When I ask a friend if I can play Call Of Duty with him, he knows what he is in for. I suck at Call of Duty, he will spend the next few hours trying to teach me how to suck less. I am a girl, after all it is to be expected. The stereotype is nowhere near false; most girls are not as good at video games as boys due to what is possibly lack of interest, and boys love teasing us about it. However, what they love more than that are girls who adore video games. Last week, for example, a boy on the Facebook page “Confessions of a University Student” told the story of coming across a tipsy girl at the bar who knew all the maps and guns to the game Black Ops. He wrote “.. On top of that she was funny and a great crack!” A few minutes later her friends come and drag her away. The boy ends with “We want this to be posted everywhere so if you see this please know that we haven’t forgotten about you, will wait for you every Tuesday night.” The ending is quite humorous and everyone can relate to it, after all if I met a guy who liked to sit around and draw while watching Rom-com’s, I would get pretty excited too.
But around November 27th a phenomenon exploded on Twitter called #1reasonwhy, letting women working in the game industry talk about their opinion on the number one reason why there aren’t more women making games. More than anything, what was revealed was repressed anger being undermined by men in the workplace.
Some examples include:
- “Because I get mistaken for the receptionist or day-hire marketing at trade shows.”
- “The worst sexism is the “harmless” assumptions. I’m sick of being told art is the only appropriate career for a woman in games
- Because when a man condescends to me, I’m told it’s because I’m wearing a pink skirt
- Being mistaken for male co-founder’s assistant …three times? four?
- Because I have other women in the games industry tell me to “just be quiet” if I don’t want to be harassed.
The irony lies here in the #1, as there are evidently far more reasons to why women in the games industry feel interiorized. The question then is, why? Is it because they are outnumbered? Research says that women make up just 12% of the development workforce in the games industry in Britain. But even then, one tweet explains how even after having had more success than her university colleague, he still tells her she doesn’t belong. Is it sexism? I don’t want to toss the term around so in accordance to the idea that sexism is “discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex,” it is. The men dominate the gaming world due to more interest and when a girl can play the game, they love it. A girlfriend who can stay up until 3 am playing FIFA is awesome, however if she’s telling you what to do in the workplace, she’s out of her league. It seems too easy. Is it time to re-evaluate who can and can’t make the games? After all Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3 and Deus Ex are all games programmed by women. Women may be outnumbered when it comes to games, but to assume they are all inept in the domain is false as well.
Naomi Poltier,
If you want to find out more about the ‘1reasonwhy’ issue and sexism in the games industry, find out at the following links below:
http://www.mattiebrice.com/?p=26
http://www.gender-focus.com/2012/12/02/1reasonwhy-truths-from-women-in-the-gaming-world/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/13/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games-vs-the-internet/
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