In June 2013 the Australian Bureau of Statistics released some alarming numbers. Of the 581 people officially employed in the Australian games industry, only 8.7% were women.
Now Film Victoria is creating a fellowship in an attempt to help reverse that gender imbalance.
It’s called the Women in Games fellowship and it offers up to $25,000 as a grant.
“The Women in Games Fellowship program has been established to help address the current gender imbalance in both the local and international games industries,” reads one introduction to the program.
“The program will assist women to undertake fellowships and professional development opportunities that will directly assist them to undertake key creative, management and/or leadership roles in the Victorian games sector.”
The program is restricted to Victorian residents and is focused on women with existing industry experience in a “creative, development or production role”.
It seems as though helping women position themselves for leadership roles in the games industry. One section makes reference to potential candidates and their ability to “impact the gender imbalance in the industry” — meaning that the grant is not necessarily about one single woman, but that woman’s ability to affect change from the inside out, thereby encouraging more women to seek jobs in the games industry.
You can find out more about the grant here.
Comments
114 responses to “Film Victoria Is Trying To Get More Women Into Games”
And 3…2…1…
EDIT: Coming back to read this thread a couple of hours later, I’m pleased to see I wasn’t disappointed. And by pleased I mean terrified.
If you want more women in games, you should put a kitchen sink in there, am i right, am i right?
You all better start laughing real soon.
No. We don’t need to put kitchen sinks in.
We need to take unfunny jokes like yours out.
Even if in (misguided) humour, it’s comments just like yours take make a major contribution to females thinking “Oh why would I want to work there if that is how the males will treat me?”
Even unfunny jokes have value 😉
EDIT: To clarify – the joke was clearly satire.
It’s the wrong kind of satire; is the kind of “satire” that is already present and is contributing to the discouragement of females in such industries.
But I do apologise to @over30yearsofsharing; the wording is very harsh and I’m sorry.
“Hello. I’m an electric car. I can’t go very fast. Or very far. And if you drive me, people will think you’re gay”
“one of us, one of us”
mmmmmmm thats good satire
Heh.
See its not the fault of employers that their staff is mostly male, maybe alot of the female populace just isnt into game, and yes i know that SOUNDS like sex stereotyping but its just how it is.
i think it would be fantastic to have more in the industry
Doesn’t even sound like gender stereotyping. What you have done is made a statement of the facts.
The only people who even think what you said is stereotyping are those who waste time trying to create said stereotyping where none exists.
I could potentially agree with what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t call it a fact until I’ve seen how many women want to work in game development versus how many women actually do, and why those numbers are different. Is the number low because women just aren’t into games? Given how many women play games that doesn’t seem likely. Is it because the production side of game development isn’t appealing to women? Possibly. Is that because the industry isn’t particularly welcoming of women? That’s pretty likely considering how many women who work in the industry don’t feel welcome. Is it because it’s hard to do or hard to find work? I know a lot of men who want to work in games that don’t for these reasons so it stands to reason that applies to some of the women who want to but don’t too.
The statement that less women are interested game development as a career than men is fine but it’s not a good reason to be dismissive of such a low number. If it were 30% you could say that it’s less appealing to women for various social reasons that can’t be solved with these sorts of actions, but under 10% is really, really low.
Whenever a group is under represented in an industry it’s worth investigating. The key is to avoid seeing it as an hostile investigation designed to put the blame on everyone within a group that we’re a part of (game developers, men, business owners, programmers, etc). Film Victoria and other groups with similar goals just want to see if they can make a positive change. If you’re correct and these are the ‘natural’ numbers then this won’t really impact anything.
I find it interesting that certain people see all these ‘imbalances’ that need correcting. If the numbers are a result of merit-based appointments then we are just creating another form of discrimination (against non-women). If there’s some proof that industry employers are discriminating against women’s employment applications then that is illegal and there are mechanisms to deal with that. I’d much rather the money were spent on education against gender discrimination, so the next generation of employers will come into their roles and hopefully be fairer. Scholarships, grants and the like are an inefficient use of resources and a band-aid solution.
I agree with both all of you, you put what i wanted to say in a way i couldnt say it! 🙂
nowadays im really worried about offending people somewhere somehow.
maybe the 25k will help get some more women into the industry.
As a white, heterosexual upper-middle class male I originally thought like that too, until saw an image which stuck with me a while ago which helped shape my thinking.
Sure, I’m always going to be pissed if someone gets a job from me that I’m better qualified, skilled or experienced for, but I doubt that a fellowship will take away any opportunities that a better-qualified, better-skilled male could do. This is more about encouraging women to get involved in the industry, then they’re on their own to build those same skills, experience and qualifications.
(not sure if this link will work, but it’s a similar image – minus the political nonsense, the point is the same: https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR6UKDs0Nz6TNPhxbrDUVyiU9CLaNE6l4vx4I-Balvogp64Migv2Zq3l-UVtQ)
While I think you’ve both got good points there, an issue that’s being glossed over @Zambayoshi is that “unconscious” discrimination and an industry largely being seen as generally hostile towards anything other than white males (a generalisation yes, but an apt one) mean that simply trying to make the next generation do better isn’t enough (because they still need to break into the field and see it welcoming), scholarships and grants need to go hand in hand with education to make BOTH more effective.
Spoilered for length… I talk too much.
It’s not about the individual jobs though (in this case it’s a fellowship, but I assume you’re meaning in general). It’s about helping a small amount of women who want to get into the industry to do so, in hopes that their presence will help change the environment enough to combat a very real bias against women.The goal isn’t to get exactly as many women in the industry as men because 50-50 means everything is magically perfect, it’s to get enough women into proper roles in the industry that a woman pursuing the career stops being considered abnormal. It’s about getting enough women in there that women’s issues in the industry aren’t considered fringe issues. Under schemes like this eventually people stop responding to a female applicant with ‘well, she was good, knew her stuff, interviewed well, but I don’t think some of the less mature guys on the staff are going to be able to handle having a woman around’.
That last one is a big one. It’s always a big wall in the way when you try to combat diversity problems. People, especially people running businesses and managing employees, don’t like trouble. Being different in a new way raises a big flag for some people who handle hiring. They have nothing against the minority but they know Big Earl prides himself on being ‘non-PC’ and putting him in the room with a Mexican is potentially going to cause trouble.
And lets be realistic here, there are enough jobs in the industry that you wouldn’t even be able to measure the loss of a dozen of them being reserved for people from under represented groups. It’s not flooded with openings and it’s highly competitive, but it’s not like one in ten jobs is being reserved for women. The people who don’t get the job in these situations were on the border anyway, and they’re only losing to women who had enough merit to get the assistance. Odds are if you took everyone who applied for a job in the industry, took gender out of the equation, lined them up in order of merit, the people missing out would be lower on the list than the women. At worst I think you’d be trading one or two almost equal candidates on the end of the line.
Women don’t just get to wave a tampon around and take any job they want under these schemes. They work for the job and they have to keep it. They have to compete with other women too. If you only got your job because you’re a woman odds are you’re going to lose it pretty quickly to another woman.
(Obviously there are exceptions, but the blame for that is typically on the people hiring for not embracing the idea and just picking the first random applicant in order to meet the requirement.)
I dunno, I can see where you’re coming from and I can agree with parts of it, but I think you’re holding out for a perfect solution that’s not coming. Yes, it’s not perfectly fair in the short term, but it’s still a significant improvement over how unfair it is now. I feel like you’re focusing too much on minor unfair aspects of this solution, while missing that the problem is really unfair. If finding a job based on merit worked perfectly right now I’d definitely agree with you, but then we wouldn’t have a problem to begin with. =P
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s an ignorant opinion of the issue. Women aren’t “just not into games”, there’s mass anti-women biases all through the educational life cycle that push women away from STEM subjects, and that’s putting aside biases in the industry (not just games) that result in men overvaluing contributions from male employees, and undervaluing contributions from female employees. And that’s also putting aside sexual harassment in male-dominated work spaces that further keep women away.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/
More than 8.7% of gamers are women. A LOT more.
now lets break that down to candy crush mobile type games, fps, rpg, racing sim, 3ds nintento, etc, to really see what the distribution is, id be willing to bet that the largest portion of female gamers belong to the mobile gamer column, which are barely games at the lower end of the spectrum, and are basically pokies at the higher end
But developers making those games are included in the 8.7%. You can claim they’re not true gamers if you want, but if you’re correct then those women should still be making games (they’d just be terrible games).
I know plenty of girls that are “hardcore gamers” and would find your assumption a tad rude, sir. My daughter being one of them.
I hate the whole “candy crush isn’t a game” argument.
You’re not the only one. A gamer is a gamer regardless of the user being on a PC, console or mobile device.
And I consider myself a serious gamer because I don’t restrict myself to a single platform.
And sadly for those zealots out there, Candy Crush is still a game wether they like it or not.
and a criminals a criminals a criminal regardless if they are a murderer, a bank robber or a jay walker.
can i lump you in with the hardcore criminals serving life in prison next time you do 65 in a 60 zone?
I would say its closer to a Skinner Box.
It’s about as much a game as those scratch-and-win lotto tickets are.
“Also, despite what you may think – and what the developers of the game claim – Candy Crush is essentially a game of luck, your success dependent on the array of colours you have randomly been given rather than your swiping skills.”
“Steve Sharman, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Cambridge researching gambling addiction, explains that the impression that we are in control of a game is key to its addictive nature and is vital when playing a slot machine, for example. “The illusion of control is a crucial element in the maintenance of gambling addiction … [as it] instills a feeling of skill or control,” he says. “There are a number of in-game features [such as the boosters in Candy Crush] that allow players to believe they are affecting the outcome of the game, and in some cases they are, but those instances are rare.”
– https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/apr/01/candy-crush-saga-app-brain
Calling it a game has the same effect as calling slot machines a game. I’ve probably fallen into the trap of treating these gambling apps as games, but that is not what they are.
Im not trying to argue the fact that there aren’t women gamers but nearly 50%? That just doesn’t come anywhere near to matching my experiences in all my time playing online.
That graph includes things like Facebook and mobile games which most people who if they were describing themselves as a gamer wouldn’t really be their main source of games.
That graph more likely comes from the question, “have you played a game?” rather than “would you call yourself a gamer?”
http://www.pcgamer.com/researchers-find-that-female-pc-gamers-outnumber-males/
You don’t encounter female gamers online because being obviously female in an online game is a great way to get harassed and abused. Most of them just pretend to not be female. Thanks, online gaming community.
I have played hundreds of games of Rainbow Six where most people are on mics and unless they are getting their male friend to speak on behalf of them or they have voice changing software I still don’t think its anywhere near 50%.
When I played WoW where just about everyone in our Raid was on Ventrilo there were only every 2-3 women out of 40 people.
When talking on forums etc about games where most people sign on with their Facebook accounts there are almost no women names.
Are you sure you aren’t just seeing higher numbers because you yourself have women friends who play games?
Aaaand you’re ignoring the cold, hard statistics I linked to you for a reason? The idea that women also play games really shouldn’t be that threatening.
Are you sure you aren’t just seeing higher numbers of male players because most of your gaming friends are male?
As I addressed in my first post, that is including facebook games in its PC Gamer statistics.
So? Games are games are games.
It’s 2016, dude. Leave the “no girls on the internet” attitude where it belongs, ten years ago.
So I talk about my experience with games as a core gamer implying that it doesn’t match what I have seen outside of Facebook/mobile games, you tell me that its more than 50%, I tell you that doesn’t match my experience.
You then quote a source that then points out that its 50% including Facebook and mobile games which I pointed out in my original post was not where I was looking. I point this out and then you come back with So? Games are games.
What point in my original post were you trying to argue and what data do you have to back it up?
You’re excising a group based on this concept of “core gamer”
“Core gamer” is what, someone who plays rainbow six/has a big steam library/?
Just because someone plays games in a different sandbox doesn’t make them not a “gamer.”
@redartifice
Sorry, I was using the terms based on the linked PC Gamer article which states the following.
It just seems easier to explain that way.
@piratepete it’s just an arbitrary division, is all. Why shouldn’t people play games wherever? Especially these days, with mobile games being so massive, I just don’t see what drawing a line like that achieves.
@redartifice
Having a name for a group is helpful to let people know what you like, if I am talking to somebody new and they describe themselves as a hardcore gamer I can make the assumption that they will have some idea what Fallout or Call of Duty games are and we can have a conversation without having to ask 20 questions first.
Sure overall we are all gamers due to playing a game but sometimes its nice not to have to use the vaguest term possible just in case we accidentally hurt somebody’s feelings.
I never thought that just sharing my experiences on a forum on the internet would result in someone implying that I felt threatened by women gamers?
I guess I just foolishly thought that by sharing my experiences there would be an interesting discussion outside of implying that women scared me and that I wanted games to be dominated by men.
I cant believe all your answers got all these up-votes just for trying to tear down my opinion with unrelated data and emotional reasoning.
I guess I will avoid these topics in future.
The plural of anecdote is not “data”.
Saying that you didn’t encounter women online while playing Rainbow 6 contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation and dismissing data as “unrelated” because you arbitrarily don’t count some types of games as games is just silly.
PiratePete, I’m with you. I don’t think anything you commented about was inflammatory and indeed you seemed to be genuinely sharing your experiences and seeking clarification around certain points. And in no way did you imply that you felt threatened by women gamers or desired a “no girls on the internet” attitude. Hayley, honestly feel like you played the gender card a bit there when it wasn’t required. No doubt this comment will be unpopular too.
@trjn
I never said I was sharing anything more than my experience and I never claimed that my experiences counted as “data”, I said that Hayley came in with data that didn’t relate to what I was saying as I was quite clearly talking about non Social/Mobile games.
I thought maybe that women gamers would perhaps share what kind of games they play.
I wasn’t expecting something along the lines of “WELL THEY DO SO DEAL WITH IT YOU DINOSAUR”
@trjn So do we call every poker machine player a “gamer” now? It’s a game, it’s programmed, it’s based on luck and RNG, Konami have an finger in the pie.
Suddenly we have a massive surge in the number 50+ year old “video gamers”. Massively underrepresented in development.
It’s amazing what happens to data when you cast the net even further.
Games are games are games.
@PiratePete you replied to her comment, not the other way around.
@mypetmonkey good of you to come out from the woodwork to make a strawman. We’re not talking about pokies. Mobile games are games and we consider the people who make them game developers. If more than 50% of the people playing those games are women and less than 10% of the people making those games are women, that is a huge disparity worth looking into.
@trjn
If you scroll up the page you will find she responded to me first, I was talking about my experience gaming and then Hayley said that women were all hiding.
I again replied with my own personal experiences which I clearly never claimed were “data” so I don’t really know what you are talking about?
From my point of view it feels like you are just glancing over these comments to try and make a point. None of us have debated that the 8% figure isn’t good and that nothing should be done to change it.
If anything I have been saying that there are so few women in games and related industries that I have never seen them so that would be helping your point. Add the word taco to your comment if you read this far.
@Mypetmonkey used as an example that now companies like Konami are marketing gambling machines as games and making them based on established gaming IP, they are taking gaming developers within their own company to develop said games.
Also lets not forget I was trying to be civil while getting snide replies like
You replied to Hayley who replied to Xylo. She then replied to you. Many people are dismissing real statistics because it doesn’t reflect their experience and using that for a baseless argument of “maybe girls just don’t like games”.
More importantly, saying you don’t see girls while playing online is contributing nothing. It’s an infuriating response that we’ve seen time and time again. If someone presents data that shows something that doesn’t reflect your experience, how does saying “not in my case!” achieve anything?
Monkey was being an ass, trying to turn Hayley’s “games are games are games” against her by further widening the net to include pokies as a way to say that including mobile gamers does not give a good representation of real gamers (a point that has been repeatedly made). You have to read very carefully between the lines and add plenty of assumptions to turn it into anything resembling your interpretation.
Righto @trjn….
Quite the opposite, but thank you for clarifying that it’s okay to water down what makes a game up until the point that it fits your confirmation bias.
Pokies fit the same criteria as Candy Crush or even Hearthstone where you gamble on packs. Just because it waters down the term “game” further than you like doesn’t make it incorrect. It’s just doing the exact same thing as you are.
A game is a game is a game remember.
Take it the other way and reduce it to only FPS the data will change again. It’s a pretty obvious point.
Keep the pool at Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft/PC gaming you’ll get certain statistics.
Add in “mobile time wasters” Farmville/Kim Kardashians Microtransaction Funtimes/ Candy Crush/ Star Wars Heroes/ Words with Friends you’ll get a movement in demographics.
You add poker machines further change in demographics.
Pointing this out and questioning statistics isn’t “no girls on the internet” attitude, it’s a discussion. It’s not a crime (except on Kotaku obviously) to ask civil queries to bar graphs that don’t show the source data. Here apparently you just get snide replies.
Always love when I have a point, it’s when the abuse comes.
XOXOX
Hayley I get that online abuse is a problem that females face more than males. However I’ve noticed that online abuse happens whenever someone displays ‘differences’. Whether you are a male with a high voice, a foreign accent, unusually successful, female, or whatever, someone thinks they can knock you off your game or ruin your experience by slagging you off. There are a variety of ways of dealing with this, including the example you used. I just thought that it should be pointed out that a lot of people get online abuse thrown their way — it’s not specifically targeted against women. I’m guessing the more women that play online, the less frequent the abuse will grow over time. It’s not fun for the trailblazers, and I have great respect for anyone who chooses to put up with that kind of atmosphere.
I’ve been slagged off in a game by someone on my own team just for having the audacity to use a female name.
https://scontent-syd1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/12605541_10207415325995422_7903401030633513427_o.jpg
I don’t mean to make light of that incident (although you seemed to take it in your stride) but I would have been crying with laughter if someone started up like that at me. It’s almost a parody of an abuser.
Online games aren’t the only games. I consider myself a gamer, and I almost always play single player games. I very rarely play online and when I do, it’s only with people I know.
That is a good point.
Yep, more than 8.7% are gamers.
Now where in that does it show that the same split want to make games?
Not everyone that plays wants to make.
Maybe, but unless you’re implying that women are intrinsically less creative than men, or that women have an intrinsic disdain for working in technology, there should be a fairly similar percentage of game-loving women who want to make games, as there are game-loving men who want to make games.
There certainly shouldn’t be a imbalance to the tune of 91:9. That smacks of a deep-seated social issue to me. One that probably begins in school and continues all the way through to bro-heavy workplaces.
Good attempt at trying to put words in my mouth.
All I’m saying is that we have no data on how many want to make games other than the amount that are currently making games.
You want to know an actual deep-seated social issue that pushing a segment of people away from STEM (especially computing)?
Poverty; famalies solely living on Centrelink.
But sure, throw more money at middle-upper class females to get a 50/50 balance.
haha wow, sometimes you’re not sure if someone is a right-winger (I mean some liberals can be JUST as misogynistic) but when they pull out the “blame the poor and their welfare” card, it definitely makes it easier! 😉
Okaaay… but a class argument does nothing to answer for a gender imbalance. Poverty affects males and females in a closer-to-equal ratio than 91:9.
I’m all for fighting poverty, but I’m all but certain it’s not relevant to this argument.
I’ve worked in the local industry for almost 13 years now. And yes, it’s predominantly male employees.
Why that is, I can’t say for sure, but I do have my theories. For the most part, even though a lot of woman do play games, not many are interested in actually making them.
Computer programming as a profession just doesn’t seem to attract females as much as males, for whatever reason. In my 13 years in the industry, I can honestly say the number of female programmers I’ve worked with I can probably count on one hand. However, disciplines like art, animation, QA and design tend to attract woman more, and the ratio of males to females in those disciplines is a lot closer.
I would love to see more woman interested in making games but I don’t actually see it as that much of a problem. This topic gets raised every 6 months or so and the same arguments get thrown around again and again. Both men and women need hospital treatment but nursing is a predominantly female profession. Both men and women can be parents but most daycare workers are women. Both men and women drive cars but most mechanics are men. Both men and women play games but most game devs are men. Certain professions attract one gender more than the other, and I really don’t see the issue with that.
Doesn’t this mean it’s only for that initial 8.7% then? Perhaps there is, already but there needs to be programs that provide a meaningful introduction to the industry itself. I mean 8.7% employed women in an industry geared towards men (and it’s ridiculously difficult for them to get a foothold) even with the potential for this grant still seems like a momentous uphill battle.
What if they just don’t want to join the industry though? If that was the case though it’d be hard to determine whether that’s because it’s just an industry they aren’t interested in or if the negative aspects drive females away which in turn reinforces the anti-female sentiment that is present. It’s great to see that opportunities are being created for those that want to join but didn’t have the means to though.
Paraphrasing from my other comment because I think it also applies to you.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s an ignorant opinion of the issue. It’s superficial to think women “just don’t want to join the industry”, there’s mass anti-women biases all through the educational life cycle that push women away from STEM subjects, and that’s putting aside biases in the industry (not just games) that result in men overvaluing contributions from male employees, and undervaluing contributions from female employees. And that’s also putting aside sexual harassment in male-dominated work spaces that further keep women away.
And if you keep saying that, it might come true.
Or at least some people will believe it’s true, even when there’s no evidence to say it is.
So you think it’s acceptable that only 8.7% are women or?
If that’s the ratio who want to put the time, effort and sacrifices in to making it a full time job, then yes.
I think that the bigger news is that there are only 581 people employed in the AU games industry. As for the rest, I feel that more women would be hired if more women studied it.
Programming, game design, etc classes at TAFE and Uni are mostly small classes of predominantly male students. There are, however, many woman studying design, 3D modeling, writing etc. But unfortunately multifaceted folk are often in higher demand, especially in smaller companies. I.e. someone who has studied programming, games design and 3D art together, as most do in a games degree, will be of higher value than someone who has only studied 3d Design etc.
I’m not saying that’s the way it should be, I’m saying that you probably can’t hire more woman if they aren’t studying the relevant stuff. And IDK what you can do about that? Raise awareness maybe?
Edit: As usual, I regret commenting. Any attempt at sensible conversation in these articles just turns into battle of the misinformed. To people on both sides: Sometimes people aren’t as sinister or sexist. BTW, I’m using the word ‘sexist’ to describe misogynists or those who seem to treat any male as a misogynist.
There’s large biases against women doing STEM subjects in the educational life cycle that means that young girls aren’t encouraged to do the “smart subjects”, so there’s fewer that reach adulthood that have the interest.
It’s getting a lot better now, but it’s going to take a few years for it to catch up with the industry (they’re still kids).
Sorry to say that I can’t really comment on that as I moved here when I was done with school and starting my uni student life. I only have experience from that point forward to talk about :/ I’ll keep it in mind though.
It’s a problem pretty much everywhere, but it can be invisible to us guys because we tend to assume that girls are treated the same way as we were in school – sadly, not so. There are countless influences (both subtle and direct) that actively push girls away from STEM subjects, meaning less arrive at adulthood with the interest of being scientists, game devs, etc.
Yeah, where I come from I was in a small school where people were suggested to do the higher grade subjects if their grades where up to snuff, not based on their gender.
Even then there were probably subtle influences. For example a girl and a boy both sitting on a passing grade, the teacher tells the boy to work hard and maybe he can be an engineer, they might just tell the girl to give up.
Or maybe there weren’t and while some times there are, sometimes people can be well adjusted…
You have flogged your point of view no less than four times in reply to several people comments as if you are in-the-know more than anyone else here. Please elaborate how you know all of this are more privy to it when it’s “invisible to us guys”. I have worked in IT for a number of years at several different companies, and I have always seen a fair share of women working in IT, many of which have been managers and some of which I have worked for. However, I have not seen very many of them express an interest in games when casual conversation swayed into that territory. Perhaps many women really aren’t all that interested in games.
“Perhaps many women really aren’t all that interested in games.”
No.
And how can you be so sure?
Hi.
http://www.pcgamer.com/researchers-find-that-female-pc-gamers-outnumber-males/
I’m guessing Games Victoria is trying to get more female directors making films….
Stuff like this has always annoyed me. It’s the same as asking “Why aren’t there more men employed in fashion/cosmetics?” It’s because they aren’t interested? I don’t get it.
Do you not find it concerning that a significant percentage of the population isn’t interest in STEM subjects (this issue isn’t limited to games)? Do you think it’s perhaps caused by deep-seated biases in the population that makes people tell young girls that they can’t be scientists or engineers in school?
I don’t blame you for not getting it because it can be invisible to us because we assume everyone gets the same treatment as us, but that’s not true. There are COUNTLESS factors that prevent women from reaching adulthood with an interest in STEM, and that warrants concern.
That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. You make it sound like there are Clockwork Orange type gangs roaming around keeping women out. There has been a huge push to get women in STEM fields, it’s people like you scaring them away with tall tales about rampant sexual harassment / misogyny.
lolwhat
As a girl I can say that I certainly wasn’t discouraged in regards to pursuing whatever career I saw fit – although that was just my experience.
I guess you’re right – I can’t see it from everyone else’s perspective, but personally I don’t see the issue. It can’t be expected that there’s an even gender split in everything. Idk.
It’s going to sound like a conspiracy, but there are machinations working against women that are nigh-invisible. Teachers grading girls papers less generously than boys, even if the papers are identical, etc.
You’re exactly right: it does sound like a conspiracy. Source and citation required before you utter another word, please.
Ok.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/give-teachers-a-physics-test-from-a-girl-and-theyll-give-it-worse-grades/
You read that, right? The results showed that the gender gap only really existed when graded by inexperienced teachers, but then faded and disappeared as the teachers became more experienced. So yes, your gender bias may exist in the inexperienced, but it is not the inexperienced who would determine whether or not women can pursue certain industru careers. They are inexperienced and thus are seldom allowed to make those decisions in professional industries such as science, IT, etc. Those decisions are made by the more experienced who know what to look for and, according to your article, are far less likely to show gender-bias. Also, according to your own article, the gender biases shown in the study weren’t even intentional, contradicting your statement that “there are machinations working against women”. Furthermore, Sarah Hofer, the researcher performing the study, herself states, “it’s possible that given an entire test, some of the teachers may have built a more complete picture of the student’s physics abilities and graded accordingly.” Lastly, this entire study was performed only in Switzerland and only regarding gender biases in the field of Physics and Maths, which is a rather small sample space when considering all of the possible industries that bias may or may not be shown in, in countries where gender discrimination is not supposed to exist in a professional environment.
In conclusion, your article is not enough to support your argument there are deliberate measures in place to keep women out of specific industries.
Just, urgh. I read the article (I had it in mind when I wrote the comment), but you can’t just debate studies like that. Science is done by consensus, and a single article about anything (for or against) is meaningless. All studies come with qualifiers for this reason; they’re not there to be cheap rebuttal points on the internet.
The citation wasn’t for “omg this is proof that all teachers mark down women”, it was to prove I didn’t pluck the concept out of thin air and that it can happen (as one of many possible influences).
Also I now realise “machinations” was the wrong word (going off the primary definition), as I was talking about bureaucracy and its mechanical behaviour. Not sure what the right word is for that.
Come on Lucas, this is a female giving her personal experience.
Shouldn’t you be following Listen and Believe?
Or does that only count when the female follows along with your narrative?
*raises eyebrow*
Right here, point 2.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/male-feminist-rules-to-follow/
I mean, you are a feminist, aren’t you?
Not doubting what you’re saying, but can you link to any articles expressing this opinion? I’d actually like to read about it, and as you claim to be the case, perhaps I too am missing the reality of the situation. I haven’t noticed any direct or indirect discouragement for women pursuing careers at a school level (I’m male, granted, but have many female friends who’ve pursued science careers quite successfully).
If you want a personal experience I’ve got a couple. Went to the software engineering/compsci room on a university open day back when I was deciding what to study. No one would talk to me.
Same thing has happened at PAX at a couple of the game booths, even when I’ve been there as media. Because I’m female I might as well be invisible to a lot of people in the community.
I’m not saying it was always some malicious act — maybe they were just nervous. Still, the fact that so many game and software designers can’t even interact with women is pretty ridiculous.
Heh, same happened to me at an IT open day. And I’m fairly sure I’m one of the (physical) stereotypes you picture when you think white nerdy male.
It’s almost like most of the people in tech come from a group that have been shunned from society so often that they only usually associate with people they already know.
This is changing, as more people enter the industry and people grow, but it takes time.
Can do! Ars regularly covers the issue:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/give-teachers-a-physics-test-from-a-girl-and-theyll-give-it-worse-grades/
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/bias-against-women-in-science-persists-even-in-egalitarian-societies/
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/women-face-global-disparity-in-scientific-publishing/
I just typed women into Arstechnica to find those, I mostly just read through my RSS feed and absorb the information, but I can try to find some more for you.
I think that these days there are rather fewer barriers than you imagine. Even back in my day (20+ years ago) our conservative country town school had many teachers who were encouraging girls in my class to go into traditionally male professions like Science, Accounting, Engineering etc.
Even at university, female undergrads in Science, Maths and Economics subjects were plentiful (I would guess 30-60% depending). Even the girls in undergraduate engineering courses, whilst numerically inferior to the males, were often seen engaging in the same keg parties and other traditionally ‘male’ activities that their male colleagues were.
Now bear in mind this was 20+ years ago and only my experience in one school and one university. However, this I take as evidence that attitudes were in the process of changing. Employers at that time were from the older ‘male’ generation of bosses. Fast-forward 20 years, and things are continuing to get better and better for equality. I just checked the Science & IT faculty staff listing for my old university and found that females are very well-represented. I imagine that soon it will be the same in the workplace, if it is not already.
Ask a male employed in fashion/cosmetics why there aren’t more men in those fields. They’ll tell you that yes, there are less men who are interested in the field, but it’s also because those that are interested get mocked, bullied, treated like crap, find it hard to get anyone to give them a job and a whole bunch of other reasons that relate specifically to the fact they’re men.
Male nurses are a pretty easy example. Plenty of men want to take care of people. They want the same things from a career that women who get into nursing do. Yet before they’re even at an age when they could consider choosing a career path they understand that it’s not a path they’re allowed to take.
(And yes, I know that it’s sexist that we don’t have the same volume of programs for men trying to get into female dominated industries, but pointing that out doesn’t solve anything. It’s like trying to dismiss a broken motherboard by pointing out that the hard drive is also busted.)
Haha I like your comparison at the end. No I totally get that, I guess I can’t really make a comparison. I’ve only been working in the media for just over a year, and spent even less time talking about games. I guess it’s kinda different, stupidly, for girls, because everyone’s like “omg grill” whereas judging by what you said males in fashion isn’t as popular 🙁
Couldn’t have put it better myself 🙂
It’s also worth mentioning that it’s very rare that anyone actually makes a conscious effort to support that bias against males in caretaker fields or women in game development (or any of these situations). A few jerks take advantage of these types of bias’ sure but nobody is getting together to make these things happen. That’s why it’s important that we go out of our way to address them head on.
Like most race and gender issues it just sort of happens because at one point society got it in it’s head that something should work a certain way. I grew up in a world where being gay wasn’t accepted. People weren’t too keen on stoning them to death, but not many people were ok with it. This resulted in my neutral stance of not giving a fuck about who has sex with who unintentionally supported the many bias’ against homosexuals that were built into the system and society in general.
That’s happened with a lot of subjects and resulted in a lot of unfair circumstance for people who don’t fit into these pre-historic ideas of how we should act, so now we have to make an effort to compensate in order to bring things to a place that’s as fair as possible. We may over compensate sometimes and that sucks, but when you look at the big picture inaction sucks much harder.
It’s not necessarily because they aren’t interested. It’s because society actively discourages it.
Any young boy who takes an interest in fashion or cosmetics is immediately labelled as gay by his peers, gently reoriented by his parents, and warned by all his other role models to consider another path. Even if the effects are subtle rather than overt, he’ll almost certainly never get the kind of encouragement he would get if he picked a more (ugh) ‘masculine’ role.
Is it really so ridiculous to believe that similar machinations are in place against girls interested in STEM subjects?
Well for starters, it’d probably help if they bought the stock photography woman a recent system, and not lump her a PS2.
Seriously though, I can’t see how this is a bad thing
Typical.
Great idea.
My theory is easy; Women are 50% of people. So they should be 50% of everything. Including people making games.
In a perfect world, mate.
In hindsight, this wouldn’t be an issue in a perfect world, so industry participation balance wouldn’t be a problem one way or the other.
More girls in the gaming industry, please. They’re smarter. And girls are good too.
There I thought everyone was “equal”.
Unfortunately we live in an unequal world. We have a 50% of being born a girl or a boy and unfortunately it’s girls who get the raw end of the deal. For girls to succeed they have to work harder and be smarter just to get equal standing. This is not right.
They also smell better (mostly).
😛
Good. I hope it leads to increased participation and increased women in senior roles within the industry.
This is literally the only thing that needs to be said in response to this article.
I’m not convinced that this is the best way to get more females involved in the games industry. They want females with industry experience so I’m not sure how that will encourage more people to enter the industry in the first place. The grant is really only targeting that 8.7%, is it not?
There’s the argument that more females in higher positions will make the industry more appealing to females but that argument only holds so much weight with me.
Actually there is a fairly decent explaination for the numbers. Girls are interested in games, you go to the game schools and you’ll find girls, the number is smaller but they are there and at times far more dedicated than the boys. Out of my school year at the AIE, all the 3 girls landed jobs, while 1 or 2 guys did. 3 girls vs 30+ guys in 2008. (these numbers are over years, its also worth noting this was before or in the GFC, before there was a big indie scene)
As for the numbers, the aus dev scene, its made up of a large portion indies, hiring for the indie scene isn’t always the same as a bigger company. When hiring staff, indies tend to look for people they know, that they’ve work with before from school or another company (this is not always the case but is the majority as it means your hiring based on trust that someone will work or stick around). There is always a sort of bro bonding that females get exluded from, they dont know quite how to talk to us as they do a guy and sometimes that intimidates us back having to break into that inner cirlce. The boys bond easier and call up on their past network and as a female being remebered, noticed, over those friendships formed unintentionally tends to leave us excluded. Most indies start by mates having a similar vision after all.
This isn’t always the case but it sometimes very much is. It’s not a concious decission made on the companies behalf, to hire less females.
Getting kinda sick of Hayley Williams chiming in with vastly misrepresented statistics. For one thing, literally every other study of overall gaming demographics has slightly more males, at about 55%. Another thing, she is pretending that the type of gamer that plays bejeweled once a week is as likely to enter the gaming industry as a gamer that has played WoW for 10 years.
And just because someone has a hobby does’t mean they want to make a career out of it. Many people including myself go to gym, but dislike the idea of becoming personal trainers.
Now for some anecdotal evidence: I have a bachelor of Information Technology (that I have never used) and in the average class of 20 or so, we would have one or two girls. That’s between 5 and 10%, which is the number of females in the gaming industry!
Now I’m not saying that there are no societal pressures keeping women from STEM fields, or that in school they are drawn away from those fields, but the fact is if they decide to pursue those fields they have every opportunity awarded to someone of the opposite gender. In fact being a minority often means their is demand for you (something I experience as a male primary school teacher) making it easier to get a job than the majority.
I support more women getting into whatever field they prefer, however the majority clearly do not prefer STEM fields and while they should be given every opportunity I don’t believe people should be pushed into careers for the sake of equalizing demographics. “Equal opportunity, not equal outcome”
“Equal opportunity, not equal outcome” – hear, hear!
That’s where the money should be spent. Educating employers and future employers on equality and discrimination, not boosting a handful of women up the ladder into a hostile industry.
An Industry made hostile by the very fact that the handful of women have been pushed up the ladder
All I can say – just leaving high school – is that there is definitely equal opportunity right now for people my age to pursue whatever career they wish regardless of gender.
Whether the individual has any interest to pursue a career in a given field is up to them, so maybe those stats will change in the future.
Well the comment section pretty much became what I expected.
That being said, while trying to introduce more women into game development is a wonderful idea the fact that said coercion must be done through monetary incentives kinda irks me. In this country where the unemployment rate is pretty much the same between men and women (which is an anomaly when compared with the rest of the world) at 5%, it seems a bit crap that the amount of scholarships/grants favour women more when they already make up 80% students of higher education already.