What It's Like To Be A Woman Making Video Games
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Have you guys seen this article? Thought it was interesting.
http://kotaku.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-making-games-1292389459
http://kotaku.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-making-games-1292389459
Replies
Guys would probably feel the same way in a female dominated industry. I definitely would not like to be the only dude at work with 100 ladies. That would feel pretty damn weird.
Sometimes you just need someone of the same sex to connect with regardless of career and life choices.
Unfortunately, in any industry, women will end up going through one or more of what was in the article.
As a male with a beard (honestly I have no idea if the beard has anything to do with it), even though I have a child in full stroller and sun-hat, you wouldn't believe the suspicion I get from the women, like I'm out to abduct children in 100-child mass round-ups.
Being in any way affiliated with this industry, as a male, is starting to feel a lot like that. It just seems to be very vogue right now to be talking about this, and to vehemently be taking side 'against' the 'industry', which unfortunately means against "men in the industry who on average do their upmost to make everyone around them comfortable, who have no problem having healthy relationships with women as co-workers."
It's like being in a crowd and showing up for a stoning. But the crowd only has a general idea of what the perp looks like, so everyone starts getting hit with rocks. (that's my overwrought analogy for the day.)
___________________________
My wife works in a male dominated field (undercover security, she works with a lot of ex-cops), and is subject to all this same shit daily and more.
Honestly, and I mean this, I have a ton of sympathy for my wife, and I have that same amount of sympathy for any woman who has to deal with any of this in their life, career or otherwise. I don't doubt at all the claims of the woman who wrote this, nor am I surprised, nor do I think she's making too big a deal out of these issues. I'm on her side.
What it comes down to is that the world needs better men. Just pretty simple. I don't know exactly why the industry attracts men like these, but I think it does. I think it might have something to do with hiring mostly younger men who are unattached (no families, no girlfriends, no life built up), who can travel for work, work for substandard pay, and work the overtime.
But in the meantime, I just feel a little hopeless.
The dark side of that is that this isolation also sorely impedes social skills. I imagine there's a kind of resentment (not necessarily a conscious a) that builds up over time, about not being able to interact with other people outside yourself or a very small circle - of being unable to interest girls because one is effectively socially inept. These men then go on to get jobs in fields that are dominated largely by similar social pariahs. Then a woman enters the field, and now suddenly she is exposed to their stunted social skills. For some men, the resentment is active, and they see this woman as an interloper or 'phony' in their field, the field they sacrificed so much of their social life to be in, the one field they _could_ be in, with their interpersonal troubles.
Again, largely speculation. I do have a female friend currently going through the game industry education gauntlet, and many of the things mentioned in the article happened to her as well. Regardless, such behavior from largely above-average intelligent people never ceases to amaze and anger me.
Eh. I get what you're trying to say, but honestly I hate that type of social pop-psychology. It's inaccurate and wildly assumptive, and not constructive in the least.
I was a nerd/geek/etc. I didn't turn out that way. My whole group of friends were. None of them did. We are anecdotes, sure.
This amateur psychology trend of trying to analyze and group based on no information and a history that we construct in our heads to fit the narrative we want to believe is probably best left to radio hosts and political action groups who need to demonize someone, maybe here we can keep it to a higher level.
Edit: An afterthought - maybe it's not so much a 'man's industry' problem, but rather a "most people are assholes" problem? Where for men, the asshole-ness tends to manifest as off-color mildly-sexist behaviour?
In my book, a suffering is a suffering no matter who you are because it effects a person's emotion no matter what it is. To title "What Women in Game Dev Go Through" is counter intuitive to solving the problem.
I rarely, if ever, see an article attack the issue of Gender Expectation/Stereotypes.
Ysalex, you mentioned the suspicions you received for taking your daughter out for a stroll, I can only assume that its because of the expectation to see the woman taking that responsibility.
Honestly, I find Gender Stereotypes ridiculous and irritating, but we are all partly to blame for it in one instance or another. This is an issue that isn't going away any time soon and one that is very difficult to tackle because its so engraved in culture.
The best possible action to solving it, in my opinion, is to stop categorization by gender and just treat it as humans who just want to be respected. I mean seriously...men, women, trans, whatever, we just all want to be treated fairly.
Sorry for the rant, relevant experiences and haven't expressed it for a while.
I think you're coming from a good place, but I disagree.
When I walk in the park and I get dirty looks, I feel shame. I know I shouldn't, but I do. Nobody should have to feel shame for something they have no control over. That is my 'suffering'.
When a girl is approached at night by a drunk co-worker, and that co-worker displays poor boundary control and begins making unwanted advances, that girl feels fear. Fear of rape. That's her 'suffering'.
If you give me a choice any day of feeling shame or feeling like I might be raped, I'll choose the shame.
Two sufferings are absolutely not the same.
As for the drunk co-worker example, the question I ask is: What perceived notion led that man to believe "this is what she wants", followed by a vicious cycle of the victim asking herself who she has to look out for next. Its a double edged sword.
To me, that is the dark dangerous side of gender stereotypes mixed with other issues.
What? Are you saying she must have done something to lead him on, otherwise he wouldn't have acted that way? Are you also saying that now she's reported in appropriate sexual conduct that everyone has to watch their back around her because she's likely to keep accusing people?
I feel like I must have misunderstood.
I think part of the problem is how women are raised. There's still a "pink isle" at the toy store and most games have really obvious gender biases. Women tend to be more responsive toward social technologies though, so hopefully that will raise interest for the next generation.
When more women enter the field, sexism will become a real issue again, and start getting fixed.
Ysalex, I know exactly what you mean. My parents own a nursery school (An actual school, not a daycare out of their house) and you wouldn't believe how much one of the state inspectors hates my father, the only male staff member, just for being there. The parents and kids love him but some people can't get passed a stereotype. When he was in college, no one thought he wanted to work with kids, men were seen as administrators.
Another interesting observation: I used to work in a hardware store, another primarily male dominated field. The most sexist people I encountered were female retirees. If they called, they'd ask to speak to a man, they'd never seek advice from a female employee, and in some cases even ridicule them for working there in the first place. Again, I think it's a generational thing and the current 20 somethings aren't there yet.
I think outside the realm of co-workers and their unreasonable attitude of which there should be rules enforced (such as sexaul harrasment) we should turn towards hiring policies as to be quite honest one of her complaints was feeling she was a novelty.
As it stands women are often being hired in this industry on the back of Equality and diversity and not merely skills alone, which I might add is a department they can get a serious leg up in when it comes to education, with many programs aimed at females simply because they are female, which does turn them into a novelty, it belittles them and their gender as a whole, if they aren't good enough don't hire them, whether they are male, female, black, white, asian, whatever.
People that get treated like novelties, quite often are, skill is undeniable.
Things are not like they paint it there. There are plenty of studios full of ladies
And you should not care if your coworkers are women, you are entitled with a job and if you are enough professional, you must do your job. End of discussion. Afterwards, when you finish your daily job, you will met your wife
In the school, 28 of 45 students were girls. But in the university, there weren't too many girls studying engineering. A place full of guys feels weird for me.
"Well, people who feel marginalized are usually only there to fill a minority quota." ??
Do you know something about her ability that we don't? Otherwise why would you jump right there? Seems like this is exactly the shit she's talking about.
I had this problem when I used to work in an Apple store, as a salesperson and later, a trainer. From mostly older men though, and occasionally from younger nerdy men who wanted to test/troll me on obscure factoids. Older women thought I was awesome. I dunno - something about feeling dumb/afraid to ask associates that resemble their grandson. I definitely see the generational difference though.
This is happening in education for sure, but the real world (outside of HR) is different. Some interviewers feel a woman won't mesh well with a "bro" atmosphere, and thus given a choice between a male candidate and a female candidate of similar talent, will likely go with the guy. I suspect she would have been measurably better. It's impossible to determine how often this actually happens, and I imagine it happens to men who enter female dominated industries as well.
Another person would tell off his colleagues right away.
Women "choose" to blame their insecurities and internal-turmoils on their sex and on patriarchy, but if they just stop thinking this way and act accordingly they'll be better off.
Because like I said, Skill is undeniable, I fundamentally do not judge people upon their gender and ethnicities but skill, but there is no doubt a minority quota many companies look to fill, until people are hired solely upon the measure of the best candidate with the best skill, women who have sub par skills will get hired and looked down upon, it does nobody any favours.
and yes as you say they may have skill but because of this stupid hiring policy they may be dismissed by more ignorant co-workers as being incompetent, but most of these problems emerge from piss poor management not putting people in line with the ethics and standards that should be maintained within a professional company which any reasonably forward thinking person would naturally adhere to.
Apparently according to the person that wrote the article even if you try not to offend you are contributing to isolation and inequality, and if you try and champion the issue you make her feel uncomfortable, and she subtly implies its not just her gender but her age also.
I found that part to be very telling myself, with all the blowup recently of men telling crude jokes then being shamed across social media, can they hardly be blamed for treading on eggshells, and regardless of how she feels about that incident, feelings being a matter of perspective, she was still at that table, I think true isolation at lunch has been felt by many of us within the school system, and you were not joked with nor your delicate sensibilities cared for.
But also keep in mind this woman isn't merely recounting her experiences but is a professional writer.
Some parts I just don't get though: I presume she's talking about going to the bathroom at work? She makes it sounds like that's some scary ordeal where she might get groped at any time, but really, at what sort of workplace is that even remotely a possibility? This just seems really overly dramatized, a place where something like that is possible should just be shut down immediately. Please correct me if you feel I'm wrong.
ExcessiveZero: please stop it, this "minority hiring policy" thing really isn't true. While you seem to suggest it's others, not you, that use it to state "they only got hired because they're girls", you really shouldn't believe in that nonsense.
To give perspective, Feminist rhetoric portraying the games industry as a boys club is a hot topic issue in regards to games and the game industry, Since Anita Sarkeesian and her channel feministfrequency and its videos, it certainly gained some steam, despite Anita herself essentially being quite clearly a fraud the issue has continued along in its height, and while we do often hear of these despicable practices in isolated cases against women, exposure can be beneficial, and quite clearly profitable.
to think someone is incapable of having ulterior motives is naive, a lot of the article isn't based on anything tangible that happened but emotions, how she felt, and a skill of a good writer which I can only assume she is, is to put yourself in another's perspective.
As for hiring policies, while I can easily show the courses and organizations aimed solely at women to get them into the game industry getting HR policies will differ from company to company, so it is a generalization I admit and far from the rule.
Although, while I find this to be a good article for example I have issues with statements such as this.
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/sexism-isnt-keeping-women-out-of-industry-says-ea-exec-6402655
ultimately it just shows the tick boxing agenda of some, not all of these companies not to simply employ the best and brightest but to meet diversity quotas.
This will be the last I say on this matter as I don't wish to aggravate others with strongly held opinions and/or agendas.
How about instead raising awareness about issues women have? Making sure that women do feel welcome? Promoting development as a career choice for women?
The reason there aren't many women in games is not because most of them are not as skilled, but because they just aren't attracted to this line of work, because they don't feel welcome thanks to people with opinions like yours. How hard is that to grasp?
THANK you.
The amount of "genders are equal, so let's focus on women for being women, lol what is logic" threads are getting ridiculous, even here.
What is this, Tumblr?
There is not some completely equal amount of men and women applying for every job, and a load of companies with managers from an 80s cartoon with some agenda of destroying the female population, and creating any number of barely-dressed characters will not telepathically make your hypothetical daughters somehow believe that her entire gender is inherently worthless.
Please do not feed the feminists, or any other people who want other people's media/legislature to cater to them.
EDIT: A lot of conjecture here. Saying the opposite of what someone else says, with equally zero evidence, does not make you win the debate.
Lots of women here in games in China too. Quite a change from the European places I know. The only really irritating thing is that hot pants are accepted office attire here in China - not just in games .....that takes time to get used to. Apart from that it feels less weird than working in those all-guys places that make you feel you're part of a nerd sitcom.
Not very really, its a fantastic conclusion after all, I think people should be hired upon their skill not their gender race or sexaulity and all of a sudden I am the vicious rascal driving women out of the industry with my opinions.
The problem with EA is the assumption that diversity must be balanced, and that if there is more men than women that there is automatically a problem, when necessarily there may not be, but this is just a general example of one of many, and policies will differ as I previously said.
I almost caught myself writing something a bit cliched, but thought ultimately I need not lower myself to muster a defense for such things, but good on you for drawing me out to reply with your vitriolic comments and general attack on my character, which is rather amusing in a way as you have just championed the cause, and generalized all women.
Congratulations.
It was renamed for Kotaku presumably because the new title makes better clickbait.
Good points about isolation, the same can be said of any differences from the mass norm. That by publicly bringing it up in the first place with 'not wanting to offend due to gender, race, other' is as good as and infact does socially identify and isolate the person you are trying not to.
Originally I thought this was going to be some kind of satirical comic strip joke from the title but despite it being a symptom to a deeper underlying social issue everyone can face the article does a good job of making the reader acknowledge it.
*Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to belittle the adversities of what its like to be a woman in the industry, I'm just trying to put emphasis on that it's cause affects more than just gender alone, although gender is obviously the most prominently affected.*
@Bibendum- exactly my point. This was originally on the author's website, which is cool because she is just sharing her thoughts with her readers. Kotaku on the other hand, I question their motive. More than likely they did it just as a clickbait.
I also agree with Xoliul about the toilets thing. If shes scared of going to the toilet alone, then there are VERY big problems with the people at that studio.
However, the rest of the stuff I think she has valid points about, but I would say these are issues across every typically male industry where women are starting to work more frequently. My ex-girlfriend works in the film industry, and no one took her seriously with blonde hair, but started to when she changed its colour.
Don't judge me!! *spits lager*
I'm simply amazed that anyone is singled out for their age - male or female.
I'm double amazed that anyone was surprised that anyone played games at GDC of all places.
Some things were things I didn't consider gender specific: (but admittedly likely in a male dominate workplace)
People shouldn't be drunk at a corporate office, go to a bar people! If you're celebrating a launch then hire a function hall or do a bbq.
Romantic gifts would embarrass anybody.
Toxic co-workers giving you hell when you make a simple mistake.
This is atrocious and it's happened to me at an interview once. No workplace should blindly accept such inappropriate behaviour. Yeah I know "fun police" and all that but it's just too easy to cross the line, and if they do then it should be treated seriously rather than "take a joke."
Which is even more weird if it's the same workplace where the 'lunchtime apologisers' are; people scared to offend on one hand and go way too far on the other.
Overall I think this is a nice article though. Once again I think the games industry is being singled out though. Most important to me though is her focus on anger:
Brilliant. The biggest problem I have with the now overwrought gender in games issues these days is how so many people pick a side and then use the most vitriolic tone to spread their opinion, only to promote a response in kind. I know this is the Internet and all, but trolling used to be a art.
I've heard stories about this from various people I've met who work in my industry (simulators, serious games, et al.) and the stories of people being drunk at work always involve them being canned in short order. What kind of reputable company would employ anyone for any length of time whose skills involve getting wasted in their cube?
I'm not denying that this happened to her, but after being in a professional environment, and observing how offices operate, I find it hard to understand how anyone would tolerate that kind of behavior.
Most likely someone who drank too much at a company get-together. The office cultures are very different between milsim/serious and video games, I witnessed this at the IGDA D.C. meetups.
When I was in my twenties I was the only man in an office full of women and it was uncomfortable. I got along ok with everyone but they did enjoy embarrassing me and I was treated like a little kid. I know it isn't completely equal because I never felt in danger. The only real solution is to not have a gender imbalance - which isn't really that easy to solve.
They also spread rumors that I was a military veteran who was married and had a kid... WTF!?
most places I've been have enacted a "don't come back to the office" policy after events. I know some people that work in "hip" startups in other industries and it isn't uncommon for the boss to come in at 3 on a friday with a bunch of beer for everyone. I think the craziest example is the Games Workshop HQ - it has its own pub.
Speaking of women in industries, the women I've worked with have always been great people and have been "accepted" by the team with no integration issues. They joke as much as we do and can be just as relaxed as the men are. I can't speak for them, but I've never seen any evidence of personal issues being brought up. We're all pretty tight-knit and people being abusive/harassing aren't tolerated because it ruins productivity. I'm aware that our experiences are by no means anyone else's - it's just nice to work in an environment where we all get along.
My wife has worked in the game industry and I can say that she had to deal with inappropriate behavior from men. She worked at 2 different game companies with two very distinct atmospheres. One of them was a smaller game company with the more "nerdy" people and very few women. The other company was a big company with a more even demographic. The difference was quite big when it came to men and how they behaved. At the smaller company she had a good amount of those stories but at the bigger one. Thanks to being more women around and that the company seemed more professional it created a better environment for both men and women.
Someone said it previously in this thread. We need better men. Pure and simple. The fact that these articles are out there it's because of inappropriate behavior from men, not because women are over complaining.