#1ReasonWhy - The night Twitter took on the industry's sexism
How a simple hashtag spawned a mentor movement for female game developers
Sometimes Twitter is just about what you had for lunch and why you hate Monday, but last night it became a forum for women and men who had faced sexism in the games industry. Using the hashtag #1ReasonWhy developers and other industry figures spoke out about some of the reasons there weren't more female game developers.
Mattie Brice pointed out one of the most basic problems: "I had to make my own game in order to see someone like me as a main character." While Austin Ivansmith's contribution explained why that might be.
Because 'It's too technical' or 'We ran out of time' to make a rig for a playable female character," Ivansmith wrote.
[Note: Ivansmith has contacted us to clarify that the origin of his tweet "was in regards to excuses made by publishers in the last few years as to their lack of inclusion of female playable characters (which I find to be a ridiculous excuse, as I pointed out in the comments of your website)."]
"Men like me are badasses, so cool and hilarious. I'm a disrespectful loud-mouthed bitch"
@leighalexander
LM Lockhart gave the difference in salary for male and female game developers as a reason, something echoed by other tweeters, whilst problems even getting hired in the first place were issues for others. People shared stories of potential employers losing interest when they found out an employee wasn't single, or questioning their abilities. And when they do get hired? Being accused of being doing so for their physical attributes alone.
There were darker stories too, of inappropriate behaviour from colleagues, of tips on how not to get stalked passed between female co-workers. And outside their offices, at industry events, the problems only became worse.
Because conventions, where designers are celebrated, are unsafe places for me. Really. I've been groped, said Filamena.
Because I feel like I am not welcome at E3 even though I have been making games for 31 years, added Brenda Romero while Irrational Games' Beth Beinke, a level designer, revealed she had been mistaken for a booth babe while representing the company at events.
And then there were the women who tweeted to say they were too scared to give their reasons, that they worried it would hurt their job prospects or simply attract too much abuse.
Because you can't just be a 'game developer.' No, you will always be a 'female game developer'
@reynoldsphobia
I don't talk about the crap I've gone through in the indie RPG community so new women designers think they're alone. So I'm #1reasonwhy, admitted Elizabeth.
Some of the tweets from men also helped to give wider perspective on the issues, with one of the bravest and most startling coming from Jace Proctor of San Franciscan developer Fifth Column Games.
Because when we hired a female engineer at my company, I was skeptical. She's talented and awesome. I'm part of the problem. #1ReasonWhy
In fact it seems that the source of the #1ReasonWhy tag was a simple tweet from Luke Crane, who simply asked why are there so few lady game creators?
Harvey Smith of Arkane thanked all those women who faced the problems highlighted by the hashtag for keeping going, while other men like Zach Brosz pointed out that they can face abuse simply for addressing sexism.
Because just for sticking up for female gamers I'm seen as a "traitor" to the male gaming society. That or a white knight.
And Remedy CEO Matias Myllyrinne used #1ReasonWhy to encourage women to join his company.
More diversity will only help us all make better games. Please apply.
Because if I succeed, I'm exceptional. And if I fail, I'm proof that women shouldn't be in the industry.
@sweetpavement
And with the confessions and debate came the backlash. While there's little point in feeding the trolls here, it's good to see a snapshot of what women experience when trying to make their voices heard on the issue.
#1reasonwhy B/C some are derailing the discussion & engaging in the same misogynistic behaviour that originated the hashtag in the 1st place, pointed out Regina Buenaobra, North America's community team lead for ArenaNet.
Dillon Paradis, a game creator in the making, was one of those who posted, apparently without irony, using the hashtag.
I look at #1ReasonWhy and I laugh at all the feminists who think they matter. If you were good in your field, you wouldn't be misrepresented
But #1ReasonWhy has achieved more than just raising awareness among Twitter users. As the conversation continued another hashtag was born, #1ReasonMentors, which saw developers step forward to help each other.
Beinke was one who offering help to women interested in design, and Brie Code, a lead programmer at Ubisoft, also stepped up. (If you're interested in joining them, this link will take you a complete list of tweets using the mentors hashtag.) The list is growing, with more and more developers, male and female, from studios big and small, joining. It seems that as well as highlight the issues faced by this generation of female developers, it could change the future for the next one too.
We are not paid to implement our own games, we are paid to do what the marketing/publisher (etc) wants.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Tom Keresztes on 27th November 2012 4:38pm
I'm sorry you don't want to hear about this, I guess? Discussing the negative experiences many women who work in games have(and that is what the hashtag is for; provoking that discussion) is an important step in identifying the issues discouraging women from enriching our industry. The dismissive comment that 'certain professions attract different demographics' is just trying to shut down the conversation, it's not helpful.
That said I have been witness to some pretty shocking behaviour, but not from people that I choose to associate myself with. I just can't get into the heads of the people who behave like this. Do they not have any common sense or guilt? More importantly, how do we stamp it out? A campaign of naming and shaming?
If true, then it puts a reason other than simply establishing or maintaining equality in the workplace as a reason to get a good gender balance in your workforce. The challenges in achieving that are not simple, but one I think every industry will benefit by working towards.
But neither of those things is true. There are HORDES of trained, talented women out there who have been beating at the industry's door for years and eventually crumple after the umpteenth time someone spends 2 hours interviewing their breasts and then dismisses them as "Not technical enough" - even when they didn't ask any technical questions.
It's improved massively over the last 5 years or so, at least in the parts of the industry I have contact with, but the memory of the early days still leaves me with an urge to scrub all my skin off in the shower.
Too many men look at the video game industry as an extension of their G.R.O.S.S. club when they were 6.
However, from my personal experience in the classroom and in the workplace, the biggest reason that there aren't more women in game development is that our culture - educational, professional, societal - steers women in other directions. (There's an argument that biology plays a part, but I'll skip that for the sake of everyone's sanity.) Progress on the cultural front will create a critical mass of female developers that inevitably causes the other dominoes to fall.
Like you said, it is getting better. There are more girls who grew up surrounded by games and technology, and thus more who decide to pursue a career in those fields.
I also think Twitter is a horrible way to conduct this kind of discussion. Since it's hard to provide reasoning, context, and details in 140 characters or fewer.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Neil Sorens on 27th November 2012 6:47pm
There is no difference between male and female employees in my eyes; if someone isn't good enough then they aren't good enough. Being male or female should have no bearing on decision making, but I do understand that we are a small independent company and this is probably more of a problem with large companies (could be wrong though).
We have had female employees and they got on great with the team and visa-versa. If the job paid X amount then this was across the board, which does make me wonder why some companies pay women less than men. Surely if the employee is good at their job then they should be paid the same regardless of sex? I could never understand why this happens.
I will have to add though, I have had far less females applying than I have males and at the moment we are 100% male team simply because we generally don't get females applying or sending CV's. Maybe it's all the stories of bad treatment, lower pay etc.
There have been so many discussions, panel debates and questions over why there aren't more girls in games. But we're forgetting, its not that long ago in the grand scheme of things that the industry in terms of consumers were dominated by boys and men. A little bit before that, a lot of people viewed video games as a specifically male past time more so than something girls are interested in.
Thinking back to school, thinking back to uni, the number of girls actually interested in going into a video games career was slim to none depending on the scenario, and it was because they didn't have a high interest in the field or the subject matter. I knew almost none at (any of several) school(s) and there were a few (2-3) on my games technology course, despite the almost 50-50 number of girls to boys on informatics courses. Other female friends I have studying or looking for a career in games are a lot lower than the numbers I can pick out for males, and this is considering I have a very large proportion of female friends.
I've said before that women aren't a special case, they're 50% of the population they should not be viewed as a completely different species and shouldn't necessarily be singled out. HOWEVER, studying women is quite important in this context, and I really want to know personally, how we can get a much higher percentage of this 50% of the productive, working population into the country's number 1 entertainment industry (and a fantastic creative industry itself) from a careers perspective and find out the cultural or personal reasons preventing this from happening.
Right down to school age, why is it that the sexes may branch off into different fields? I do also wonder looking at the very high percentage of female gamers now, up to 50% depending on the statistics, if this will have a major affect on women choosing games as a good career path.
The Tec Guy ~AC
I wasn't speaking directly to Maddie's point, or making an excuse as to why there aren't more female playable characters. I was actually quoting ridiculous claims by developers on some shooter games who only feature male playable characters. It isn't a valid reason to not have a playable female character in a game, as proven by Volition with the Saints Row series, and having gender neutral animations working on either male or female characters.
There were a lot of men responding last night and giving their own takes on why things are the way they are, I was making a satirical statement on things actually said by devs in the past.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Nick Parker on 28th November 2012 4:25pm
Considering the lower % of women in games, I've seen them in leadership positions at all three games companies I've worked for and there are some more high profile out there in the industry i.e. Jade Raymond, Amy Hennig, Corrine Yu, Lucy Bradshaw.
I'm not sure if it was a question based on the idea you hadn't seen many or just a general question. As always, could be more I guess, but I honestly don't know the statistics relative to the the proportion of that gender within the industry to compare!
~AC
From the CVs and covering letters we select the best candidates and bring them in for interview. From these we select the best person for the job. Irrespective of gender, race, nationality, age, disability, sexual orientation or any other irrelevancy.
You can see the results here: http://www.kwalee.com/people/
If more strong female candidates applied for our jobs then we would employ more females.
I think the issue of women not working in games starts quite a bit earlier than the application stage, to be honest... Many game developers will tell you this is the job they dreamed of as a teenager(I certainly did), but I would suggest that it is at that stage that young people start really feeling the weight of societal expectations to fulfill their mandated gender roles. 'Nerdy computer stuff' like programming or playing core videogames is still seen as the preserve of young men - and thus they become developers and make games for young men who become developers who make games for young men because 'that's where the money is', ad infinitum...
Meanwhile, nerdy and geeky girls have to face not only the general disapproval that comes from refusing to toe the gender dichotomy line, but also find themselves forced to 'prove themselves' to the insular and often fiercely elitist and competitive communities they wish to join - simply because they're women. It's tough, and many give up and look for somewhere they don't have to fight so hard to be allowed into the clubhouse.
Basically it's a societal problem, rather than something unique and born of the games industry itself.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jessica Hyland on 29th November 2012 10:25pm
Most guys I meet are ECSTATIC when they hear I'm into doing art for, and playing, games. So why when it comes to hiring, are they asshats (of course, NOT all--just the ones with no brain and are stuck in 7th grade)?
I agree with Jessica all the way.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Danielle Masek on 30th November 2012 4:25am
Nobody I know of thinks that this is at all unusual, just that she is a very bright girl. Who is pursuing a career in astrophysics.
Both my sisters got a science education way back in the 1960s. One went on to become a biologist, the other a doctor.
And my wife is a doctor who is currently doing a science masters. Many of her female friends have similar academic backgrounds and jobs. And nobody I know thinks that this is at all unusual. Just bright people following sensible careers.
But males and females are different and have different strengths. This is because there was evolutionary advantage in performing different roles. So for example females tend to have better interpersonal skills and manual dexterity. Males tend to have greater physical strength and spatial awareness.
Creating a game and bringing it to market takes a very wide range of skills. It is evident that males will tend to have an advantage at some of these skills and females will tend to have an advantage at others. This is a consequence of our evolutionary differences. And to deny so would be patently absurd.
Do you even read what you type? Or what I said in my last comment? You sound like you're talking about livestock or drosophila or something, it's damned creepy.
At Kwalee we have employed some very tall people, for instance.
But it does happen, and it's a bad thing. I'm having this conversation on several different forums right now so I'm starting to lose track of where I said what, but sexism is not a unique problem to the games industry. Nor even is the hugely unbalanced male:female employment ratio(I imagine truck drivers or similar industries have pretty bad ratios too) - but the point is that we should be looking for ways, within our industry, to encourage more women to consider working in games and to try and eliminate sexist practices and attitudes. More women means more diversity of experience and hopefully then a greater diversity of games being made.
Look here for supporting evidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal
There was this: http://www.essortment.com/bobby-riggs-vs-billie-jean-king-44759.html
But Wimbledon singles are still not mixed. :-)
Evolution has made females better than males at some things and males better than females at some things. It is true of lots of species.
And it is why there are no female players in the premiership. There is a whole science about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans
And no amount of political correctness will undo evolution. We are what we are.
One way of identifying sexist hiring practices is the "Blind CV Test": a bunch of CVs are provided to employers with identical academic qualifications and years of experience, but different sex of applicant. What such studies have found in nearly every case is that an applicant with a "feminine" name is universally regarded as less capable and offered a lower salary, despite the CV being identical in every material aspect to a more highly-rated male one. For an example (not from the games industry but from academic science, but it's the most recent one I have to hand): http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/09/19/scientists-your-gender-bias-is-showing/#.ULkuSYOYneK
Such decisions don't even seem to be conscious; it just seems to be the world's subconscious default that a straight-acting white male gets a 25% perceptual bump to his capabilities (which I don't say with intent to insult - I'm sure you all *have* the skills, it's just that people see them far more easily).
As an aside, I also get why Jessica reacted to "females." It's a very common thing with some incredibly nasty sexists to use "females" like we're some bestial species. "Females are only interested in money." "Females are only good for one thing" etc etc.
"If more strong female candidates applied"
If retyped as "If more strong women candidates applied", it would read odd. If he were regarding the opposite sex, the same would apply.
"If more strong male candidates applied" reads better than "If more strong men candidates applied".
Bonnie is correct that the term is often used intentionally to disparage women but I don't believe that was the case here given the context.
However, "One of my friends has a female offspring". Yeah, that was intentional.
Bonnie, I read about that report when it surfaced a few weeks ago and it's dismaying reading :(
Just sayin'.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Tristram Defries on 2nd December 2012 5:49pm
You want to reach an informed opinion and you believe you can only do that with something more convincing than anecdote, e.g. a study or three, which is all perfectly reasonable - although you don't seem to hold your current view (that sexism isn't a significant problem) to the same standard. But why dismiss or actively doubt the personal testimony from women? It's symptomatic of what they are complaining about / commenting on!
I think you missed my point there. It's my understanding you have the opinion that sexism is not a significant problem (you aren't sitting on the fence or holding a strong opinion either way). Did you reach that opinion after looking at a similar standard of evidence you requested from people in this thread?
If my understanding of your opinion is wrong, I'm sorry for misinterpreting your comments.
http://www.codefrenzy.net/2009/03/01/girls-in-it/
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Tom Keresztes on 3rd December 2012 11:28am
In order to change the player, we need to change the game. In order to change the game, we need to become better game makers. We have spent millions on research and technology to improve the quality of games but what good is it if we do not tap into the human element. We have the opportunity to use an interactive medium, literally at the peak of technology, to inspire and change the world. If we make better games, we will make better players, and that generation will learn and continue to spread the positivity that we as developers intend to share with our audience. We should not have to respect one another because of a twitter movement; it should be something that we do because we are decent human beings. I am proud to be a game developer, I am proud to move the industry forward, but more importantly I am proud to positively influence the next generation. Whether it is through my games or my actions, I want to leave a positive mark in this industry. As the world progressively evolves, games will eventually catch up and I hope that one-day will be able to look back in disbelief at the way we acted. I would like to clarify that I am not advocating that we change the business model, but rather the business practice. If games are supposed to be about creating inclusion, why don’t we follow that methodology while making them?
The whole issue is this: There aren't many girls in the industry, because of many reasons, of which one of them that the industry as such doesn't have a good publicity when it comes to overall atmosphere around women.
And to make it worse, when you actually get in and have a job, you have a good chance in Western Europe to meet people, who are less the civilized when it comes to behaving in a work environment.
Now we can say that it is only because these particular individuals are not nice, and so this is not sexism, but rude people being rude. And sometimes that is true. And I also worked in places where men are great and polite and you know, all in all normal. But after 13 years in this industry I wonder if porn mags in the toilette, naked pin-up girl pictures in my mail box and the frequent mentioning of my or any other girl's monthly period can be taken as a humorous thing.
And you know what? Staring at my boobs instead of looking into my eyes is also weird. Even if I am told that my fellow colleague is a male and thereby it is not his fault.
Obviously all these things never bothered me enough to leave the industry, and I was told by other women that we shouldn't talk about these things, we should only talk about the 'good' stuff. Only these women were usually in positions, where they actually had very little interactions with the working developers.
But I am not going to act like it is not there and I am not going to let people belittle what sometimes you have to go through. And Laurens once again, maybe you are fantasticly polite and open-minded person. Good for you. Not everybody is like you. And I don't actually think you have the right to decide if sexism is a problem or not when it comes to women in the industry, because you are not a women, so you probably have no experience.
I did start with lower salary than any of my co-workers. They were all males. That was also many years ago. All our salaries grew during the years, but because they started from higher, they always had higher salaries.
That is a kind of gender gap.
The other is that we talk about the games industry. I frankly don't care about teachers and doctors salary, that the their own problem to fight for. But all the women I worked with stayed the same long hours, sometimes even longer, than the men. And yes, sometimes people get families. And in the US, where the social benefits are not really beneficial, probably the women would stay home with sick kids, but as we all know, Europe is a bit different.
So blaiming the fact the women work less hours because they have family and so they should get less money is just stupid. Mostly because men cannot give birth the last I checked. So based on this, are we punishing women because they can?
I think those articles are not representative of the overall opinion of the female workforce.
So my article back to you is this:
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/980/game_developer_salary_survey_.php
and please don't tell me that every single one of those women work less and have families...
i don't exactly know where to start, so lets get rid of the article question first.
I hope you understand that what people write down many times is only their opinion rather than a factual, objective thing. The lady in the Forbes is a known anti-feminist conservative republican (you know, they are the ones who say that women don't get pregnant when raped because their body shuts down). She belives (wrote a book about it) that women should stay home and be housewives because then everybody would be happier. So I decided, that while she has right to her opinion about how much women work in the US, I also ignore it as a factual thing. Especially, because in the Republican (Bible-belt) part of the US men don't really help with household duties, so the less-working wife after 8 hours of work can run home, pick up the kids, do the dishes, cook food, clean up and probably can expect no help from her 'better' half. Meanwhile in Europe we are better off as our better half actually help with the chores at home. I had no time to look into the other article's writer. But I have written articles before and I bloody hope nobody will use them as factual proof for anything.
Porn mags at work. Yes, it has happened in the beginning of my carrier, stayed with us for a couple of years, then after a while they disappeared. Same happened with the strippers at the Christmas parties.
In England I had very nice experience with everybody I worked for, meaning, it is not always that you run into people who have problems with girls or have bad sense of humour. Cos I want to believe that most of these things happen because some people try to be funny. Else I would have to believe that they are malicious, I that would be terrible.
I was molested by one of my former co-workers. It also happened many years ago. I didn't do anything about it that time for many reasons, to name a few: I was the only girl at the company and for a while the only foreigner too, I wasn't sure that they would have believed me. If they did and they lets say fire the guy, how would I have been able to keep working the same place with the same people when they knew that I spoke up about something like this? If they didn't believe me, I would have have had to leave, because I was 'false' reporting somebody. At that time this country (Denmark) had only one big company, which by the way I really liked working for, I would have had to move. To another country. Which is no fun, I did it a couple of times. Since then I wondered if I should have done it anyway, because this person is still in the industry doing God knows what to other girls. I know, it could have happened in any other industry, but that doesn't make it right.
Which you seem to not believe in. I worked for big companies with lots of people. In small companies I think people are much more visible and maybe mind their language better. Also I don't claim that it only happens in our industry, far from that. But I have learnt something from a guy, who used to be my lead for a while, which was this: What you feel is always true. Anybody can come logically explain that nobody hurt you and you are thin-skinned and you are misinterpret things. But if that is what you feel, nobody can make you not feel it. So it is the truth for you. If any person feel mistreated because of their gender, religion, skin colour or shorter left leg, then it is an issue, because for those people it is very real.
I spent 7 years working as a lead animator. So I can ask for promotion and more money too. Obviously as a girl, it takes me extra effort: [link url=""]http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/01/22/he-s-not-as-smart-as-he-thinks.html[/link]
My answer to your last article is that I totally believe that girls can make it in the industry. I was only reflecting on why we think the industry can get better attitude towards girls. But let me ask this: Lets say you have two equally qualified, talented and nice applicants both with family. One is a man and the other is a woman. Who would you hire? Cos what runs through most people's head is this: I can hire the girl and thereby make the procentage of the gender ratio better and I can use that to get more publicity. Or I can hire the guy, who will not stay home pregnant, and don't miss days because of sick family members. A woman with a family is liability. A man with a family is a settled and responsible.
Now lets remove the family from the equation... Does it get better? No. Why? Cos even if they are both single, people have the preconception that the guy is a nerd but the girl will have a family eventually.
Last thing is the article I sent you about the wages. There is a comparison between what men and women make in the same category. Lets look at the artists, as that is what I know most of. So by this somewhat at least factual survey, women make $13k less a year than men. So it can mean two things. Or actually three. One is that most women in the industry have less than 3 years of experience (in order to get the right numbers), two that they work almost 20% less than the guys. Which knowing a bunch of female artists and myself, sounds ridiculous. That would mean a whole day a week women don't work. Or three, they get paid less. Mostly what is possible, that it is a mix of all and some more. But the lower wage is still there.
Now we can go on forever bringing up articles pro and con. But I think the biggest problem is still this: There are fewer girls in the industry than it would be beneficial. And some part of the industry ( I guess this is where you belong too) simply doesn't want to accept the fact that it can be partly blamed on certain gender specific behaviour. And by not accepting, there is no change.