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.

Comments

Re:Sex ratio?

[antifoidulus]

Actually, in societies that don't participate in aborting female fetuses(China and India namely) females outnumber males, even though your stat is correct? Why? Because at every age males have higher fatality rates than females. Seriously, look at the demographics of the US from the CIA world fact book:
for the US
Canada
France
Japan(though there the ratio roughly stays the same
For all of these countries, you see that there are a lot more males under 15 than females, but from 15-65 the numbers tend to even out(in the US there are more females than males in this group) But for contrast look at:
China and
India
where because of gender selective abortions, there are significantly less females than males in the age 15-65 group. Actually, that is becoming a major concern in those places, as you can imagine what problems a group of males who really need sex can cause.....

Great articles!

[kria]

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".

Female Gamers Do Get Attention

[EngineeringMarvel]

I'm the main Battlefield editor over at AmpedNews so I keep up with gaming trends and personal since I cover the main online gaming leagues. One thing I have noticed about the female gamers is the attention they get from others playing in the online leagues. One in particular, who is on my Amped staff, is constantly getting attention from the male gamers.

It takes a certain type of girl to deal with the type of stuff that she handles all the time. She cannot get onto IRC without some male gamer wanting to bother her. I'm sure there are other gamers that I have played with regularly that are female, but choose not to say it. Mainly to avoid all the harrassement from the other online gamers. My point is, not only are girls different, but they have to be ready to put up with a community that is mostly made up of horny male teenagers.