but i do think that sometimes one gender is better at a particular type of work than the other, and that we'll never get near 50-50 in every field. for a simple example, males are generally bigger, and hence better at construction work and other work which involves a lot of physical effort. similarly, women usually have more practice taking care of children than men do (because they raise children more), so it makes sense that day care workers are mostly female.
I disagree that one gender is necessarily better at a job than another. Or rather, without social constructs that dictate as much, it is not one's gender that makes one better suited for a job. For example, with childcare, I think women are nurtured into being more nurturing because that is expected of them. It's a created structure as opposed to a natural inclination so it's not an inherent trait in women as a gender. Likewise, I don't think men, if left to their own devices, would be any more or less able to care for children, but as a society, we discourage this in favor of them being "manly" and going out to obtain the resources.
but i also agree that there are some fields (such as car mechanic) which are male-dominated but there's no clear reason why they should be that way, other than peripheral things, like more males having a fascination with cars than females. i think game programming is of that type, because if programming really were a particularly male skill, male programmers would tend to be better than female programmers (which isn't the case, among professionals rather than amateurs i mean).
I don't think gender necessarily has anything innately to do with this so much as that girls are usually discouraged from being interested in things like cars and computers and construction in favor of more feminine pursuits. Which is to say, without people telling others that this or that thing is not for your gender, you would see a more even distribution working in those fields.
also, another thing is that females tend to actively look down on videogames more than males do. so i don't think it's necessarily true that game programmer is seen as this difficult, prestigious job, at least among females. so i wouldn't entirely blame inexposure to videogames for the lack of female game developers, i think that in addition to that the attitudes of many females towards the activity of playing videogames plays a big part. if they didn't see it as a waste of time or look down on people who play videogames, they might have more opportunity to find games they like, and there might be more female game developers.
I did say it was a single influence on a larger scenario and not the sole reason. And I don't think anyone really thinks writing code all day is that prestigious a job unless that's what you want to do and you're livin' the dream.
As far as that goes, though, it probably changes things that I am a girl and perhaps girls are less likely to scorn male-oriented hobbies to a girl who likes them, but I've never met another girl who actively looked down on gaming so much as just didn't have an interest in it. If I did, though, I might wonder if it isn't a Fox and the Grapes kinda thing. That is, at some point, she was given the opportunity to play and for some reason was alienated by it or else was given some other influence to lead her to that opinion and decided that games just weren't good at all.
Which, to be fair, there's a lot about gaming that a girl might night relate to and there's plenty of people who, if she cares to listen, will tell her games are nothing but male power fantasies of violence and sexism that aren't worth her time. But I can't see anyone really taking a harsh opinion without that sort of influence 'cause even as a little girl in the early 90's with all the biases that involves, the other girls didn't want to talk about Super Mario World but they didn't think any less of me for liking it.
Player
