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

[Suzanne Freyjadis]

I know there are faculty and programs doing a great deal to maintain and
recruit female students, which is great!

 

The game industry is really much larger now that the entertainment side of
the equation. Serious games are growing at a rapid rate, which offer diverse
workplace options from a country's defense ministry to a hospital any of
which may be less hostile to females working in their gaming division.

 

I think that the best ways to get more women to choose some aspect of the
game industry as a career is through encouragement and retention programs.
These also bolster the retention of everyone, which is an added bonus.

 

Gone are the days of thinking that the most effective way to help students
find their passion is through weeder courses that make their chosen field
seem like some sort of Machiavellian game. We need more people succeeding in
STEM globally. Technology is only going to become more integral to our lives
and we need a global populace that is comfortable with this transformation.

 

My colleague, Tricia Berry, runs the Women in Engineering Program at UT
Austin and she keeps regular tabs on the female students in engineering to
give them the kind of positive support and feedback that they often don't
get from other places. She will even go so far as to follow the female
students on Facebook so that she knows if they are thinking of changing
majors or are having trouble in one of their courses. Tricia has been
immensely successful in creating an atmosphere of acceptance for everyone in
engineering and she has increased the retention of women in her program. You
can find statistics that verify the success of the UT program here
<http://www.engr.utexas.edu/wep/about/stats> .

 

I know that some Game Programs do have programs in place that focus on
student retention, but I think that it would behoove all game education
programs to make these types of programs a priority.

 

Another aspect of the equation that is often ignored is the parents of
secondary school children. Many parents are wary of technology as a field
for their children. They can be less knowledgeable about the various aspects
of the video game industry and it can seem like their children are entering
an unstable career. In my research I've found that while high school
students may be encouraged by their parents to participate in after school
game programs, when it comes to choosing a college major they want their
children to pursue something they are knowledgeable of such as the medical
fields.

 

It's really important for game education programs that target younger
children to make sure they are informing the parents as well as the children
about the areas where games are applied.

 

Suzanne

 

Suzanne Freyjadis

IGDA Edu SIG Co-Chair

Game Education Evangelist

 <mailto:Freyjadis at austin.rr.com> Freyjadis at austin.rr.com

M: 512-619-4151

Twitter: GameEducation

Skype: suzanne.freyjadis

 

From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf
Of Maria Droujkova
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:30 AM
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Implications of students going into a male-dominated
industry?

 

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 11:27 PM, Nathan Runge <contact at nathanrunge.com>
wrote:

On 21 September 2011 12:33, Maria Droujkova <droujkova at gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, the most interested 1-2% will engage in their chosen endeavor even if
they have to do it illegally, barefoot in the snow, starving, and so on and
so forth.

 

That's making the situation a tad more dramatic than the reality, isn't it?


This is correct. The above is a trope, not a literal statement, and I hinted
at it by including "barefoot in the snow" quote, but I am sorry for the
confusion. The spirit of it is true: people who are really into games WILL
find a way; having started in the field in the former Soviet Union, I've
seen people working with games both illegally and while underfed - for the
love of it. For the record, I have not seen anyone hacking barefoot in the
snow, but I have all the confidence people would, if necessary. 

The literal meaning of the statement, and the real numbers, can be seen in
admission figures for CS departments before and after the dot-com bubble
burst, for example. During the bubble, most departments had two-digit female
student percentages; in the few years after the bubble burst, they could
still fill with adequately prepared students, but female enrollments dropped
to single digits. At a local state university it went from 12 to 3-4
percent. Women pay more attention to social climate when choosing
occupations, and they are less likely to be super-narrow in their
professional choices. 

 

Upon seeing no women in a company, most girls (as young as 12 or 13) and
young women conclude they won't be able to procreate if they choose to join
- for multiple reasons. The main reason being the company is likely to be
clueless about motherhood.

 

I'm not sure that's true. Firstly, the rights of women to have children and
the legal protections


I don't know how anyone can breastfeed for a year (the minimal currently
recommended period for baby health reasons; it's better to go for two) on
the US-mandated maternity leave of several weeks. The expectation of
overtime in all computer-related industries seals it. You may be able to
procreate, but not necessarily experience some significant aspects of
parenthood, as Anthony explained in his personal story. And statistically,
your chances of having children at all go down the more STEM education and
years in the industry you have - if you are a female.

 

offered are well known in most developed countries. Furthermore, that seems
like a strange leap of logic.


It does seem bizarre to me, as well. But the strangeness is not made up,
unfortunately. It is the reality of the current society - expressed in
verifiable numbers. Check this out:

 
<http://workplaceflexibility.org/images/uploads/program_papers/mason_-_keepi
ng_women_in_the_science_pipeline.pdf> "Keeping Women in the Science
Pipeline," found that women who are married with young children are 35
percent less likely to enter a tenure-track position after receiving a Ph.D.
in science than are married men with young children and Ph.D.'s in science.
Not only that, the married women with young children are 28 percent less
likely than women without children to achieve tenure in the sciences."

And the most scary parts:

"Tenured male scientists are considerably more likely to be married with
children than tenured female scientists - 73 percent for men versus 53
percent for women. The report noted that among tenured science professors,
women are nearly three times more likely to be single without children than
men - 25 percent to 9 percent."

Girls and women are very aware of these dangers.
 

The organisation doesn't need to "understand motherhood", and making the
assumption that, because the majority or entirety are men, the organisation
won't comply with legal requirements or be supportive is a tad
incomprehensible. We all have mothers, afterall.


Having a mother does not prepare one for the reality of staying up every
night, a week or two in a row, with a sick child, then going to work and be
expected to perform like everybody else. It affects you quite differently
from staying up all night to play a computer game (I've done both). Two
parents with full-time jobs significantly raise chances of childhood
sickness for their babies, so the situation becomes more likely. 
 

I snap polled all my female friends I could grab at short notice, and not
one has ever thought in that manner, and many find the thought entirely
puzzling. Some are stay at home mothers. Some work in female-dominated
industries such as nursing, and others are engineers (I know a few of
those).


I am very interested in your numbers and the qualitative data (stories).
What questions, specifically, did you ask in your snap poll? I've read a
fair number of studies on the subject, and your data will be of great
interest in the field, and welcome news after decades of seeing mostly sad
trends.

For example, you may work and have friends in circles that do support women
well. If so, we need to know of the circles as a case study, so that the
example can be emulated elsewhere. 

 

This choice (a job vs. a family) is a bit too tragic and heroic to make
during peaceful times. Moreover, women tend to be more flexible in job
choices than men, overall, and less likely to be absolutely sure they will
only be happy in this one chosen endeavor. I don't think people who decide
to avoid strong anguish, by following an alternative they like just fine,
are necessarily weak-willed.

 

 I agree that avoiding unnecessary hardship is not a demonstration of low
willpower, but the leap of logic required is staggering, not to mention
deliberately ignoring well-known and well-established legal protections that
most larger companies have policies supporting.


The legal protections are known not to be sufficient, even according to
current government health regulations. Moreover, they are often ignored by
using loopholes; and they don't protect at all against a lot of events -
like tenure decisions, which mothers are less likely to get, or business
contracts in the industry, for which women are less likely to be selected by
other businesspeople.

Cheers,
MariaD 

 

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