More Girls Need Industry Jobs

The Guardian has an editorial up discussing the need for more women in the games industry. From the article: "The development team of the Sims Online game, for example, was 40% female, while 60% of its players are female. The contemporary life-simulation setting has attracted a non-traditional (ie female) audience in a way no other game has, says the Elspa report. Jessica Lewis, producer of The Sims Online, has said: 'I think simply because more women are involved in the designs and development, a different kind of contribution happens. Diversity ... is a good thing when making a mainstream game.'"

Comments

Computer Geeks are Not Enlightened

[embobo]

We computer geeks like to think that we are enlightened, that there is no systematic bias against women in computer science. We are wrong. What's worse is that we cannot admit that we are wrong. Suddenly, we become unscientific in our analysis of the situation, using in our personal anecdotal evidence to serve as proof against the claim. We think "I never did anything to prevent a women from pursuing a career in computer science." My brothers, we are wrong. Here is a summary of the evidence for this claim: http://norfolk.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/unrest ricted/colloq/details.cgi?id=312

Computer science isn't advancing as well as it could due to the fact that intelligent women who would otherwise contribute are being repelled due to male influence. It's humbling to admit that we aren't as enlightened as we think we are, but we need to. Only then can we learn with an open mind what we need to do--suppressing our pride and other misplaced feelings of righteousness and instead focusing on the data--to rectify the situation.

Re:A few points...

[tod_miller]

Chick is a synonym of bird. Bird is an old word that means baby, and was not a derogatory term for a female. If anything, Bird may seem more derogatory than chick in today's world.

Bride, certainly not a derogatory term (or do feminists now think so... gee I like how feminists proclaim they represent all women... how bad is that? anyway..) and bride is actually the same word as bird.

So there.

Personally all the holes in my job take no offense to my address to them, they are too afraid of a good he-bitch-man-slapping. OMGLOLKTHXBI