How To Quickly Start A Men Vs Women War in Gaming Threads

Just by commenting about how women are being treated in the gaming community and the workplace or take a pro-women in gaming stance can easily start a men vs women war in a comment thread. Polygon, known for their “debates” and also for their gorgeous web design, posted an article titled “How to attract more women in game development“. Immediately there were negative comments and comments that side-stepped the issue mentioned in the article to making it about “how to attract ANYONE in game development”. Of course these comments were made by male gamers.

[TekoIie]

Link's not working :/

EDIT: working now :)

[DragonKnight]

How to make something out of nothing.

State that a "war" starts simply by taking a pro-women stance.

The amount of garbage that comes out about this subject, filled with confirmation bias, skewed facts, and victimization, has pissed people off to the point where they can't take any of these articles seriously any more.

[TekoIie]

Why do we "NEED" more women in the industry? Do we "NEED" men to make games? The answer is no to both.

I actually have a better idea! How about we say that we need talented people to work in the industry?

[dcj0524]

This

[rainslacker]

The point made in the article though is that people's talent isn't always a factor when they're a woman. The author was basing her blog off her own experience.

However, I do agree that saying we "NEED" more women to do such a thing is as sexist as saying women can't do it. A person's abilities and qualifications should be all that matters, regardless of race or gender. However, that doesn't dismiss the authors point that it doesn't hurt to seek out that creative talent by making it more appealing to women to actually seek out the field of game development.

It also doesn't dismiss her point that there are instances where women have to do a lot more proving than their male counterparts. This is true for a lot of industries, or our culture in general, and is a societal issue not confined to gaming. If a woman is capable, then they should be given the same respect as a male doing the same job...individual personalities set aside of course.

[spawnhellraiser]

Thank you for acknowledging that this blog post was about my personal experience with the gaming industry. And thank you for your points. It was well said!

I do not agree with the point you made about saying "we need more women" is sexist. Perhaps the way that it is read comes off as saying that having more women would instantly make the community and industry better. However, I have never made that suggestion.

From the point of view of a woman in the community and industry, I simply want more women like me present. If it comes down to just being able to TALK to another woman in the industry, then so be it, so I would re-word it as saying women in the industry would like more women in the industry to get that relationship that only women can have.

I'm not trying to be exclusive but inclusive. I am passionate about what I do and respectful and I want to be around more passionate and respectful people. Having more women around that has the same dreams and aspiration as me is kudos to my experience.

Well there you have it. Thanks all for reading my article.

[rainslacker]

I was actually referring to the comment on here in the "we need more women" point. I didn't feel that was the actual point you were trying to put across in the article. Hiring someone because they're a woman is as inherently sexist as not hiring them because of that reason. It fulfills some sort of quota(for lack of a better term) that the company has to meet, and at some point one would have to question, is it because they're women or because of their qualifications that they're given more consideration than anyone else applying for the job.

From my experience while in school studying game design not too long ago and from others I've heard speak on this topic, the ratio of men to women was vastly disproportionate. This is evidence, although anecdotal, that the career path isn't as appealing to women. The ratio in the game design curriculum was 1 in 10 were women...and that's being generous. This is a far cry from the general computer science curriculum where it was more like 1 in 4 were women. Strangely odd statistics either way since women generally are rated better at math overall, and math is vitally important to programming.

In this, I believe that the industry would be better served making it more appealing to women to even pursue. The rest one would hope to come naturally, but the other social and cultural issues you mentioned aren't insular to the gaming industry. They're just much less announced for the most part, with a lot of companies having policies taking a very dim view on sexual or even racial discrimination. Personal experiences can always be given, but they aren't always indicative of a company wide agenda(again generally speaking, not towards the game industry).

On a side note, I can say that while I was in school, I never personally experienced anybody treating the female students as any less capable. For the most part they worked harder and did better jobs than a majority of the males. Again anecdotal, but they seem to be given the respect that they deserved based on their work, which is the way it should be. If anything, it may show that the next generation of developers will be a bit more open to women in the workplace, and I wouldn't doubt that many males don't always realize how they behave towards the opposite sex. This is just a general view again, and not just confined to the industry itself.

[thisismyaccount]

Men fuck Women, therfor we are the superior sex! (excluded the bad parts.. that tend to fuck themself)

Women like to overthink, hence they need to cool off more than men.

Men have 1 chromosome(important one) more than Women, which makes us up to 50% more better than Women.

Men have paenuese, some have even 2x (lucky bastards). Hence we are able to pee while standing, one handed! Women can´t achieve such status....

Women can´t not penetrate others "slotmachines", without additional tools.

Women will transmorph the older they get, Men not until the age of 90-100! Therfor we are superior!

There are moe sexy bitches on this planet, making every men on this planet a happy "fapjedi".

Best cook on this planet is a MAN! from Spain (or was..), we beat Women in their own discipline!

Men can do everything a Woman can, except giving birth..

Women can´t do everthing a Man does,... just look at Women Soccer... geez (give me some "whoobly" tities while playing.. no flat chests!)

Men are always horny, because we got some balls! to play with.

(hihi)

[flappersack]

Men have....paenuese?

[MWH]

hallelujah! lmao

[dcj0524]

Fapjedi. *looks around*. HONEY WANT TO PLAY STARWARS WITH ME?

[DragonKnight]

I had to lol at this comment. Especially the "paenuese." I didn't know I had a paenuese.

But seriously, dis some sexist sh*t right here.