Code Liberation Foundation Working to Fix Sexism in Games

[Stavros Dimou]

Does it matter who invented what ?

Well, yes.
Saying that she invented the first computer is like saying the ancient Greeks built the pyramids. It's just historically wrong.

It might be that I am a foreigner,but it boggles my mind that most of the time when one individual does something,there seems to be a group of individuals in the U.S. that only share a single characteristic with that special individual,and they make such a big deal about it,like somehow they deserve special treatment because another individual did something.

It might be because you're a a foreigner, but I honestly do not understand what you're trying to tell me there.

I mean we are humans,no matter if woman or man,white or black,heterosexual or homosexual,religious or atheist.
Why when a certain person that is something and does something,there have to be others that feel entitled to deserve special treatment too,even though they themselves didn't do a thing ? :/
It's like there is always some kind of arbitrary rivalry between people because of trivial differences they have from each other.

Same as above.

Look, that picture stated that Ada Lovelace was "The inventor of the computer", which is just plain wrong. She was the first programmer, which is not the same thing.
I just pointed that out.

I wasn't referring in particular to that post,but more generally.
It's just that when someone does something and has characteristic 'A',all other people are going to feel proud for sharing the same 'A' characteristic even though they didn't did themselves something to be proud of.
It just seems strange to me that a person might feel proud not because of something he or she did,but because someone else did something,and he or she shares an attribute that is completely unrelated and trivial to the thing the one person accomplished. I often get that from people in other countries too,so its nothing exclusive. But it seems that in the U.S. it's more pronounced.
The concept of the logic "oh person X is L and did A,so because I am L too I feel great too" is what seems to me being strange. It's like everyone puts himself or herself in a stereotype.

 

[Piorn]

This is all great but I disagree with the article when it says video games have an "image problem". Video games are more accepted than ever before in the mainstream and women are more represented than ever before. There is still not gender equality, but video games do not have an image problem.

I think it's more of a meta-image problem. Companies and market research specialists haven't realized they can sell games to other people than teenage boys. Even M-Rated horror games get bent into shape to suit the teenage boy demographic, just look at Dead Space 3.
By changing the demographic of game devs and marketers, you can also change the mindset of these people.

 

[Gorrath]

Well I'll be. It's a breath of fresh air seeing everyone react so positively to this. And I will too! This is a fantastic way to fix the perceived sexism (I say perceive because I'm avoiding trying to say whether it is actually a problem or not) problems in character design and themes this industry has.

No it won't, it might help a little bit, but think on the fact that many "weak" female characters are created by female writers (Twilight protagonist, all those romance novel characters that want a strong macho man) and a lot of "strong" female characters are created by men (Game of Thrones is written by a manly man with a big beard and still manages to have exceptional (female) characters). Gaming needs better writers, whether they are male or female doesn't matter jack.

I also don't see how getting more women involved in programming should fix any "problem" with art design and storytelling, considering the strict separation between departments in modern gaming corporations. A programmer might never even meet an art designer let alone the art director who makes the design decisions.

Indeed, there seems to be this constant underlying assumption that representation of different sexes and genders is based on how men feel about things when in truth it is how a great majority of society feels. Simply getting more women into programming will not help with representation issues if those women subscribe to the same skewed representations that many men do. I am all for having more women in game development at all levels, but the assumption that gender representation issues will vanish because of that is a poor assumption.

People don't seem to realize that women and men both like traditional gender roles and tend to push those roles on their children. Getting people into creative direction positions who understand what's wrong with gender representation and can actively do something about it is what's needed, regardless of what gender that person might be.

As for the article, I cannot speak for parts of the industry that I don't know, but having studied computer sciences at University, those classes were perfectly "safe" places to learn and having moved on to the corporate side I have not seen anyone treat our female IT members any differently than our male ones. This is not evidence that it doesn't happen of course, but it makes me hesitant to accept the idea that the field isn't a "safe place" for women. I'm also a bit befuddled at the drop in representation by percentage since the 80s. We're far more accepting of women in what some might consider "non-traditional" roles than we were back then, and yet the number has dropped steeply. If we were perfectly happy to have female programmers back then, is it being suggested that we've become more intolerant to the idea now? That seems backwards given the changes in the rest of society. I think this issue needs to be looked at harder and less assumptions made.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Well, I'll give them a lot of credit for having the idea of "we think there's sexism in the gaming industry, so let's get more women into the gaming industry in an effort to change it", as opposed to "let's scream and yell and stomp our feet and make the gaming industry change because we demand it".

"She displayed numerous misogynistic ads, one of which read, "Don't feel bad, our servers won't go down on you either.""

I don't care if it makes me sexist or misogynist, I laughed my ass off at this.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

Time to count down how long until this goes out of hand.

 

[The Lunatic]

Uhh... Isn't it sexism to offer free education exclusively to a group of people based on their gender?

I mean.. I get it, but, surely just offering it to anyone who supports the idea with a 50/50 quota would be a less discriminatory way of doing it, right?

Also, the issue is, more often that not, women just aren't applying to these jobs or courses.

You have to teach people, you can't refuse to teach male students because there aren't enough female students. I'm sure efforts are made to get women into these courses, on the university course I've been on, a fair amount of effort was made to get a 50/50 split, but, unfortunately, it's not an area which has a lot of interest for women of that age.


Not to say there aren't exceptions, and I hope they get the education they need to join the industry.

Hopefully, this inspires women to get into this line of work, but, I would seriously advise against joining an education program which is untested and is only interested in educating you because you're a woman.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

"a decline in women programmers since"

That's FEMALE programmers. Women is not an adjective, it's a plural noun.

Overall this is kind of... Well I'm not entirely sure I see how this actually addresses the problem. It's an image issue created by media, coding classes are already equally available to men and women. Giving additional options to something that's already available will probably help in the short term, but I don't see how it addresses to root of the problem.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

That image a has at least one big fault.
Ada Lovelace did not invent the computer. I had to look it up, because I leaned something different during my studies.
Turns out I was right.
She was the first programmer, which frankly is quite a different thing.
The computer as we know it was essentially invented by Alan Turing.

Depends on what you consider invented. When Alan Turing invented the Turing Machine he considered it a completely theoretic notion. It was other engineers who took his idea and turned it into a computer. From what I've found online it looks like Charles Babbage was the person who invented the first computer, Ada Lovelace worked pretty closely with him on the project though

 

[Hagi]

I must admit, I'm slightly torn on things like this.

I mean overall I get it, it's a great thing that there's initiatives to help people achieve great things where they would otherwise be discouraged by societal pressures. I respect and support that.

At the same time I can't help but escape this nagging feeling that this all strikes me as rather patronizing nonetheless. To apparently need a separate safe place, isolated from things like advertisements, to learn...

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm just glad to see that there are groups working towards such a solid solution to this problem. All too often we hear about the problem, but finally we see one of these groups working towards a solution and not just reminding us that there's a problem.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

He invented it, others built it. (IMO)
Considering that all our computers are essentially universal deterministic Turing machines, I'd say he invented the computer while others built on his work.

If I had to decide it I'd say that he invented computer science while other people invented computers. It's not really a clear cut thing though, which is why I said it depends on what you mean by invented

Yeah, that struck me as slightly weird as well. I'm a female software developer. Whilst it would be lovely to be able to see that as some sort of giant achievement for me (Overcoming barriers! Breaking glass ceilings! Showing the men how it's done! Grrrr! Etc.) actually... I experienced no barriers on my way here.

Step 1: Became interested in computers as a child.
Step 2: Studied sciences at school.
Step 3: Studied engineering at university.
Step 4: Got a job as a software developer.

But I live in the UK. Maybe it's different in the US?

I think that the biggest barrier is towards developing interest in the first place. Society, family, friends, etc have a big influence on people's interests, and if most of those pushing you away you're more likely to never follow through on that interest. Meanwhile video games are considered something that guys just do, so you'll get plenty opportunity to get into it whether you try to or not. I wouldn't be surprised if video games had a pretty big influence on the gender distribution in programming, particularly considering that it's even more accentuated in the video game industry.

In that sense I think that things like this are good ideas. They're not so much about giving women an educational advantage as much as trying to give more opportunities to get interested in computer science

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Uhh... Isn't it sexism to offer free education exclusively to a group of people based on their gender?

Scholarships on the basis of a specific gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. are perfectly fine, just so long as none of those specific criteria are "straight", "white", or "male", then you're probably gonna be in for some hate mail.

 

[thewatergamer]

While I'm all for more women programmers in the industry, I don't like the way that the article is written, it seems to suggest that right now their is no way a woman can become a programmer and this is a huge problem in the industry, I'm sorry its not, if a woman wants to enter university and become a computer programmer do you think she has more problems getting in then a man does? Also, I don't like the idea of an organization that teaches computer programming to ONLY allow women into it, that to me screams sexism, go ahead and make your little organization thats fine good for you, but be more careful how you word things and don't shut out men from your organization, because if I hear that you are turning down men from entering your organization and being taught just because "they're men and have tons of other places to go" I'm sorry, but I'll be a little pissed, since thats doing exactly what you claim to be against.

Don't take this the wrong way, I am happy that this is happening and good more women programmers that's great more programmers! but don't overblow it as a HUGE problem,

also can I point out that increasingly more and more women are entering university and less and less men are entering university? Where are the projects demanding more men to be allowed to enter university?

I may be a little torn on this, on one hand I'm glad that this is happening since this means more computer programmers and possibly gamers, but on the flip side, I don't like the attitude of the article and its wording...

 

[MetalMagpie]

Yeah, that struck me as slightly weird as well. I'm a female software developer. Whilst it would be lovely to be able to see that as some sort of giant achievement for me (Overcoming barriers! Breaking glass ceilings! Showing the men how it's done! Grrrr! Etc.) actually... I experienced no barriers on my way here.

Step 1: Became interested in computers as a child.
Step 2: Studied sciences at school.
Step 3: Studied engineering at university.
Step 4: Got a job as a software developer.

But I live in the UK. Maybe it's different in the US?

I think that the biggest barrier is towards developing interest in the first place. Society, family, friends, etc have a big influence on people's interests, and if most of those pushing you away you're more likely to never follow through on that interest. Meanwhile video games are considered something that guys just do, so you'll get plenty opportunity to get into it whether you try to or not. I wouldn't be surprised if video games had a pretty big influence on the gender distribution in programming, particularly considering that it's even more accentuated in the video game industry.

I guess the problem is that I can only speak for my own experience. My parents have never told me (or my siblings) that some things are "girl things" and some things are "boy things", and neither did any of my teachers. I only became aware that liking computers was meant to be a "boy thing" when I was into my teens (and already building websites in my spare time).

It's perhaps an interesting question as to whether it's necessarily much of a problem if fewer girls are interested in computers. It's really sad if a girl who loves technology feels like she can't get a job in that area because "that's a boy thing and I won't be allowed". But there's less to be sad about in the idea of a girl who might have developed an interest under different circumstances, but has ended up being interested in other (equally rewarding) things instead. My younger sister has never been into computers. Instead, she followed her passion for creativity into the world of advertising, where she has a far more exciting job than I do!

I wouldn't say that girls who don't become programmers are necessarily missing out on a huge amount. I love what I do and I've had the immense good fortune to get a job at a really great company (one that tries not to work its programmers to death). But many programming jobs (especially in the video games industry) involve high stress and long hours for not especially generous pay.

Maybe the best way to encourage more women into programming would simply be to pay programmers more and offer them better working conditions! When my father started out in law, female lawyers were a tiny minority. By the time he retired, they made up about 50%. On average, women do better at school and university than men do. So it's perhaps not surprising that they choose to go where the money is.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

No it won't, it might help a little bit, but think on the fact that many "weak" female characters are created by female writers (Twilight protagonist, all those romance novel characters that want a strong macho man) and a lot of "strong" female characters are created by men (Game of Thrones is written by a manly man with a big beard and still manages to have exceptional (female) characters). Gaming needs better writers, whether they are male or female doesn't matter jack.

I also don't see how getting more women involved in programming should fix any "problem" with art design and storytelling, considering the strict separation between departments in modern gaming corporations. A programmer might never even meet an art designer let alone the art director who makes the design decisions.

A more diverse industry is an improvement in my eyes. So, having a wider range of perspectives seems just what the doctor ordered. That's not to say that certain women don't write horrible stories. They certainly do, like the one you mentioned. I'm also not saying men can't create some really amazing female characters. I do ,however, wholeheartedly believe the industry lacks certain view points and is much weaker for it. So any program that's trying spice that up, has my support.

 

[Dogstile]

I'm kind of surprised from this article.
Was "a special place that is safe and women can learn programming" even necessary ?
I mean... Don't universities just accept women ? And aren't they considered 'safe' places for people to be ?
It's weird... I personally know more women who have some knowledge of programming than men.
But most of them I know don't end up working on that,one is a saleswoman and another is working at a restaurant.
Once I asked the saleswoman why don't she try to make a small program or indie game and try her luck on that,and well she initially clammed up.In the end she seemed to be satisfied with her current job and thought that it didn't worth to spend her free time trying to do something related with building a software.
I'm all for women too learning how to make games,and start making them,it's just that I had the assumption that programming classes were already available for any woman that wants to participate and learn to code.

Yup, my programming classes had women in it. Aside from getting made fun of when the code was wrong (Its almost as if you're trying to code in gibberish!") they were treated like people. Most programming classes have problems with the better coders being assholes to fucking everyone though. Its kind of why I got out of programming and into Data and Sysadmin work. I think the main issue with women not wanting to get into it is because women are seen as trendy in popular media, whereas men are dirty, smelly and do the horrible jobs.

Meanwhile in the female coal miners movement allot of crickets gathered. I always have to laugh when we need a safe place for anyone to learn something. Sure there is nothing that rubs me the wrong way here, it's a nice sentiment but it just makes me laugh reading that one sentence every time.

"A safe place" because real life is always safe. Not to mention the MANY professions women have absolutely 0% interest in alleviating sexism in like miners, oil rig workers, garbage disposal, mechanical repair, lumber jacking, sewage maintenance, farming, the list literally goes on. No the men can keep those jobs.

Which is, of course, why women are still fighting to get greater acceptance in place like the military.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25078544

Sure they are. Just so you know, they got paid a full £10,000 more in compensation than someone who's life expectancy has been reduced by five years.