so one person applied for a job several years ago and didn't get it... and she KNOWS she was discriminated against... how? did she meet the other applicants? who got the job? oh, you don't know? ok so... next example...
she was sexually harassed attending game con events... ok...not a workplace... not a job interview... next example...
someone says nobody supports her website... ok...again... what does this have to do with HIRING women for game development?
someone saying they may be left out because they whine too much... hey, maybe they do? both men AND women often whine!
you can't run around ANY industry, be you a male or a female, and call out the most important players for being dicks, and still have prospects, that's universal.
ONE woman had a guy try to go on a date with her than leave... this means the entire game industry is sexist?

i'm willing to believe that you have a real issue and that this is a real fight, but you need to find some real examples, not just people mad they didn't get the job they wanted.

I agree with the opinion that there are better examples that could have been used, but I don't agree with how the above commentor brushes aside and trivialises the examples that are used in the article. Yes, men as well as women have to be careful of actions but the point is, there are different reasons and circumstances these women went through that don't happen to men... Because they are men.

Example 1: I agree that this one isn't too relevant because we don't exactly what the circumstances were.

Example 2: it says clearly the sexual harassment happened in her first year working in the sector. Meaning she wasn't just attending, she was there as a games industry person. Relevant. Dev or not, harassment shouldn't happen anyway.

Example 3: A male industry worker shares his own thoughts and compares what he's seen. Relevant because men too are affected when aware sexism is occurring.

Example 4: a person tried to set up a support network for women but it wasnt supported because some people in the industry "have a problem with that" (suggesting there was backlash) - its relevant. Are there support networks for male devs against sexism / discrimination in gaming? Of not, why is that? Think about it.

Example 5: Very relevant. A woman is offered a portfolio review but is then dismissed when her relationship status is revealed. Very relevant. Does this happen to a man specially because they are not single?

Example 6: Female dev left out of meeting because she was told she was too whiney. The point of this example is, that she was labeled whiney, because of her gender, not because she was actually like that. You're missing the point when saying 'but men and women can both be whiney'. Do you know any male devs that are left out of meetings because they want to share their critiqies and opinions, but the women devs don't want to hear it?

She then adds that she can't call out (in other words, report) the men that are being dicks (in other words, being dicks), because there is backlash. A different type of backlash because calling a top dog out on their behaviour and making it publicly aware puts you in danger of being harassed further.

And no. Just because one example is used doesn't mean that was the only instance had ever occurred, because if you read what many women are saying you'll realise this occures repeatedly.

Because you think some of these are very trivial, doesn't make it okay. Not all examples will be as terrible as sexual harassment and death/rape threats. Even the small instances of discrimination (for whatever reason, be it gender, oriamtation, race, etc) SHOULD NOT BE NORMALISED AND DISMISSED.

Stating that the entire industry is sexist is just plain discrimination, I'm not sexist nor are my co-workers or peers. Please don't lump us all together. Anyway...if you must hate, then hate the interviewer or your boss NOT the entire industry.

there are some interesting comments here, some i agree with, some i dont. once again tho these comments show that there are a mass amount of people that dont seem to understand the simple defenition of context. one thing i hate about this sexism battle is that it is severly two faced. yes there is sexism, performed by fools who feel the need to be superior to somone in some sense, these people are a disgrace to the industry. BUT the industry isnt whats sexist the comment made about the interviewer droping the candidate because she wasnt single is more than likely a case of sexism and a stupid one at that, that interviewer needs a job change, but the fool who says that doesnt happen to men has absolutely no idea what theyre talking about and is a clear example of the double standards that plague sexism. hounestly i dont really see sexism as ever being something you can stop, because quite simply, there are fools who take advantage of others using sexism as their weapon, and the act of taking advantage of others reguardless of the weapon is something your taught to do in school from an early age (tho i doubt alot of people whould have realised this). its a shame the industry cant florish without competiton, and yet at the same time, competiton tends to destroy it from the inside as well.

I was drinking in a pub with a well known owner of a development company (with witnesses). He said he would categorically not employ women because the environment was not suitable or pleasant for women; men who don't wash, watch porn on the internet, taking a risk on women put success of the project at risk - honestly -a reasons he would not employ women. Last time I posted this someone from Develop got in touch within minutes apparently ready to call out this person. As soon as the journalist heard who the person was (successful, nice guy, respected developer) his atitude totally changed. I do believe there is endemic sexism in the games industry (and other industries but we are discussing games here). The guy in the pub's words didn't surprise me one bit, but I was the only person in the group that challenged him (others in the group told me later they agreed with me). Last time this subject was raised there were only a handful of posts, I am sure it will be the same this time round because frankly, no one really wants to bother to address this, particularly during hard times in the gaming industry.

Relevant to everyone, no matter who you are, is the topic of QOL in the games sector. This isn't about a guy hitting on a girl, despite the fact any particular advance might have been inappropriate or unwanted, or even threatening.

Any -ism is about a deeply held social belief, strengthened by myth, that a given person is inherently less valuable by birth; less able to be something than yourself. Less able to think, less able to run, less about to talk -- anything. Holding onto a desire to believe that I am inherently, magically better than someone else is related to my inability to believe strongly enough in my actual, demonstrable abilities ... probably because of a lack of not only support in my past, but leadership. How can a person truly believe their culture has or can succeed by their own efforts and health, not by some god given ability, unless they have a lot of strong leaders pointing out their best qualities and making good use of them?

This is about all the accepted currents underlying a culture that refuses to admit its problems, when there should be nothing wrong with anyone ever admitting that to be a healthy company, a healthy industry, a good boss, or even a good person, one needs to be willing to admit and examine their faults. That's just growth. No person or culture is free of sociopolitical bugaboos, but that's no reason to ignore them. Perfection doesn't exist, and just because someone's micro-culture is their home, and loved, doesn't mean it's perfect, or that they can absolve it of wrongdoing, or that it's not like every other culture. If you have children, you love your children, but you correct them when they're wrong. You don't do this negatively or to spread negativity, but to help them exist on their own one day.

One of the main things I've noticed about detractors in this particular discussion is that, even if they have fair points against whatever they did read, they usually weren't very diligent about reading the anecdotes, information, and reasoning in total.

Here is the bottom line. We all talk about episodes of economic inequality without a problem ... The immaturity of some of our organizational structures; difficulty of overwork, burn out, crunch, and "macho-culture." And people shouldn't be ashamed to talk about this stuff.

The defining difference in the above topic? If a women battles three times as hard as a male to get into a job that said male himself might find fault with, when the female makes a complaint, she gets told to take a Midol. When she's sleep deprived because a 14 hour work day for a man is a 20 hour work day for her, because she's expected to do more time consuming tasks by her household, she's told to suck it up or get out of the business since she must not be very "passionate." When she can't keep up with new software trends because workers are expected to do so in their spare time and she has none, everyone treats it like it was expected, because how could a female really compete when they just aren't scientifically inclined. When a female calls in sick she runs the risk of drawing negative attention to herself, but if a guy wastes the half a day in the bathroom, no one mentions it. When a female wants to talk an idea out because it unleashes the creative process, she's laughed at for being a chatty, maybe ditzy girl, when anyone who is invested in creative work knows this is the most basic of real world techniques ...

It's not about men not having the same problems, or about overt boob grabbing harassment. It's about compounding, low-level disrespect and the negative strength of reactions when turned on female workers as opposed to male workers. What it means is that this is a wasted work force that should be utilized, not made to silently put up with QOL issues male workers wouldn't put up with themselves.

Competition will always be a part of any culture, true. Competition is healthy and gives us a map to follow ... but enjoying your life and occupation is not a competition. The lack of strong leadership in many areas, unwillingness to conceptually grow, continued narrowness of skill focus, the lack of social acceptance shown within small social groups that purportedly handpicked one another -- what would you say if these qualities were attributed to a country instead of your company?

Anyway, just trying to cast another light on it. Make all the above participants men and substitute ageism for sexism if you like ...

There are issues in most areas of computing tbh. The worst case I had was studying ict for 2 years at college. The teachers kept telling me not to worry if it takes me a little longer to pick it up because girls tend to be slower than boys. When we had to form teams of two the one other girl and I would often join together, but they'd insist on us having a 3rd male member. They would insult the female ict staff behind their backs too. When I finally stood up for myself I was told that two wrongs don't make a right and then compared to Margaret Thatcher. In the end I got the highest marks in ict for that year and suddenly they went quiet and had nothing to say (not even an apology.) I've not had any issues since studying game development afterwards but my past experience has hurt my self esteem and left me fearful of entering the industry. I use to wonder if being a girl really did mean I had less potential ability than male counterparts... Some cases of called sexism seem more like a misunderstanding than abuse. As the industry is male dominated it doesn't surprise me that games contain a lot of sexualized female characters for instance, but I don't believe this is done with the intention of harming anyone. Unfortunately people spend so much time complaining about the trivial examples that they miss the more serious cases; I believe some of these women have a valid point to make and deserve to be taken seriously. Verbal abuse like what I had is obviously wrong and no person male or female should have to put up with it. Not all women I've met or read about from the industry have claimed to have such problems, but I think the best way to solve some of the issues would be to address the balance by trying to encourage more girls to take up game development. Unfortunately providing examples of sexism may not be the best way to do this.

Half of me dislikes these conversations because I don't want to be mistaken for claiming I'm personally accusing everyone I know; and there's a big difference between joking and fooling around between friends, or in private, versus professional situations, and I suspect most people aren't talking about that sort of thing.

The people bothered by the depiction of females and the people bothered by the disrespect of females improper to the profession or any professional are somewhat two different issues. Not all the time, they can be the same people, but many of the former have specific problems valid in specific situations (I.e. I personally feel this is over the top ...) while many of the latter have general problems related to that of anyone else who feels lessened because of an attribute they can't help. It's a slightly different topic. It's totally possible for someone having the latter problem to ignore it and keep on anyway but the loss of confidence it keeps inspiring ensures the group remains unhealthy. We used to praise the growing computer sector for being something so versatile -- it was open to you no matter who you were or from what location. In particular, we thought it somewhere women could find a place. Now, even if you're male, you're expected to fit certain stereotypes. Not just in games but in computer work in general, and we seem loathe to correct that. Many of those stereotypes can hurt a variety of careers. How often has a programmer and a bizdev come to secret or not so secret blows, for instance?

I agree encouragement at the educational level is a key element, but I'd also argue for expecting well rounded humanistic backgrounds as well as ground level scientific training all around. Not only might each person have a stronger background independently, the more that people credit from the beginning how different perspectives and disciplines are equally important, the less likely they are to worry about their neighbor's work. The less they worry, the less they'll take their worries out on random people and the more flexible they'll be overall. All types of people work well together in other performance disciplines, so why not here? I'm not trying to imply there's no stereotyping in those other disciplines or their training doesn't have its own weak points (business orientation), but maybe rethinking how we train ourselves from the get go is worth it. No one would claim it takes "a certain type of person" to understand 'playing.'

From that description it looks like Alice Taylor has never worked on a game. Yet she complains that a recruiter said she didn't have enough experience?

This is why sexism claims are so often dis-regarded. Too often women claim sexism for issues totally un-related to their sex. Not getting a job you think you're qualified does not equal sexism.

While I agree that sexism is generally bad, I also don't like how many women only notice it one way. Women generalise about men all the time: "men are lazy", "men can't multi-task", "men can't cook". Yet, if a man says "women are bad at maths", then all hell breaks loose.

What nonsense. I've hired tons of women in the games industry and they make a terrific difference and contribution to design and art. However, when it comes to code or anything that requires analytical skills they're as useful as perfume in the toilet.
Women also make a huge difference to the office environment which is good for the male developers as they toil towards deadlines and need a bit of light relief.

@someone Perfectly put, I agree with everything you've said there. I'm male in the industry and I haven't seen much in the way of sexism other than the gender imbalance. However, some of the responses I've heard from male colleagues as a result of this being brought up as terrifying. These aren't people I'd have considered to be "dicks" or anything, they are people that I have up until now respected. I wont give an example simple because I'm pretty sure most people reading this already have plenty, even if they wont acknowledge them. This is a severe problem and people need to stop dismissing it.

@Jackie unchan:

/What?/

I kinda want to believe this was meant as a facetious comment. Because you're pretty much saying;

1: Women are great at making pretty things and creativity, but they can't manage to wrap their minds around any thing regarding logic oriented work. (Blatant stereotyping.)

2: Women are also important to have around the office as eyecandy and are good for 'the guys' morale during crunch. (...I'm trying really hard here.)

Is your company operating in the 30s or something?

I especially liked the parts where you said that women were "-as useful as perfume in the toilet.", and "-male developers as they toil towards deadlines-"

Mmmm. Because, of course, only the MEN are capable of getting anything done when it's nose to the grindstone.

And managing to tie in the feminine imagery with a waste receptacle? Brilliance, a true stroke of genius.

I'd love to know what those female employees you've hired would think of your description of their role in the workplace.

I must say I agree that things need to change.

There are a few female friends in industry that been through hell... This goes beyond employment discrimination and is frankly abuse that should have been reported to authorities (and that I would have reported myself had the person in question been willing to provide me suffuccient information to do so).

Sexism in this insustry is a serious problem and it needs addressing... Not just in the case of employment and progression but also just in the sence of the basic moral way in which people are treated.

I'm all for giving women extra cuddles to help make them feel part of the team but I've never seen much sexism in the industry which has been spoken of - probably just bitterness after a few too many free drinks perhaps?

Rather than magnify a few minor examples, we need to better celebrate that Women in the industry hold solid prominent roles in PR and marketing for two examples. I can't imagine consumers lining up to get their picture taken with hired booth sausage sprawling across a monitor? That would be unsightly.

I'm quite sure Maria Whittaker would be more than willing to offer her vocal support as her own career is all down to getting her big break in the games industry thanks to Palace Software all those years back.

The crime here would be to discard these positive examples as if they were a frilly negligee on a warm night.

Women are good at certain things and we need to celebrate this more if we are to grow as a mature, more rounded industry.

My guess is people are over-exaggerating or outright lying and have some perpetual victim complex so when one person says something they "all feel targeted" and join in. That's usually how it works. Get over it and do your jobs.

No doubt someone will interpret THAT as sexism to, but that's because of the mentioned guilt complex. ;)
I say that because it's what everyone else does, whether they do or don't get a job for an idiotic reason. Acting like you're somehow excluded based on your gender is sexism in itself.

Once a girl got a offer to come round to one producers place for the night, she refused and the guy replied 'oh well looks like it's another night with pamela handerson'

Is that harassment?