswinkel said. "It's giving the topic some relevancy to everyone playing it that everybody gets a turn, and this time women get an advantage at the start."
       The debate over equal pay starts before shuffling the cards, choosing a token and rolling the dice.
       The banker doles out $1,900 in Monopoly Money to each female player and $1,500 to each male. The gap continues every time a player passes Go, with women collecting $240 and men $200.
       In the classic game, you can invest in real estate properties. With Ms. Monopoly, players invest in inventions and innovations created by women. These include chocolate chip cookies, bulletproof vests, solar heating and ladies' modern shapewear clothing.
       "We made sure that this felt authentic and was a fun game families could play and learn about these things that they love and are a part of their life that they didn't know were invented by women," Boswinkel said.

 

Passage 2
       Since the 1930s, kids have been playing with little green Army men. Those iconic figurines were made out of plastic and posed into various combat positions. They were made famous by "Toy Story." Come Christmas of next year, the platoon of little green army men will be expanded to include little green army women. This is thanks in part to a 6-year-old girl.
       Vivian Lord recently wrote to BMC Toys. It is one of the last remaining manufacturers of the figurines. She asked why the company does not make "girl army men."
       Jeff Imel is the owner of BMC Toys. This wasn't the first time he had received a query about introducing female troops. In 2018, he was contacted by JoAnn Ortloff. She is a retired fleet master chief. She was hoping to buy female toy soldiers for her granddaughters and "and made a compelling case for why Plastic Army Women should be produced," Imel writes in a blog post. He also notes that he had already been thinking about introducing women to the little green army. However, he had struggled to come up with the necessary funds.
       But after receiving Vivian's letter — and the suite of media requests that followed it — Imel decided that the time was finally right for little green Army women to make their debut. He has prepared a budget that will allow for at least four different poses in a pack of about 24 figurines. He has already commissioned a sculpture for the set's first pose: a female soldier, kitted out in combat gear and clutching a gun and a pair of binoculars.
       Speaking to NPR, Ortloff explains that she thinks it is important that female toy soldiers exist to reflect the increasing integration of women into combat roles within the U.S. military. "It's time that we have some equal representation in our toy soldiers to pass down," Ortloff says.