Getting More Women to Work in Games Is Easy

[Saetha]

I'm not so sure that there's any sort of sexism going on here. Atleast, not directly. While I haven't yet gone out into the workforce proper, I have taken of plenty "Boy's club" classes in things like computer programming, wood working, theater tech (Stage, set, and lighting crew, so not a make-up artist or actress) and have never felt out of place or discriminated against in any of them. While there weren't many other women in these classes, no one ever singled me out for being one - the other students were as respectful to me as they were to anyone else, and the (Often male) teachers gave help when it was asked for, and graded us fairly. A few times I actually turned out to be one of the top students. I've gotten more shit for being white than I've ever gotten for being female. Perhaps women aren't taking these classes because they genuinely aren't interested? The various crews I was on for theater tech were male-dominated, but some of them (Costume and make-up, notably) are where all the girls were at.

This is why I don't understand the whole "Less female game designers, of course there's sexism!" It's looking at a discrepancy and slapping an ideology on it. Maybe there's less female game designers because women genuinely AREN'T interested - and maybe that's a wider societal problem, telling girls they shouldn't like games, but then, why yell at game companies exclusively? Why yell at game companies at all, really? You're given the opportunity of delivering a presentation with the goal of telling something it needs to change, and once you get up on your soapbox, you... give bad "statistics," insult your audience, and just sort of spend five minutes on catty, overly-sarcastic whining? Yeah, that's really gonna rally people to your cause, especially the very people who you're trying to change. It just... seems like a wasted opportunity. If you think there's something wrong with the game industry, genuinely wrong with it, why waste the chance to change that on "You're all pigs with sucky corporate culture, here's some skewed statistics, go easy on my daughter now!"

You ever hear that old saying? Flies, honey, all that? No?

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

People like Adria Richards, getting people fired for something as minor as telling a joke, all in the name of making the workplace more welcoming for women.

Making a company not hostile to women isn't difficult. Almost every sector manages it. Even the tech sector manages it in some places.

Exactly.

Men, in the meanwhile, have all their opinions and feelings set aside as non-important. How the hell is that fair or equal?

Yep, those poor men, who make up a vast majority of the workforce that women are denied entry to, now having to show empathy and consideration for the feelings of others and stuff! What a terrible injustice!

Why does everyone say women will suck the fun out of everything like it's a fact? I will agree that women have unrealistic demands regarding the workplace and that everything should be crafted to their expectations, but that doesn't make them boring.

I agree with your main point, but women working as police officers demanding tools that they can actually use? That is not what I'd call unreasonable. I've yet to see any evidence or example of women making "unrealistic" demands. Now men, on the other hand... well... just look at some of the posts in this forum.

See I have no problem with people disputing Sampan's conclusions, provided that they can justify their arguments with reasoning. But this whole "women just bring the workplace down" thing... no. Just no. I can cite my own workplace as an example of somewhere where this hasn't happened (that also being a place that used to be a lot more male-dominated than it is now), but honestly, should I HAVE to?

 

[ms_sunlight]

5) If those problems do exist, why should you have to change EVERYTHING about your company? It's not like you're asking all the male developers to get their penii cut off or something.

I think you mean "penes" but yes, I absolutely agree. I think that anyone who thinks that women can't have fun, or that women destroy fun, are saying a lot more about themselves than anything. Some of them it probably comes from having no experience of a mixed workplace, or indeed any workplace, due to their age. If you'd been to the works nights out I've been to, you wouldn't think that.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

All those myths are based realities and facts, so they really aren't myths. I do like Elizabeth Sampat's enthusiasm, however she is coming off as intentionally ultra-positive in order to encourage more women to get into the game development. It's a good effort I guess.

See, this is where we differ, because I find this to be a laudible and admirable cause in and of itself. I don't think it needs further justification.

Games development is still dominated by white men. As a white man who's into games development as a hobbyist, this bugs me. I feel that we're just starting to see the full extent of where gaming can go, and we're not going to see it develop to its full extent while it's dominated by a largely homogenous group of people who all have similar ideas about how games should "work". Which is not to say that all games developers are white men, or that all white men have a "hive mind" and none of us have any originality in the matter.

That said, there's a tremendous focus on action and competitive goal-driven gaming right now, and that hasn't really changed since the very early days of gaming. I think we've largely accepted what gaming "is" and "isn't", but why should, say, "Papers Please" (a game with almost no "action" of any description) or "Journey" (a game that's almost entirely cooperative) be so unusual? Why aren't more games as original as these?

Now obviously just shoving more and more women into positions within the industry isn't going to magically widen the scope of videogames. And again, a lot of great new ideas are coming from men right now (including both of the games that I just mentioned). I do, however, think that some new voices in the industry is a very desirable thing to happen; and if some of those voices are being discouraged just because they don't fit the current game designer "mould", then that's a bad thing for the industry and for gaming.

Captcha: "Skynet knows". That it does, wise randomly-generated image. That it does.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Men, in the meanwhile, have all their opinions and feelings set aside as non-important. How the hell is that fair or equal?

Yep, those poor men, who make up a vast majority of the workforce that women are denied entry to, now having to show empathy and consideration for the feelings of others and stuff! What a terrible injustice!

This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. The same kind of generalization that men are accused of and the lack of empathy towards people on the mere basis that they're men.

Fair point about attitude, however I'm not accusing you of lack of empathy because you're a man. I'm accusing you of lack of empathy because that's exactly what your post showed me. You being a man has nothing whatsoever to do with it (and I quite admit that I'm assuming that you are one here.)

If you're part of the 90% of privileged people (and again I'm assuming you are), I think it's entirely reasonable to expect you to accept certain things. If one of those things is that your culture changes to the point where sexist and off-colour jokes are no longer acceptable, fine! It's not a big deal. I've gone through something like this myself (again, the place where I work used to be a lot more male-dominated than it is now) and I think it's fair to say that very few people had a problem with it.

My point here is that the sacrifice you make is a very small price to pay for a more inclusive workspace where people are judged on what they bring to the table, not whether they fit into a "male-dominated culture". I've been in both places, and please trust me when I say to you that for me (and I imagine for most people there) the inclusive workplace was the most interesting and satisfying one by a wide margin.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Games development is still dominated by white men. As a white man who's into games development as a hobbyist, this bugs me. I feel that we're just starting to see the full extent of where gaming can go, and we're not going to see it develop to its full extent while it's dominated by a largely homogenous group of people who all have similar ideas about how games should "work". Which is not to say that all games developers are white men, or that all white men have a "hive mind" and none of us have any originality in the matter.

But you kinda DID imply that white males have some kind of hive-mind and lack originality, you can't just cancel-out the brunt of that paragraph with 1 line at the end that contradicts it
I find it silly that race/gender has anything to do with originality, it really makes no sense and is virtually impossible to prove. There are certain trends across AAA games if that's what you're referring to, but the concept of AAA games has itself been raised by Western culture as a "thing" so there you go. As individuals game designers are all very different.
You also seem to be ignoring the rather huge percentage of games (and the dominant chunk of console generations) that have come out of Japan. Doubt white males had anything to do with that

That said, there's a tremendous focus on action and competitive goal-driven gaming right now, and that hasn't really changed since the very early days of gaming. I think we've largely accepted what gaming "is" and "isn't", but why should, say, "Papers Please" (a game with almost no "action" of any description) or "Journey" (a game that's almost entirely cooperative) be so unusual? Why aren't more games as original as these?

Because of basic supply/demand logic. Papers Please will always serve a niche audience and fun little games like it will always be around. But it's simply impossible for a game like that to touch games like Titanfall, Destiny or Call Of Duty because those are the games that the dominating chunk of gamers want to play...therefore they get advertised more heavily, etc and it's a self-amplifying cycle. Ultimately it's still linked to what's popular to begin with.

The Indie markets and mobile app markets are overflowing with original/unique games...some of which are awesome, some of which suck horribly. You're simply focusing too much on the AAA games because they tend to hog a lot of the attention, which is expected because they are like blockbuster hollywood movies. A whole lot of noise and popcorn-munching action while all the really clever/subtle movies made by directors with smaller budgets (or foreign movies) don't get too many views despite being highly praised by certain critics and/or audiences who watched them.

It's just something that happens with all media : /

 

[Blue_vision]

I'm honestly extremely tired of the whole gender war. In the Gaming/IT sector as a whole there is a lack of interest from females. People should stop blaming patriarchy for everything. They are polarizing the community even more. I'm not denying the fact that there are isolated cases where gender discrimination isn't involved, but it's really not that prevalent and overblown as people make it out to be. Gender discrimination will always persist for both genders everywhere, which doesn't justify it, but it not only affects them.

Why would a recruiting company decline a perfectly competent applicant based on gender? People can't seriously expect them to recruit incompetent staff just based on unbalanced demographics. It is male dominated because we were the gender who showed enough interest in the hobby to carry it forward. They were never denied access to the gaming community, but instead invited. So now that they've decided that it's socially acceptable to play games, they expect that the red carpet should be rolled out?

If you have the skills and experience you will be treated fairly. Respect is earned, not demanded anyway.

Perhaps there is a "lack of interest" from females because they've grown up being expected to not find technology interesting, or not like or play video games, or play with dolls instead of playing with computers? I think this socialization is a lot more damaging than just a lack of representation of women in the games industry. We're implicitly telling women that they shouldn't pursue the kind of high-tech jobs that there is actually a shortage of in North America and Europe. That's not just bad for society, it's bad for the economy.

And I don't know why a recruiting company would decline a perfectly competent applicant based on their gender, but they do. Statistic after statistic after study after study shows that women are still at a massive disadvantage in the workplace simply from statistical discrimination. The amount of studies which have handed managers the exact same CV except for gender of applicant and found that significantly more men get hired or promoted than women should be a testament to that, but some people don't understand.

Women face a double-edged sword in the world today. When they do have all the right credentials, they receive a lower wage, and lower chance of being hired or promoted. And women being brought up see the lack of female representation in some sectors or communities, and decide they are unwelcome. And then you get people telling women it's their fault, and it was obvious that women are welcome in an industry which is overwhelmingly composed of men, in whose community women commonly get harassed and objectified.

Straight white male, for disclosure. I'm sick of this sort of logic being used to justify why we apparently have gender equality when we so clearly do not.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Men, in the meanwhile, have all their opinions and feelings set aside as non-important. How the hell is that fair or equal?

Yep, those poor men, who make up a vast majority of the workforce that women are denied entry to, now having to show empathy and consideration for the feelings of others and stuff! What a terrible injustice!

This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. The same kind of generalization that men are accused of and the lack of empathy towards people on the mere basis that they're men.

Fair point about attitude, however I'm not accusing you of lack of empathy because you're a man. I'm accusing you of lack of empathy because that's exactly what your post showed me. You being a man has nothing whatsoever to do with it (and I quite admit that I'm assuming that you are one here.)

If you're part of the 90% of privileged people (and again I'm assuming you are), I think it's entirely reasonable to expect you to accept certain things. If one of those things is that your culture changes to the point where sexist and off-colour jokes are no longer acceptable, fine! It's not a big deal. I've gone through something like this myself (again, the place where I work used to be a lot more male-dominated than it is now) and I think it's fair to say that very few people had a problem with it.

My point here is that the sacrifice you make is a very small price to pay for a more inclusive workspace where people are judged on what they bring to the table, not whether they fit into a "male-dominated culture". I've been in both places, and please trust me when I say to you that the inclusive workplace is the most interesting and satisfying one by a wide margin.

Lets back up a bit. "the workforce that women are denied entry to". No such thing in existence aside from maybe some military jobs. Women are not being kept out of anything. They might not be encouraged to do it but nobody is saying they can't do it. That is the problem I have with this whole thing. We have equal opportunity. Any woman capable of doing IT can go to school and learn IT. Equal opportunity does not and should not mean equal outcomes. And the other poster had a really good point. Nobodies gives a rats ass about mens feelings in any situation. If men tried to campaign for better treatment or opportunities in workforces dominated by women they would be laughed at, accused of derailing real problems etc. If you can't at least acknowledge that fact you are just as bigoted as the people who discriminate against potential female employers. Already said this but I will say it again. Workplaces should have zero obligation to accommodate anyone aside from obvious safety issues. Its up to the employee to accommodate the employer because you ultimately replaceable.

 

[Susan Arendt]

"If you can't find women who can fit into culture, your company culture might suck,"

Because that will make women welcome in the workplace eh?

Sucking all the fun out of everything wont exactly endear the workplace to the women suddenly working there.

So "sucking all the fun out of everything" is what you consider necessary to make the workplace welcoming to women?

Says quite a lot right there of what you think about women.

The workplace does not need to be more accommodating to anyone. Unless its a safety issue of course. That is the problem with today's world. Everyone expects things to change for them. You don't go into the interview and start making demands on how they need to make you happy or more comfortable. I wouldn't expect any female dominated work position to make changes for me if I applied, I would come prepared to change for the job. You act accordingly to job or position you have and if you feel like changes need to made because YOU don't feel comfortable but everyone else does YOU are the problem. If women don't feel comfortable working in IT for any reason they need to either change or find a new subject. Not come in and start pointing fingers trying to disrupt what has been successfully working for years.

Lets look at those two women who just successfully sued the police department in the UK. They sued because the guns were to big for their hands and won. They actually won. Instead of saying kindly go find other work if you can't do the job they had to spend thousands to make smaller guns available. Political correctness is going way to far. Can you do the job or not and if you can do it without complaining.

I understand your perspective, but here's an example from my own work experience: During a department meeting, my boss wanted to make a point about dominating the competition, so he mimed whipping out his penis and slamming it on the table. I was the only female in the room, and frankly, I shouldn't have had to put up with that. There were a dozen different ways to make that exact point without referencing his genitals.

That sort of stuff happens all the time. It's pretty much nonstop. Do I think a female police officer should be able to have the job if she can't hold the gun? No, I do not. Do I think she should have to suffer sexist remarks and hostile behavior just because she's surrounded by men who think she should "lighten up"? No, I fuckingwell do not.

I believe that a lot of the confusion here comes from a genuine misunderstanding about the myriad ways women are meant to feel unwelcome in male-dominated industries. It's not all insidious - by and large, I've worked with nothing but genuinely lovely guys, and yet they've still done and said things that made me uncomfortable, simply because they weren't aware of it. Fortunately, I usually had a good enough relationship with them to be able to say hey, please don't speak or act like that, because it makes me uncomfortable, and they, being decent men, were happy to try and meet me halfway, but not all situations are like that.

If women don't feel comfortable working in IT, let's first figure out WHY they don't feel comfortable, rather than just brushing them off and saying they don't belong. Maybe some of their requests would be absurd, but I bet the vast majority are really just looking to come in and do their job without feeling subhuman. It's very, very easy to create a hostile environment for a newcomer of either gender, but it's also pretty easy to make a welcoming one. You just have to actively try.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It was very hard to take her seriously after Myth #1. She tries to prove that there's interest by...selectively talking only to those with interest? Even if her comment shows that about 50% of the women that are in or want to get in didn't have it as a lifelong dream and about 50% had it as a lifelong dream, that still doesn't help disprove that there simply isn't a lot of interest. Now, I'm not sure the degree of interest women have and what percentage of those interested get in compared to interested men, but if Sampat wants her argument to be taken more seriously than others', then she really needs to actually give us meaningful data. This is especially important since many of the people she's trying to convince have basically witnessed, what they believe, to be a very low interest of women to get into the gaming industry, or pretty much anything related to math, engineering, and technology. For all we know, it might not be the gaming industry's fault, but the fault of society basically stereotyping technology as a "male" field, and the problem starts at the educational level, long before we reach issues with the gaming industry.

Granted, I'm not going to sit here and act like there isn't an issue with representation of women in the gaming industry, or just technology and engineering in general. However, I think Sampat did a horrible job of arguing for better representation. I understand that she might have been through a lot and is concerned about the future of her daughter, and I respect that she's at least trying to do something, but she seriously needs to do a better job at it for fear that she might do more harm than good to the movement for better female representation.

 

[the December King]

Yep, those poor men, who make up a vast majority of the workforce that women are denied entry to, now having to show empathy and consideration for the feelings of others and stuff! What a terrible injustice!

... Are women really being denied entry to the industry, though? Or is it that relatively few women want these jobs? Personally I'm not sure. I've seen women hold positions of middle management/PR/office management/accounting throughout the business I'm in, but only once or twice 'in the trenches', so to speak - comping,lighting,3D- actually making the material, generating the content, for a production.

I'd certainly welcome any women into the industry, and I'd personally curb any comments, thoughts, and jokes that could be misconstrued or seen as offensive... to date, I have little experience with women in this work environment. The idea that I might have some resentment to having to change my conduct is only a natural conclusion, really- it affects me, after all.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

But you kinda DID imply that white males have some kind of hive-mind and lack originality, you can't just cancel-out the brunt of that paragraph with 1 line at the end that contradicts it

Well, no, given that I'm a white male developer myself and I have very different ideas to those that I've just mentioned! I put it badly perhaps... let's say that I think a lot of the ideas people have are influenced by the culture that they are used to. A more homogenous culture is less of a "breeding ground" for new ideas. Doesn't mean that they don't appear (again, I'd reference "Papers Please" and "Journey" as two cases where they absolutely have) but it also doesn't mean that we're not missing out on other interesting stuff that might've come from a different place. The sad thing is that we'll never know about the other "interesting stuff" because it never gets developed.

I find it silly that race/gender has anything to do with originality, it really makes no sense and is virtually impossible to prove. There are certain trends across AAA games if that's what you're referring to, but the concept of AAA games has itself been raised by Western culture as a "thing" so there you go. As individuals game designers are all very different.

Agree with all of that.

You also seem to be ignoring the rather huge percentage of games (and the dominant chunk of console generations) that have come out of Japan. Doubt white males had anything to do with that

True, and a huge oversight of mine; although that again is a particular "culture". What I'm arguing for here is more influence from outside the particular cultures that games have traditionally been developed in.

Papers Please will always serve a niche audience and fun little games like it will always be around. But it's simply impossible for a game like that to touch games like Titanfall, Destiny or Call Of Duty because those are the games that the dominating chunk of gamers want to play...therefore they get advertised more heavily, etc and it's a self-amplifying cycle. Ultimately it's still linked to what's popular to begin with.

The Indie markets and mobile app markets are overflowing with original/unique games...some of which are awesome, some of which suck horribly. You're simply focusing too much on the AAA games because they tend to hog a lot of the attention, which is expected because they are like blockbuster hollywood movies. A whole lot of noise and popcorn-munching action while all the really clever/subtle movies made by directors with smaller budgets (or foreign movies) don't get too many views despite being highly praised by certain critics and/or audiences who watched them.

It's just something that happens with all media : /

Now here you're missing my point, I think. Yes, I agree that Papers Please is "niche". I have no problem with "niche". The problem with the indie market is that that, also, is very much dominated by a particular "culture". I'm not saying that nothing good comes out of it; a LOT of good comes out of it! But it's still dominated, largely, by male developers - even when a lot of the customers of mobile games are female. That's one of the few respects where there's very little difference between AAA titles and the indies.

I don't want to imply, at all, that the current culture isn't producing some great games in a variety of different ways. Not at all. What I DO think is that there's a helluva lot of room for growth, and I'd like to see some of that come from quarters that aren't usually associated with "game design" and its conventions.

 

[Redd the Sock]

"Your company has to grow," she said. "What would our companies look like if we judged growth of companies in other ways?" What if growth meant becoming more well-rounded and full of happy, productive, diverse employees instead of just more rich? The horror!

Right here is the crux of the problem. It's reminiscent of a quote from a Penny Arcade comic (sorry, I'm not looking it up for an image):

For me to get everything I want you're going to have to give up some things.

I want devoted driven employees? No I shouldn't want that. I want profits? Nope, that shouldn't be what I want. I should want want someone else wants, and re-tailor my entire business to do just that because "reasons". Even putting aside the childishness of the attitude, I have to ask how, as an employer, I'd have to respond to such a position. If you're complaining about my culture being to harsh now, what happens with something like deadlines or productions standards? Will you complain the work is too hard and I should make it easier to be more inclusive? Will you think a bad performance review is based purely on your gender and make no efforts to improve? Will you similarly expect policies and procedures to change on your whims? Want to tell me who I can and can't do business with as well while you're at it?It just isn't an attitude any employer wants, and making the argument that to get more women in, we have to lower the bars and make sacrifices for their benefit isn't going to make them any more open. It just encourages the attitude of "kids today don't want to do hard work."

Getting more women working in games is not about demanding it be more accessible, but giving reasons why it should be. Right now, you can claim businesses are denying 50% of their potential workforce, but to them, it's the whiny 50%, or the 50% liable to make a harassment claim over the wrong comment, or the 50% more interested in some social cause than in doing their job. If businesses see liabilities, not assets in a potential employee, that employee isn't getting the job. You shouldn't be making demands, but rather sales pitches: why is it in my bet interest to do what you want? If you can't answer that, you probably shouldn't get it.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Lets back up a bit. "the workforce that women are denied entry to". No such thing in existence aside from maybe some military jobs. Women are not being kept out of anything. They might not be encouraged to do it but nobody is saying they can't do it. That is the problem I have with this whole thing. We have equal opportunity. Any woman capable of doing IT can go to school and learn IT. Equal opportunity does not and should not mean equal outcomes.

Well the original article disputes this. Sampan's claiming that women DO want to do this, but they're being discouraged from doing so. I agree that this is a debatable point, but that's as far as I go. Again, I've worked in a very male-dominated environment. It's pretty hard to dispute some of the claims she's making when you've seen examples of them in real life.

And the other poster had a really good point. Nobodies gives a rats ass about mens feelings in any situation. If men tried to campaign for better treatment or opportunities in workforces dominated by women they would be laughed at, accused of derailing real problems etc. If you can't at least acknowledge that fact you are just as bigoted as the people who discriminate against potential female employers. Already said this but I will say it again. Workplaces should have zero obligation to accommodate anyone aside from obvious safety issues. Its up to the employee to accommodate the employer because you ultimately replaceable.

If this is honestly the case where you work, then I have some advice for you: find a better job.

I've seen a workplace that was very male-dominated become a workplace where a large amount of women are now employed, and NOBODY is claiming that "nobody gives a rats ass about men's feelings". You're expected to show sensitivity for others and to not be an asshole, whether you're male or female. I have absolutely no problems with this. If anybody does have a problem with this, then all I can say is that I absolutely disagree with their opinion, and I'd question what personal "issues" they have.

And again... if 90% of workers in a place are male and 10% female, and it's the 90% who are complaining that THEY'RE the ones being discriminated against, then I want to see real evidence about who's being inconvenienced here. Not being able to make some off-colour jokes doesn't cut it with me. "Being an insensitive ass" is not an undisputable right in the workplace.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Yep, those poor men, who make up a vast majority of the workforce that women are denied entry to, now having to show empathy and consideration for the feelings of others and stuff! What a terrible injustice!

... Are women really being denied entry to the industry, though? Or is it that relatively few women want these jobs?

That's the whole problem, isn't it? Personally I think it's a bit of column A, a bit of column B, and a bit of a vicious cycle. It could be that a lot of women don't see these jobs as "desirable" because they're male-dominated right now, which in turn means that they'll never stop being male-dominated. That could definitely be the case. I guess that's what Sampan is trying to figure out. I absolutely don't think that it's just a case of men being too "exclusive", although there's definitely some of that in some places. I'd like to think (or at least hope!) that it would be a minority of cases though.

See, I don't think most men are misogynist assholes (although I've noticed I tend to be a lot harder on my own sex sometimes.) I do think that we can sometimes create an atmosphere that puts women off, even if we don't mean to do so - again, I've kinda seen that myself. The good news is that this is very easily fixed, and most people (men included) seem to be better for it. Industry-wide I think it's a laudable goal to aim for, anyway.

 

[IceStar100]

Sorry quoted the wrong person

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Fair point about attitude, however I'm not accusing you of lack of empathy because you're a man. I'm accusing you of lack of empathy because that's exactly what your post showed me. You being a man has nothing whatsoever to do with it (and I quite admit that I'm assuming that you are one here.)

If you're part of the 90% of privileged people (and again I'm assuming you are), I think it's entirely reasonable to expect you to accept certain things. If one of those things is that your culture changes to the point where sexist and off-colour jokes are no longer acceptable, fine! It's not a big deal. I've gone through something like this myself (again, the place where I work used to be a lot more male-dominated than it is now) and I think it's fair to say that very few people had a problem with it.

My point here is that the sacrifice you make is a very small price to pay for a more inclusive workspace where people are judged on what they bring to the table, not whether they fit into a "male-dominated culture". I've been in both places, and please trust me when I say to you that for me (and I imagine for most people there) the inclusive workplace was the most interesting and satisfying one by a wide margin.

Wait, wait, wait... so because I brought up the point that men are supposed to disregards their feels (according to you, because they're in the majority), I lack empathy or you feel that my post lacks empathy.
And somehow because I'm privileged (whatever the hell that means, but I assume it's white and male, though in my case not straight) my opinion matters less.
To top it off, it's all just dandy because you are fine with with sexual banter and racials slurs being abolished, which isn't even the core of a male-dominant workplace, rather than everyone having to tread carefully in order to accomodate others with pretty hefty consequences if they're not followed.

Your point doesn't even relate to mine, because I have at no point claimed that having both genders in a workplace can't work or work well, all I've said is that there's major hypocrisy going on in the so called gender "equality" debate that basically boils down to women being more important and therefore must be treated with care and delicacy, which in itself is a sexist stance to take.

There is sexual banter, there are racial jokes, there is an imbalance of gender in most workplaces, there is inappropriate behaviour that goes on without consequence or remark, but the fact of the matter is that the people who do these things are people too and their opinion whether we agree with it or not, matters as well and it's not their responsibility to change it for the sake of others, any more so than it is for women to change theirs.
However, I'm not concerned with these people in this thread because they will not change their ways, behaviour or opinions, but those of us who do consider workplace ethics, who do give a thought to others also take into consideration that we have our space as well and have no interest in changing ourselves or just letting ourselves get walked on.

This is the person you're talking to; The person who's very likely to accept that the world doesn't revolve around himself and that there should be space for others to be who they are alongside me. Know the god damned difference. My post didn't show a lack of empathy, you just found it because it was easy to ***** about and quote out of context for the sake of some bullshit quip.

...The 90% privileged... Christ. Predispositioned much?

Whoa whoa whoa.

Ok y'know what, I want to apologise for my original comment. It was sarcastic and kinda insulting.

I don't think your opinion matters less than anybody else's. What I was disputing was that it should matter MORE than anybody else's. Which was honestly my take-away from the post I originally commented on.

As for "90% privileged", we're talking about a situation here where the vast majority of people working in a particular industry fit into one particular sub-group (males). Sampan's point, meanwhile, is that there are other people from outside that sub-group who WANT to be working in that particular industry, but can't. Again this is something that I've seen happen, albeit in a very minor way, in real life. For that reason I find it pretty hard to dispute her point that it may happen on a larger scale - at least not without seeing some serious arguments to the contrary.

So I don't think "privileged" is too strong a way of putting it.

During the years that slavery was abolished, the slave-owners were told to make a lot of sacrifices of their own. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

The rich pay higher rates of tax than the poor do, pretty much across the globe. Do I think this is unfair? No I don't.

These are extreme examples, I know. And I'm not comparing the plight of the games industry to the abolition of slavery in terms of scale. My point being, if you want equality, sometimes the "haves" need to give something up to accommodate the "have-nots". As far as the games industry goes, the vast majority of developers out there - for whatever reason - are men. The culture is still male-centric. And if you're going to attract more women into the job (which, again, is a goal that I see as laudible in and of itself) then it's gonna have to get less so. This isn't a bad thing.

 

[Nexxis]

Spoiler

Women in gaming (or just tech) is an issue that no one can answer properly and everyone has issues with.

Yes, more and more women are getting into tech.

Yes, it's a boy's club. What big business in North America isn't full of rich old white guys and all the jackassery that comes with the mindset of people living in a world that isn't the real world?

Yes, there is less discrimination now, but it exists.

Yes, there should be a lot more women in tech these days - and we damn well tried. But a lot of us got shot down and we gave up. Some didn't and they are now doing what they love. The majority of the men they work with are fine with it. Some aren't.

Discrimination exists, people. Want an example of why women my age (30) aren't in tech much? Keep in mind this is the late 90's, early 00's in Canada in a capital, progressive city.

In Junior High girls were still expected to take cooking and sewing classes, while the boys took woodworking and a mini engineering class. My mother literally had to go down to the school and have a screaming match with the WOMAN principal because they refused to let my sister take the engineering course. In High School I signed up for a computer science course, alongside my sister. We were the only girls in the class. The teacher helped everyone in the class but us. When time for the end of term project came around, I fumbled my way through, abut got stuck on some code (It was if/then basic stuff - make a little game where you hit a button and players run around a baseball field). I called the teacher over, he sat down, looked at is, and said (I quote, because I remember the moment clearly) "Well, you're screwed." and got up and walked away.

My cousin also founded a VGX company. He hired people in and trained them without any experience - including my cousin who was the same age. We asked him over and over again if he could take us on as well, but he always refused. Even as he got bigger and bigger in the city the only women worked PR and reception.

Sexism is still rampant. It's getting better, but for someone my age, we grew up still being told to conform to traditional gender roles. Teachers and people of influence were sexist. We got beaten down a lot.

Some people fought back and got into tech. I'm put to shame by them because I stopped fighting. I went back to school in my 20's and now have a lot of tech education, but it's not programming.

It happened. It's still happening, but not nearly as much.

However, when I was teaching (only a couple years ago), sometimes girls were encouraged to go into tech... but if one of them said video games, they were talked down to. Told to go into the big techs, like engineering or biotech or that kind of thing. It made me really angry. I actually got in trouble from admin for telling girls to go into trades and programming and such instead of going to university for traditional degrees.

The world is still kind of backwards. It knows it's backwards now, and it's changing, but it's going to take time and it's going to take hard work from everyone. It's just still not fair that women have to work harder. But that ill change too.

We didn't get to wear pants in a day, and everyone else has had much more to overcome, but it will all come with time and hard work and acceptance.

Pretty much this. Sometimes, this feels like information that people want to pretend doesn't exist and that things have always been equal and opportunities were always open to everyone. they never stop to think that, at some point in history, not too long ago, a group of people weren't allowed to pursue a certain career and, when they did, they had to fight tooth and nail to get there and still encounter problems. These days, I find that some people are trying to encourage females to get into a tech industry while society still beats them over the head with gender roles. Just as a personal example, my mother encouraged me to play video games, use my computer, and go into a tech field while my dad was pissed off that I spent more time on the computer than I did talking on the phone or wanting to go clothes shopping. I wish I was kidding. I'd love to see a day when someone can get the job that they love and not encounter barriers of biases, but I doubt I'd live that long assuming it happens at all.