4 ms·

Do women really have a harder time getting game dev jobs overall just because they're women? Is there actual evidence for that? How would the industry look if t

Do women really have a harder time getting game dev jobs overall just because they're women? Is there actual evidence for that? How would the industry look if there was no such discrimination? How would we know that the problem was solved?

dahart 4y ago
Yes, women really do have a harder time, at multiple levels. And there’s literally mountains of actual evidence. One way to know when the problem is solved is when the rates of gender disparity, whatever they are, settle for a long time and are the same in all countries, and that women as a whole agree that things are fair. We’re barely ~100 years (1 human lifespan) from women having the right to vote in the US. Before that extreme cultural bias was baked into law. In some countries it still is. We’re maybe a bit over ~50 years from the start of computer science as a widespread field of academic study, the start of which involved very few women. The number of women in CS in the US went from zero to 37% in the 80s, and then went down (why?) and is now hovering around 20%. In Indian, the number of women in CS has in the recent past exceeded 50%. The fact that the numbers are changing rapidly, and that they’re different in India vs the US is proof of cultural biases.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  Can you share some of the evidence? You've explained that you think it would be solved if it looked like what you described, but it might never look like that even if it was solved, so we'd never know. Perhaps a more useful question would have been how do we know the problem still exists? What's the evidence that women are treated worse in the game dev industry because they're women?
  - dahart 4y ago
    I did share some of the evidence; what I pointed at does prove the existence of a problem, it is more than simply what I think an eventual solution would look like. The fact that the level of CS education is changing and different in the US vs India demonstrates that it cannot be intrinsic to women or because we’re talking about women, it must be something else. Given this fact, at some level you should be asking yourself the question where is the proof that there isn’t a problem? If there’s any question whether we have a social problem, and it reflects on us poorly, then don’t we have a responsibility to investigate, as opposed to denying it? Women are reporting their experiences, and stories of game dev toxicity have hit the national media multiple times, with studios subsequently admitting they have problem. There is still a well documented pay gap. There is under-representation of women in industry compared to numbers of women that aim for the field studying art & computer science. I was also partly referring to the widespread documentation of bias problems today in all industries and in all countries, not necessarily specific to the US or to game dev. We just haven’t yet solved all sexism & racism, the evidence for this abounds, and it’s not that surprising since not enough time has passed. If you’re really curious please actually do some active research of your own and don’t wait for someone on the internet to defend it. Read the history of Suffrage. Read about the glass ceiling over the 20th century. Take a look at the stats of women in various field over time. Read a little of some of the feminist thinkers. Talk to multiple women, game devs even, and get their perspective, they don’t all have the same experience nor see it the same way.
numpad0 4y ago
Having told that more than 50% of anime style illustrators(including hardcore porn) are in fact biological female, I doubt majority of these blanket statements can be substantiated. Perhaps it applies more to managerial roles in AAA game studios as that will be matters of corporate environment exploitation & survival than about pursuing life in creative content making, but that would be a wider issue than storylines included in products marketed to a target group, I think.

dahart 4y ago

Yes, women really do have a harder time, at multiple levels. And there’s literally mountains of actual evidence. One way to know when the problem is solved is when the rates of gender disparity, whatever they are, settle for a long time and are the same in all countries, and that women as a whole agree that things are fair. We’re barely ~100 years (1 human lifespan) from women having the right to vote in the US. Before that extreme cultural bias was baked into law. In some countries it still is. We’re maybe a bit over ~50 years from the start of computer science as a widespread field of academic study, the start of which involved very few women. The number of women in CS in the US went from zero to 37% in the 80s, and then went down (why?) and is now hovering around 20%. In Indian, the number of women in CS has in the recent past exceeded 50%. The fact that the numbers are changing rapidly, and that they’re different in India vs the US is proof of cultural biases.

sacrosancty 4y ago
Can you share some of the evidence? You've explained that you think it would be solved if it looked like what you described, but it might never look like that even if it was solved, so we'd never know. Perhaps a more useful question would have been how do we know the problem still exists? What's the evidence that women are treated worse in the game dev industry because they're women?
- dahart 4y ago
  I did share some of the evidence; what I pointed at does prove the existence of a problem, it is more than simply what I think an eventual solution would look like. The fact that the level of CS education is changing and different in the US vs India demonstrates that it cannot be intrinsic to women or because we’re talking about women, it must be something else. Given this fact, at some level you should be asking yourself the question where is the proof that there isn’t a problem? If there’s any question whether we have a social problem, and it reflects on us poorly, then don’t we have a responsibility to investigate, as opposed to denying it? Women are reporting their experiences, and stories of game dev toxicity have hit the national media multiple times, with studios subsequently admitting they have problem. There is still a well documented pay gap. There is under-representation of women in industry compared to numbers of women that aim for the field studying art & computer science. I was also partly referring to the widespread documentation of bias problems today in all industries and in all countries, not necessarily specific to the US or to game dev. We just haven’t yet solved all sexism & racism, the evidence for this abounds, and it’s not that surprising since not enough time has passed. If you’re really curious please actually do some active research of your own and don’t wait for someone on the internet to defend it. Read the history of Suffrage. Read about the glass ceiling over the 20th century. Take a look at the stats of women in various field over time. Read a little of some of the feminist thinkers. Talk to multiple women, game devs even, and get their perspective, they don’t all have the same experience nor see it the same way.

numpad0 4y ago

Having told that more than 50% of anime style illustrators(including hardcore porn) are in fact biological female, I doubt majority of these blanket statements can be substantiated. Perhaps it applies more to managerial roles in AAA game studios as that will be matters of corporate environment exploitation & survival than about pursuing life in creative content making, but that would be a wider issue than storylines included in products marketed to a target group, I think.