Tomb Raider's Writer Gives #1ReasonToBe In Gaming Industry

[Abomination]

How has anything you have posted relate to the motive behind feminism? You have gone off on a tangent that does not relate at all to the motives of feminism - the topic we were discussing and what you actually asked me a question about.

I am good at tangents, one of my best skills actually.
Feminism was made for the benefit of women specifically, not really much else to say.

Given the considerable lack of rights women had at the time? In order for society to become egalitarian women needed more benefits, there was nothing men needed. It was about making women equal, "superior" wasn't even on the table.

 

[wearesoneutralthatithurts]

But generally there not criticizing it, they're (if they sare Anita's beliefs) demonizing it. Men are just fine with women having 50 shades and other such 'women porn', yet women all get offended at "harmful female stereotypes", I feel that is a double standard. Men's sexuality is highly visual, while women's is more vague and best seen in literature, whilst men have porn.

Look at the proportion of gendered violence, gender representation etc.
in history we had thousand years-literally of male society deciding for women, controlling their bodys and minds, writinga bout what they cant do, shaming them, deciding to taboo certain things etc. Marital rape got illegal 2000 here-so all the years this state existed a man could force his wife (which, over hundreds and zthousands of years wasnt really asked-she had to shut up an bear sons or get thron out and then shamed out as whore..)

so if you look at the histrory and see that these pictures of over-sexualisation, of deviotion, of women being meat had and have actual real and historical equivalents, often with nasty to deadly consequences for women...

while if you look at this kind of porn.. i mean, are there any real life things? in 50 shades the man is the dom (dont get me wrong, i love bdsm. i dont have anything against violent porn-i get off on ot-but 1. tehre is a right time and place for this kidn of stuff and 2. i can critucize negative mplication uf this kind of stuff leaks from porn into mainstream stuff.


i often read that people think that other people (mostly feminists) think this should be banned-which is wrong.
if you look at the threads you mostly wont find nobody who wants to ban that-but acknowledge that 1. this can be problematic 2. media doenst exists in a vacuum and the things depicted and said can have and HAD a real impact on women over hundres and thousand of years and NOW, i mean, maybe since.. 100 years we get that there is something wrong?
How long its been since women get recognized as citizens? How long its since we are able to vote? how long since we are able to work WHAT we want and dont have to get the approval of our husbands (and how longs its okay to have none without getting shamed and shunned for being 30 years old and not married with children..)

men never had these problems-they could (theoretically) work whatever they want, study whatever they want, dont marry, dont ask their wife for permission or get fired because they married (here in the 50 and 60 young female teachers got fired because of that-because the state said-now that they have a familiy they cant work anymore because they have to get children and do housework and cook for their men) how long its that we can have ur own bank-account?


you cant wipe history, social pictures and myths wipe out in 100 years-and the proportions of women working in shit jobs and in special jobs (you know-cooking is womens work they said, but the important chefs are male. hairdressing and make-up-womens work but the most important and famous are...male. teachers-here its like-the better the payment, the higher the % of male teachers and the head/director is often male (like janitors too, i know. Interesting though if women want to take part in not-womanly things (construction work, garbage-stuff or simply the army, they get often a shitstorm from their fellow-worker. they have to prove themself, to be "hard" enough.. if this representation si such a problem for men too, why dont encourage women to do this kind of chores as like encouraging boys to work as nurses in hospitals and retirement homes (and NOT as chef-physician like now where the most part of the well paid doctor are male although more women then ever become doctors)

 

[EvilRoy]

The major thing is how infuriating that statement can be to a person on the other side of the fence. That is, a person in a position or with an assigned duty to encourage professional diversity along gender lines. Saying 'more' just isn't helpful for us in the least.

... how is it not helpful? More than there are now.

you can be asking us to do anything from removing all professional bias (we try), to actively recruiting one gender over the other,

This. This is what we mean. Those two - remove professional bias and do some active recruiting.

The point of "more" is that, when an industry has an extremely low percent of female employees, and there are women actively trying to get into the industry and are being passed over or fired for being women, then that is a problem. And no, I'm not saying that you or your particular company did that, but someone's company did.

The point is, 50/50 is NOT a reasonable "assumption". If you look at total game designers educated, it isn't a 50% split. However, the percent in the video game industry is worse than the graduation numbers. I would be nice if they were similar.

"We need to remove the negative female stigma of employment in gaming. Where has it come from, what can we do about it?" And then do that again and again for any other barriers to entry you can identify.

I believe that is exactly what we HAVE been saying. The summary of the above is "more".

Also keep in mind that, while you may be an expert on H&R, a lot of the rest of us are not. We don't know the terms, the practices, or the issues specifically. But we do know that women are not represented in the gaming industry and that the numbers of female employees are bizarrely low compared to how many women have computer science degrees.

Edit: Sorry, I accidentally deleted part of that sentence before the original posting. It has been corrected.

I suppose I would just ask then that you keep in mind saying "we need more women in profession X" is approximately the same as walking up to a mechanic and responding to his query of what the problem is with "it won't go".

"It won't go." Alright, well we'll just push your car to the top of a hill and you can roll down from there.
"We need more women." Fine, we'll just adopt hiring practices that prioritize women over men for most positions.

Both solutions are technically functional, of course despite outward appearance they may be actively making the problem worse, but the car will go and there will be more women. And the mechanic doesn't care if your transmission gets wrecked because of this, after all he did exactly what you wanted him to do, the far reaching consequences are for you and your children to deal with.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I suppose I would just ask then that you keep in mind saying "we need more women in profession X" is approximately the same as walking up to a mechanic and responding to his query of what the problem is with "it won't go".

"It won't go." Alright, well we'll just push your car to the top of a hill and you can roll down from there.
"We need more women." Fine, we'll just adopt hiring practices that prioritize women over men for most positions.

Both solutions are technically functional, of course despite outward appearance they may be actively making the problem worse, but the car will go and there will be more women. And the mechanic doesn't care if your transmission gets wrecked because of this, after all he did exactly what you wanted him to do, the far reaching consequences are for you and your children to deal with.

... so it is unreasonable to go to a mechanic with no understanding of how a car operates and expect that mechanic to do his job?

Your example is awful. You're basically saying that if I don't say exactly what I want, I can't expect the people who can make it happen to DO THEIR JOBS - but instead to do something stupid for no reason.

If I go to a mechanic and say "it won't go" - the mechanic FIXES MY CAR because that is HIS OR HER JOB. The idea that someone would actually do such an action in your example is patently absurd.

And if it is your job to deal with hiring practices, then I am suddenly enlightened as to why we have this problem. The kind of bitterness, laziness, and ... I can't say that word in this context... required to HAVE an attitude like that amazes me. You think you're unbiased? You have just proven that you are.

Good day. I am done with you.

 

[wizzy555]

I suppose I would just ask then that you keep in mind saying "we need more women in profession X" is approximately the same as walking up to a mechanic and responding to his query of what the problem is with "it won't go".

"It won't go." Alright, well we'll just push your car to the top of a hill and you can roll down from there.
"We need more women." Fine, we'll just adopt hiring practices that prioritize women over men for most positions.

Both solutions are technically functional, of course despite outward appearance they may be actively making the problem worse, but the car will go and there will be more women. And the mechanic doesn't care if your transmission gets wrecked because of this, after all he did exactly what you wanted him to do, the far reaching consequences are for you and your children to deal with.

... so it is unreasonable to go to a mechanic with no understanding of how a car operates and expect that mechanic to do his job?

Your example is awful. You're basically saying that if I don't say exactly what I want, I can't expect the people who can make it happen to DO THEIR JOBS - but instead to do something stupid for no reason.

If I go to a mechanic and say "it won't go" - the mechanic FIXES MY CAR because that is HIS OR HER JOB. The idea that someone would actually do such an action in your example is patently absurd.

And if it is your job to deal with hiring practices, then I am suddenly enlightened as to why we have this problem. The kind of bitterness, laziness, and ... I can't say that word in this context... required to HAVE an attitude like that amazes me. You think you're unbiased? You have just proven that you are.

Good day. I am done with you.

Ok, lets put it a different way. Lets say we have this discussion next year and the number of women in the game industry increased 10%. Can you predict if you would still think more is better?

 

[EvilRoy]

I suppose I would just ask then that you keep in mind saying "we need more women in profession X" is approximately the same as walking up to a mechanic and responding to his query of what the problem is with "it won't go".

"It won't go." Alright, well we'll just push your car to the top of a hill and you can roll down from there.
"We need more women." Fine, we'll just adopt hiring practices that prioritize women over men for most positions.

Both solutions are technically functional, of course despite outward appearance they may be actively making the problem worse, but the car will go and there will be more women. And the mechanic doesn't care if your transmission gets wrecked because of this, after all he did exactly what you wanted him to do, the far reaching consequences are for you and your children to deal with.

... so it is unreasonable to go to a mechanic with no understanding of how a car operates and expect that mechanic to do his job?

Your example is awful. You're basically saying that if I don't say exactly what I want, I can't expect the people who can make it happen to DO THEIR JOBS - but instead to do something stupid for no reason.

If I go to a mechanic and say "it won't go" - the mechanic FIXES MY CAR because that is HIS OR HER JOB. The idea that someone would actually do such an action in your example is patently absurd.

And if it is your job to deal with hiring practices, then I am suddenly enlightened as to why we have this problem. The kind of bitterness, laziness, and ... I can't say that word in this context... required to HAVE an attitude like that amazes me. You think you're unbiased? You have just proven that you are.

Good day. I am done with you.

Its not unreasonable, no, but the problem is in availability of solutions. I really can't do anything about how society views women in one profession over the other, I probably can't change the minds of parents with regards to the same, the economy is better but its not good enough to justify spending money marketing jobs to people especially when the jobs may or may not exist, and we in general are already working on decreasing professional bias.

So when you say more, we don't know what to do. Its not something you can really work harder at, people need to get over their bias at their own rate otherwise you'll just breed resentment or resistance.

I'm sorry if I offended you, but i don't know what else you want me to say. We're doing the best we can?

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Ok, lets put it a different way. Lets say we have this discussion next year and the number of women in the game industry increased 10%. Can you predict if you would still think more is better?

You really want to do this? Fine.

Well, first off we'd need to know the starting numbers. I don't, so I'll make numbers up for examples.

Let's say that 3% of all game designers currently are women. If that increases by 10%, then that would be 3.3% of all game designers. That's such a small increase as to be within mathematical error.

If 10% of all game designers are currently women, then a 10% increase would raise that to 11%. That is still pretty pathetic.

Unless you mean an additional 10% of the total are women. In that case, using the two examples above:

An increase of 3% to 13% would be wonderful! That's a huge change and I would approve.

An increase of 10% to 20% would likewise be wonderful. That would be a doubling of the current women in the industry, and be much closer to the graduation numbers I mentioned previously.

So my answer is - 10% of current numbers is so small as to have no impact. Whereas 10% of total is a significant improvement in either case.

So there's some spitballing for you.

However, asking for numbers will NEVER work. We say "more" because we don't KNOW how many is enough. We have to have some more to find out. Right now, the actual number is (I believe) somewhere between the two numbers I randomly chose. I believe (according to a Jimquisition video) that the number is single digit, but I don't remember the exact number. So more than single digits.

The point, however, has never been the numbers. It is the fact that, right now, we have practically nothing but men, who make games for men. And those men are failing to make games appealing to women. If we have more women, it is more likely that we will have games that acknowledge or even target women as an audience. Not exclusively, but additionally. If there are some women in control of some games, then we are more likely to see games that appeal to both genders equally rather than just men.

This knee-jerk reaction to "more" is ignorant and petty. Many businesses have added "more" women - and it hasn't stopped men from getting jobs or being represented. The business world is STILL male dominated after several decades of targeted hiring of women. However, the business world has grown more equal.

This technique of "more" has worked in the past. People protested this SAME WAY in the 1980s and 1990s - and they were WRONG THEN. Programs like affirmative action WORKED, and worked well.

So, when is enough? I KEEP SAYING graduation rates, but no one appears to be listening to that bit. I don't have them memorized, but if I recall when I graduated college 10 years ago, about 30% of the computer science graduates were women. I don't know what the numbers are now, but logically if at least 30% of computer science graduates are women, then 30% of game designers should be women.

But I'm not sure things even need to be that strict. What I want is Enough women - enough women to be able to be a voice within the games industry that will prevent sexism before it happens. Women who will be in on creative meetings and say things like "do we really want to portray our female characters like that?" and explain what the issue is.

If women are present, then they can add their viewpoint at the ground level rather than having to complain about it after the fact.

And that's the real issue here. I keep getting responses in this thread about numbers, but this is really about fear. Your fear that women are going to take your games away.

And I'm sick of it. It's pathetic. And these ignorant and petulant arguments makes me realize just how much of a boys-only club the gaming world is.

 

[wizzy555]

But I'm not sure things even need to be that strict. What I want is Enough women - enough women to be able to be a voice within the games industry that will prevent sexism before it happens. Women who will be in on creative meetings and say things like "do we really want to portray our female characters like that?" and explain what the issue is.

If women are present, then they can add their viewpoint at the ground level rather than having to complain about it after the fact.

OK thank you. Now I understand what you are asking for. I was only asking to avoid the "women in science" effect where every year a report says there aren't enough women in science (there's plenty in biology) and then we end up with stupid adverts like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=g032MPrSjFA from ignorant politicians trying to balance the numbers.