[game_edu] Implications of students going into a male-dominated industry?

[Jim Parker]

Wow, way too long indeed. But many chords struck to be sure.

First: I have degrees in math and in computer science. It's not game 
development, but has similar troubles. CS has an awful reputation for 
encouraging females. Our program is usually under 10% female (worse than 
engineering here). A lot of lip service is paid to encouraging women, 
but when it comes down to it no progress is made.

The environment is toxic.

The men in the subject are permitted to make it so; overt sexism is not 
allowed, but subtle forms abound and are ignored. I have seen women in 
the classrooms not called on for questions, paired with men in labs 
(can't do their own?) etc. Official schemes, like giving female grad 
students extra funding when paired with a female supervisor, seem just 
silly to me. Why do my female students get less?

My senior game design class was 1/2 female, and half of my own students 
were female too. Why? I treat them the same as everyone else, and assume 
they are as smart as everyone else. There's no secret.

There was a theory researched by some psyc researchers at my school 
that the problem with fewer women entering math at University was their 
*moms*, not their dads. Fathers were OK. Moms had no role models to look 
at and discouraged their daughters from the subject (and others). Could be.

Nearly half of players are women, so there's a huge market out there. My 
daughter is an automotive service tech (mechanic, I suppose). Her plan 
is to start a shop with all women techs. Not a bad idea for her; 
companies that design games for the female audience could be huge too, 
and could employ many of the female developers.

Jim

On 9/18/2011 12:22 PM, Ian Schreiber wrote:

> Hi all,

>

> This (long but worthwhile) article has been making the rounds on Twitter

> recently, so I thought I'd bring it up here:

>

> http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/22786_To_My_Someday_Daughter.html

>

> While it focuses primarily on the Magic:the Gathering player community

> (as that is what the author is closest to), I think the sentiment can be

> applied to just about any male-dominated industry, from video game

> development to mechanical engineering to business.

>

> Personally, in my industry survey class I make it a point to spend some

> time talking about gender/minority issues. Students in these groups need

> to be prepared for potentially unjust treatment. Students who are not,

> need to not add to the problem. (I would actually just as soon make

> Women's Studies or Minority Studies a required course for all game dev

> majors until such time as the industry fixes itself, but so far I

> haven't had the power to affect curriculum that much, so I'm left to

> just make a "strong recommendation" that my students will go on to ignore.)

>

> It makes me wonder though: the fact that the industry is predominantly

> white, male and straight, and that this lack of diversity is a problem

> in so many ways -- is this a problem on everyone's radar in the

> educational space? How do different schools handle this (particularly

> trade/vocational schools that are highly industry-focused)? Does anyone

> require students to take an entire class in understanding unequal

> societal power dynamics... or do you graft it on to a single class as an

> isolated topic, and hope it sticks... or do you try to integrate these

> discussions throughout the curriculum (say, by having game design

> students make games for target audiences other than themselves)... or

> does the topic never see mention in the classroom at all because it's

> seen to be outside the scope of game dev?

>

> In short: where are we now, as a collective? Is that where we should be?

> If not, what do we need to change to get us there?

>

> - Ian

>

>

>

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