Poll: Is the ratio of women in the industry really a sign of sexism?

[Zeke63]

probelmatic poll in how options are two extemes. More women are vital but 50 50 is why i think so many no

 

[The_Echo]

Sexism in ANY industry does not come from the number of x-gender employees, but whether that gender is being mistreated or simply not hired on the grounds of their gender.

The real reason there aren't as many women in the industry? Well, probably that video games in general are more popular among men, and I'm sure that within the minority of women gamers, there's a minority of them that would want to be/are in the industry.

Forced equality is no equality at all.

Also this.

I think some companies actually have quotas to fill for minority employees. That just... that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I don't know. I'm pretty sure there's not institutionalised sexism when hiring people, but there are doubtless more males applying. I think this part is just different interests. However, whether gaming culture as a whole is daunting to more females than males and that leads to less female participation, I don't know. There is definitely some sexism, but I don't think it's direct enough to be a deterrent. Most of what we see is ungraceful trailers, unrealistic breast physics and stripper outfits as armour, and none of that is attacking the female viewer or player and none of which, I don't think, would turn someone away from gaming altogether who has the passion such that they want to pursue a career in it.

 

[infinity_turtles]

My general response to general "Sexism in the Gaming Industry" thing is look at indie devs. I think indie developers are good way to check for a disparity in interest in game design. How many female indie devs can you name? As is, I'll take claims of sexist business practices from anyone who isn't a female developer in the industry with a grain of salt.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

There was a twitter hashtag recently called 1reasonwhy and that was pretty much jam packed with female devs saying how shitty they had been treated.

http://kotaku.com/5963528/heres-a-devastating-account-of-the-crap-women-in-the-games-business-have-to-deal-with-in-2012

So I'd say yeah it is.

As for Sony.

It would have been nice to see more of a female presence both on the stage and on the screen. I'm sure they could have found someone to do it (lets face it the guys weren't exactly enrapturing). Even if it was just a gesture of recognition to female gamers.

It would have been nice to see a female protagonist too not counting the old Square demo we had all seen.

I'm not saying they had to have an equal amount. Just one or two would have been nice. It just came across as a complete sausage fest.

My general response to general "Sexism in the Gaming Industry" thing is look at indie devs. I think indie developers are good way to check for a disparity in interest in game design. How many female indie devs can you name? As is, I'll take claims of sexist business practices from anyone who isn't a female developer in the industry with a grain of salt.

There are plenty actually. I follow a few on twitter.

 

[Auron]

Do people really pay any attention or give validity to kotaku articles anymore?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Do people really pay any attention or give validity to kotaku articles anymore?

Pretty sure the tag was reported elsewhere/ exists dude.

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2012/11/one-reason-why-theres-so-few-women-games-and-another-and-another
http://www.themarysue.com/1-reason-why-women-in-games/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2012/11/29/1reasonwhy-you-should-be-worried-about-gender-equality-in-the-game-industry/

and on and on.

Some people are actually setting up mentorships from it also.

I don't know why people get there knickers in such a twist denying it. It's not like someone is calling you sexist personally.

Jim Sterling also wrote about some of the tweets.

"I had to make my own game in order to see someone like me as a main character," explained Mattie Brice, also adding, "Men write about sexism and get praise, and I silenced and degraded for writing the same thing a week, month, year before."

Ashly Burch revealed, "I am confronted with rape or violence in the comments section of Hey Ash videos," while writer Rhianna Pratchett offered, "Creating appropriately dressed female characters is viewed as a rarity, rather than the norm."

"Men like me are badasses, so cool and hilarious. I'm a disrespectful loud-mouthed *****," said former Destructoid writer Leigh Alexander, while Rowan Cota wrote, "If I succeed, I'm exceptional. And if I fail, I'm proof that women shouldn't be in the industry."

The #1ReasonWhy list is well worth reading through, especially if you're a guy like me who has, for a long time, been clueless about the extent of the shit women deal with in gaming (and still has way too much to learn). Of course, some assholes have come into the conversation with predictable venom, but most of the topic has been host to eye-opening, if somewhat depressing, stuff.

It's not just women, either. Rock, Paper, Shotgun writer John Walker revealed he gets threats and abuse every time he addresses these issues, "And *I* have a penis."

 

[infinity_turtles]

Huh, shows what I know.(Very little obviously, and never let me tell you otherwise.)

There are plenty actually. I follow a few on twitter.

Made a bit of a mistake with the terminology I used. I actually meant one person studios/garage developers. If you know of any of those though, I'd love links.

(I figure someone will try and call me on "moving the goalposts", but that's honestly what comes to mind when I think of the term indie dev, even though it's totally wrong.)

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Huh, shows what I know.(Very little obviously, and never let me tell you otherwise.)

There are plenty actually. I follow a few on twitter.

Made a bit of a mistake with the terminology I used. I actually meant one person studios/garage developers. If you know of any of those though, I'd love links.

(I figure someone will try and call me on "moving the goalposts", but that's honestly what comes to mind when I think of the term indie dev, even though it's totally wrong.)

http://thetiniestshark.com Is one run by a woman who has programmed since she was twelve. Kim Marx is one I know of that I follow on twitter. Sophie Houlden, Rebecca Fernandez, Deirdra Kiai, Nat Marco, all of whom have made games solo.

You did kind of move the goalposts. But I assure you there are plenty of women making games.

At least there is talk of mentorships now. Role models will help women get into programming. I think a lot of people forget that when computer games started out women weren't exactly encouraged to work in the sciences. This probably lent itself to a skewed industry to start with.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Huh, shows what I know.(Very little obviously, and never let me tell you otherwise.)

There are plenty actually. I follow a few on twitter.

Made a bit of a mistake with the terminology I used. I actually meant one person studios/garage developers. If you know of any of those though, I'd love links.

(I figure someone will try and call me on "moving the goalposts", but that's honestly what comes to mind when I think of the term indie dev, even though it's totally wrong.)

http://thetiniestshark.com Is one run by a woman who has programmed since she was twelve. Kim Marx is one I know of that I follow on twitter. Sophie Houlden, Rebecca Fernandez, Deirdra Kiai, Nat Marco, all of whom have made games solo.

You did kind of move the goalposts. But I assure you there are plenty of women making games.

At least there is talk of mentorships now. Role models will help women get into programming. I think a lot of people forget that when computer games started out women weren't exactly encouraged to work in the sciences. This probably lent itself to a skewed industry to start with.

Thanks for name drops(I was already aware of Mitu). I'll be checking them out(or trying to anyway. Google's given me nothing on the first name). Didn't mean to move the goal-posts, just used the wrong term.

Anyway I know there are plenty of women making games, but the ridiculously small degree of them that I've seen that are solo developers or even amateur team leads... Well, if there's a hostile culture in the games industry, I'd expect to see a lot more doing that. And I do try and keep an eye on solo devs, so the fact that I can name more women in the industry off the top of my head then solo devs... Well, I'd expect the opposite if there's a big problem.

 

[Frybird]

Again, why put a "female business major" on the stage if you can have the actual BOSS of the company?

The point being that sexist business practices are why is boss of the company is (almost) never a woman.

Also, again, I'm not particularly mad at Sony. I am merely explaining to those who don't "get it" why other people are upset.

When you work hard to refute my logic as to why other people are upset, you are missing the point - this is what they believe, so attacking me does nothing. If you want to remain ignorant of why other people are upset about this, then fine, go stick your head in the sand.

You can say you think they're wrong to be mad. Fine. But at least try to understand their side of the argument.

I think it's hilarious to call me ignorant while picking out some select sentences from me while not at all replying to what i am actually trying to make clear here, as it well underlines my problem with the whole debate.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I think it's hilarious to call me ignorant while picking out some select sentences from me while not at all replying to what i am actually trying to make clear here, as it well underlines my problem with the whole debate.

And you appear to be willfully missing my point (and their point), so same to you.

I didn't quote what else you said because A) it wasn't what I was addressing and B) it's hollow and pointless. I don't care enough to address the rest of what you had to say because it would be a waste of my time.

You making the argument here is a waste of your time. If you want to, take it up with the people actually protesting this. I'm not doing so, so arguing about it with me is like arguing with someone who read in a newspaper about Occupy Wallstreet that the Occupy movement is bad. Lovely. I'm not part of it, so why are you arguing with me about it?

If you don't believe that sexism in the workplace at almost all major companies has kept women from reaching the top positions, then fine. I won't waste my time. Enjoy your patriarchy.

 

[mitchell271]

Women being less prominent in the industry isn't sexism, there's just less women interested in the positions. As much as we hate to admit it, traditional gender roles are still very much alive and well. Many women are told to repress their "nerdy side" (I have friends that do that) because it's not "lady like" or because she'd alienate her friends. For example, one of my friends is pretty nerdy, but her boyfriend didn't even find out about it until after they had been dating for 6 months! I know it's not representative of all women, but society isn't exactly helping.

I really don't think any employer with their head screwed on will care about someone's gender when hiring them for a tech related job. It should be the same for everyone. Sit down, and just "Show me what you've got."

 

[Alandoril]

Women being less prominent in the industry isn't sexism, there's just less women interested in the positions. As much as we hate to admit it, traditional gender roles are still very much alive and well. Many women are told to repress their "nerdy side" (I have friends that do that) because it's not "lady like" or because she'd alienate her friends. For example, one of my friends is pretty nerdy, but her boyfriend didn't even find out about it until after they had been dating for 6 months! I know it's not representative of all women, but society isn't exactly helping.

I really don't think any employer with their head screwed on will care about someone's gender when hiring them for a tech related job. It should be the same for everyone. Sit down, and just "Show me what you've got."

Except it isn't that way for men or women applying for any job in an industry that even has a whiff of the creative about it.

It's more like "have an unrealistic amount of experience that you couldn't possibly have unless you've either worked for free for years or already have had similar jobs (which again you couldn't get without pre-established experience) and then maybe you will get a chance to show me what you've got...unless I give the job to someone I already know."

 

[Zen Toombs]

So at the Sony Playstation4 showing there was an uproar in hate email after words, over the fact that there were no women presenters...

--SNIP--

Am I the only one who thinks this nonsense is getting out of hand? The fact that none of the high-ladder people were female is entirely the result of sexism. In an Industry that consists of GLOBALLY 39,000 people, there is a STATISTICALLY POSSIBLE outcome that doesn't equal 50/50. But no, it's sexism.

--SNIP--

What say you Escapist.

Allow me to get this straight... the instigating problem was Sony not having ANY women involved, but then you go on to talk as if people wanted the developer demographics to directly mirror the population?

That's just silly.

Noone should FORCE there to be equal numbers of women and men, and demographically equal numbers of every single minority. That'd be silly. But there should still be women and minorities involved in these programs, and if there aren't any then it IS evidence of sexism/racism.[footnote]assuming that the gender/race is significantly involved with playing games - this is the case with women, but I don't have stats for other minorities.[/footnote] It may not be Sony's fault that the industry is sexist, but as a member of that community it is vital that they do what they can to fix these imbalances.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I hate all that Sony conference shit. All of the people presenting were either very senior developers or CEO's, and frankly there is barely any women in those roles in the industry because women just aren't drawn to game development and publishing as much as men. If Sony had just gotten some token woman like the god-awful presenter at Ubisoft's E3 conference they would have seemed out of place and there would still be controversy. The whole thing is trying to make a big thing about nothing.

OT: Like many have said, a 50/50 split actually means more sexism since a well-qualified man with good experience wouldn't get a job because he's a man and they need more women. There is nothing like that in the industry now, and if there is women have got so many things they can do about it. Sure, it may be social conditioning but that goes both ways and has been around for so long trying to fix it instead of you know, just going against it, is pointless. If it's so hard to get religious homophobes to allow gay marriage, then it would be even harder to abolish all social conditioning. I'm sure most of us agree that forcing that change with female job quotas is a terrible way of fixing it.

 

[Trishbot]

I don't know the answer to this.

I do know that I am a girl who likes games, who likes games with strong female characters, and even likes games by talented female game developers.

So... I would very much like more of that, please.

Same here, though I am surprised about the reaction to no female presenters. I honestly didn't notice, nor do I find it a big deal. Unless there's any tangible evidence that women are deliberately being turned away from a job over men, then there isn't anything to be concerned of.

But I do think we should have more female developers. I'd go for it myself, but you need to learn how to make games, then do some work experience making games, then apply for a job at a place to make games, which would mean I'd have to move countries and pay thousands for another degree. So maybe other women then.

Well, I'm trying.

And I will be fair where fair is due... there WERE lead female developers, even Sony-exclusive ones, that were bringing up the fact they were not asked to be part of the PS4 presentation. That doesn't necessarily mean Sony is "anti-girl" though; just that, well, they didn't think to ask them (and many of them showed up anyway to hear the other guys speak about it instead).