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Women in Gaming White Papers
Many thanks to GameJournalism.com for the heads up on two white papers put out last month by the Women in Gaming Special Interest Group. The two papers (both excellent reads) are Chicks with Joysticks: An exploration of women in Gaming, and Why are there so few Women in Games? In a related topic, TerraNova has a piece on the Women 's Game Conference and MMOGs.
While I've never been a computer game programmer, I'm a programmer and a table-top and MMORPG player, and I have to say that this is a very insightful article.
I'm very happy that the place I work seems to have no problems hiring female programmers... but I'm still one of two female programmers on my approx 20 person team. Because there aren't that many women out there, because so many women were discouraged from technical fields for so long.
I have felt the atmosphere that discourages women frequently in gamer circles, when I'm around gamers I don't know - guys who tend to be crude, rude, and are there just to hack n'slash. My gaming circle is playing a campaign that features a lot more political intrigue, as well as has major male and female npcs who are more than window dressing. My group is nearly half and half on gender. It's wonderful.
Anyway, the more we make the reasons known, the less we'll have people claiming it's all just "well, women don't want to do that" or "men and women are wired differently, that's all".