@Crysack said:
@TwoArmed said:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/
In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.
I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.
Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.
I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.
I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.
I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.
It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.
Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.
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