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[s0]

imo the thing is this: the common myths about feminism work in such a way that legit arguments made by feminists can sound outrageous if you're viewing feminism through the lens of those myths. example: "male privilege? i'm not privileged, i earn minimum wage! why do you think all men are bad people?"

[gimymblert]

[rj]

oh hey! i linked that earlier (this thread, even) good lecture

[gimymblert]

I know, it needed to be posted again

[gimymblert]

[gimymblert]

The Disney Infinity video game, a way to expand console gaming sales by constantly selling players new figures and characters, appeals much more to women and girls than the company expected. Instead of a 70/30 male/female split, the franchise breaks out 55% boys to 45% girls.

It helps that you can play as Elsa from Frozen or Merida from Brave, female characters with abilities and appeal. That makes Infinity “a four-quadrant franchise for the company in the interactive space, which is the first that we’ve ever had,” according to executive producer John Vignocchi. “When you hit a four-quadrant property, that’s when you’ve made something with long-lasting staying power at the company.”

Who would have imagined that not driving away girls would mean a more successful property? That might be what young male gamers are so afraid of — inclusion is so much a smarter strategy for companies that they’re going to have to share. Plus, the Infinity concept is great. You can play Marvel superheroes against classic Disney animated characters.

http://comicsworthreading.com/2014/09/21/disney-achieves-four-quadrant-success-by-appealing-to-female-gamers/

[gimymblert]

http://blackgirlnerds.com/hispanic-heritage-foundation-and-esa-challenge-minorities-to-develop-video-games-and-mobile-apps-to-open-gateway-to-stem-careers/?utm_source=ReviveOldPost&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost

[Tuba]

I think what we have here is more of a historical issue, it's being solved but it should take a while.

Most people in the game industry are people that grew up with video games and really wanted to work with it. From my experience, the salaries in the industry are low, you work a lot of extra hours and don't get much recognition, if you're making games you either really love video games or you're dumb/crazy.

That said, more men have grown up playing video games than women, since games are mostly catered to man and in a lot of places are still seen as a boy's thing. This is changing now with more and more games being target to women or being gender neutral, it's a slow process but there should be a lot more women in the industry in some years.

Of course there's also this weird gap in the programming area. Most women I know in the gaming industry are either artists or game designers. And I don't know how to explain why there are so few women programmers in the world, doesn't make sense to me.

There are also very few black people in the industry for pretty much the same reason, a lot more white people grew up with video games. But that's a reflex of much bigger social problem that sadly should also take a long time to be solved.

[Sik]

And I don't know how to explain why there are so few women programmers in the world, doesn't make sense to me.

Originally programming was a women-only job, believe it or not. Software was seen as unimportant and money was in the hardware, so making software was seen to be as low as doing chores in the house (really). When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

[Tuba]

And I don't know how to explain why there are so few women programmers in the world, doesn't make sense to me.

Originally programming was a women-only job, believe it or not. Software was seen as unimportant and money was in the hardware, so making software was seen to be as low as doing chores in the house (really). When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

The text is a little shallow but it's pretty interesting.

I knew that there were a lot female programmers in the past because switching cables and handling punched cards was seen as something akin to knitting, hence, women were preferred for the job. But never knew how that suddenly changed.

[nikki]

question to US citizens:

in my country the percentage male primary school teachers is roughly 15% how is that in the US?

[Netsu]

And I don't know how to explain why there are so few women programmers in the world, doesn't make sense to me.

Originally programming was a women-only job, believe it or not. Software was seen as unimportant and money was in the hardware, so making software was seen to be as low as doing chores in the house (really). When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

Programming in those day was something completely different than programming today, or even in the 80s onward. Computer programs in the 60s were so simple they were often created on-demand, to realise computations for mathematicians, statisticians etc who I imagine have been as nerdy and male dominated as they are today. The 'programmers' of the time were more like telephone operators, a necessary human interface to a huge calculator.

It became male-dominated when software became complicated enough that it actually demanded the creation of a spearate field - 'computer science' to research ways of writing it and train people in doing so.

Later, for a longer while the task of writing software was divided between the 'programmers' who were computer scientists and 'operators' who transferred their hand written programs to punch cards and operated the computers themselves. The latter position eventually became redundant as computers became cheaper and easier to operate.

So it isn't that the demographic of the programming task has changed, it's that the task itself has changed greatly since then. The original programmer position became obsolete and a new programmer position evolved from mathematics.

NOTE: I do not judge the justice or injustice of the field and it's demographics, I'm simply trying to clarify the historical misconceptions linked and ludicrous conspiracy theories derived from them.

[team_q]

As I had said on Twitter, we are missing women in Game Development in every strata of becoming game developers. When I teach summer camps to grade/highschoolers, we usually have 2 girls out of a class of 10. In the program I teach at college, we usually have 1-3 women out of a class of 20-35.

This is why initiatives like Ladies Learning to Code and similar things are so important.

[rj]

And I don't know how to explain why there are so few women programmers in the world, doesn't make sense to me.

Originally programming was a women-only job, believe it or not. Software was seen as unimportant and money was in the hardware, so making software was seen to be as low as doing chores in the house (really). When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

Programming in those day was something completely different than programming today, or even in the 80s onward. Computer programs in the 60s were so simple they were often created on-demand, to realise computations for mathematicians, statisticians etc who I imagine have been as nerdy and male dominated as they are today. The 'programmers' of the time were more like telephone operators, a necessary human interface to a huge calculator.

It became male-dominated when software became complicated enough that it actually demanded the creation of a spearate field - 'computer science' to research ways of writing it and train people in doing so.

Later, for a longer while the task of writing software was divided between the 'programmers' who were computer scientists and 'operators' who transferred their hand written programs to punch cards and operated the computers themselves. The latter position eventually became redundant as computers became cheaper and easier to operate.

So it isn't that the demographic of the programming task has changed, it's that the task itself has changed greatly since then. The original programmer position became obsolete and a new programmer position evolved from mathematics.

NOTE: I do not judge the justice or injustice of the field and it's demographics, I'm simply trying to clarify the historical misconceptions linked and ludicrous conspiracy theories derived from them.

i really don't see how this changes the point at all, though (and i see that you said you don't dispute it, but it's important to stay on track?)

the question shouldn't be "did the field change to something bigger?" but "if the field changed to something bigger, than why didn't that something bigger include women?"

and really, that's the core of it; women got pushed out of the field because they weren't men and men are the demographic that do complicated math work, because women are typically considered stupid/not suited to said fields

that's a drastic oversimplification of attitudes towards women, yes, but definitely not by much (esp at the time this transition took place) esp considering that...they still kinda are

[Boreal]

When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

Are you insane?  That article you linked just said that it became dominated by men because employers realized programming was heavily based on math.  It's not their fault that schools didn't teach women math and that men ended up being more technically qualified.

As I had said on Twitter, we are missing women in Game Development in every strata of becoming game developers. When I teach summer camps to grade/highschoolers, we usually have 2 girls out of a class of 10. In the program I teach at college, we usually have 1-3 women out of a class of 20-35.

This is why initiatives like Ladies Learning to Code and similar things are so important.

Equality of opportunity =/= equality of outcome

[Netsu]

The point I'm making is that they weren't 'pushed out of the field', in this particular case the field disappeared. There are no more computer operators needed, everyone can operate a computer for themselves, be it a programmer, a book-keeper or whoever.

I wouldn't take the time to explain all this if the misconception wasn't so jarring. Suggesting that someone was actively discouraging women from programming by 'inventing' a nerd image is ridiculous. This field was always nerdy and male dominated because it evolved from mathematics - not from computer operators.

[rj]

When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

Are you insane?  That article you linked just said that it became dominated by men because employers realized programming was heavily based on math.  It's not their fault that schools didn't teach women math and that men ended up being more technically qualified.

how does this in literally any way dispute that women are marginalized and have fewer opportunities (at all? kind of the point of bringing up that article?)

[Boreal]

When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

Are you insane?  That article you linked just said that it became dominated by men because employers realized programming was heavily based on math.  It's not their fault that schools didn't teach women math and that men ended up being more technically qualified.

how does this in literally any way dispute that women are marginalized and have fewer opportunities (at all? kind of the point of bringing up that article?)

Sik brought this up as if it were some male conspiracy, which is just plain wrong.  Hell, the post cited an article that disagreed.

[rj]

When companies started seeing that they could make money with software they created the nerd stereotype to scare away women from the field so it became male-dominated.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

tl;dr women were made to program because it was seen as a chore, and then got kicked out of it once it started being seen as a profitable business.

Are you insane?  That article you linked just said that it became dominated by men because employers realized programming was heavily based on math.  It's not their fault that schools didn't teach women math and that men ended up being more technically qualified.

how does this in literally any way dispute that women are marginalized and have fewer opportunities (at all? kind of the point of bringing up that article?)

Sik brought this up as if it were some male conspiracy, which is just plain wrong.  Hell, the post cited an article that disagreed.

it's not a "conspiracy" and i don't see that post painting the issue that way; what it is is simply a small example of the result of centuries of social systems brought up over time that favor men instead of women doing what they usually do without men even noticing (yet again) because men are the very people who are benefited by the system; their own advantage seems invisible as a result

systematized because women never got a say in the first place; like, this is something that's been going on for ages (i shouldn't even have to point out basic examples, but it's kind of hard to ignore that the united states of america was founded at its outset with laws that prevented women from voting or owning property at the outset; harder to ignore that such laws weren't considered outtre, but rather commonplace); it might be slowly changing, but it's maybe halfway (at best?) to where it should be overall?

my point is that it's not "insane" to suggest that men edged out women in a field because they discovered the field had merit and because they viewed women as less intelligent

[nikki]

% of woman in journalism/media studies = 70
% of woman in hard tech studies = 10

== many articles on how male conspire against female