Why We Need Women

[Atari]

GameZebo has posted an editorial that talks about how game companies aren't doing enough to bring women into their ranks.

We are blaming them for their lack of representation in the industry, implying a lack of motivation or interest. But who in their right mind would want to be part of this fraternity boy's club anyway? We don't make any effort to recruit women. We don't reach out to women (unless you consider our pandering slew of recent clones reaching out). We haven't tried to figure out ways to bring them into the fold and make them part of the process and thus, we have tacitly excluded them. What we need is affirmative action.

[Gaia]

There should definitely be more women in the games industry, yeah.

It's too bad that in the Netherlands, there isn't that much of a games industry.

[Brummbar]

We are blaming them for their lack of representation in the industry, implying a lack of motivation or interest. But who in their right mind would want to be part of this fraternity boy's club anyway? We don't make any effort to recruit women. We don't reach out to women (unless you consider our pandering slew of recent clones reaching out). We haven't tried to figure out ways to bring them into the fold and make them part of the process and thus, we have tacitly excluded them. What we need is affirmative action.

Uh... No.

[J'Dai]

The editorial was thoughtful and posed some good ideas, but some of the comments that followed were frightening and demeaning. Is it any wonder that more women aren't involved? The gender-slanted language expressed there is what so many of us have been hearing for years in far too many situations (work, government representation, etc.).

The author is correct when he states that the attitude will have to change if the gaming industry is to succeed, but there's a part of me that wonders if this is one of the last "boys club" holdouts and if that change is really possible?

[avier]

I have said this before, but the problem is two-sided: yes more companies need to recruit women (which doesn't necessary mean those women will make more female-friendly games, btw), but the other problem is that alot of women aren't interested in gaming, and to a further extent, computer programming and such. This is why so many women are in corporate positions (publicity, marketing, etc.). But this isn't a bad thing...look at Perrin Kaplan...she doesn't have any gaming/programming background but soon she'll be running things at Nintendo. In other words, we seem to put alot of pressure on women to be programmers, but these other women can have influence too. As much pressure we put on male-dominated game companies, pressure needs to be put on the few powerful females that are there to stand up. I'm pretty sure many of them tote the company line more than some of the men!

But for the rest (more women in the creative part of gaming), will take a change in society. Women have to be told from birth that gaming is okay to do (this is starting now with girls who first system is/was a Playstation or Gamecube or Wii), and women need to stop slamming or look down upon gaming.

[Brummbar]

But for the rest (more women in the creative part of gaming), will take a change in society. Women have to be told from birth that gaming is okay to do (this is starting now with girls who first system is/was a Playstation or Gamecube or Wii), and women need to stop slamming or look down upon gaming.

Truth.

It's not so much a Boys' Club thing as it is women themselves who are keeping away from these jobs.

Remember how young the video game industry is. We're talking about something which literally did not exist as recently as my own childhood. Video gaming was born into an America already transformed by feminism and social change and has never known anything else.

Yes, there is a problem. But it's not institutionalized sexism. It's something else, which affects men and women alike. It's the deliberate enstupidation of the gaming scene pursuant to a marketing and "imaging" strategy. I'm too tired to type my whole enstupidation speech over again here... search this forum for the term and you'll see what I'm on about.

[Maflash]

Things like this remind me of those times at school, where you make an arrangement to go play some football in the local park, and the other person doesnt turn up because hes sitting on a park bench being 'mature' with that girl he knows you like.
While youre running about, he's pretending to listen while she talks about how much her friends annoy her. All the other girls were already playing football, but no one actually cared why.

Of course simply having women nearby will suddenly bless everyone with 'Extra Pork From Hunting'.

[Castaras]

I have said this before, but the problem is two-sided: yes more companies need to recruit women (which doesn't necessary mean those women will make more female-friendly games, btw), but the other problem is that alot of women aren't interested in gaming, and to a further extent, computer programming and such.

Which is why when I announced in one of my school classes I wanted to be a computer systems programmer everyone said "wtf is that?".

But it's expected of the class geek to be weird