Women Treated Like Shit in the Gaming Industry. Shocking! (Sadly, it's not shocking)

Just wanted to post some stuff that has been making me mad the past day or so. Lots of stories of women being treated like shit in the gaming industry:

http://kotaku.com/5963528/heres-a-devastating-account-of-the-crap-women-in-the-games-business-have-to-deal-with-in-2012

This sort of shit makes me sick. Again, why do people treat women as second class citizens in the gaming industry? I grow so weary of this. I'm hoping by the time I die, we'll have finally moved past this bullshit, but, frankly, I really doubt it. The industry is so pathetic.

This does not surprise me....at all...

It's sad as hell....but it doesn't surprise me...

Now this is an issue of sexual harrassment in the workplace - these women are working in the gaming industry for their employer. While people will often turn a blind eye to some of the sexism within the community - that sort of gender-based harassment is a legal no-no. That shouldn't be happening at all! And sadly, it does. Those women really should be reporting their woes to a lawyer instead of over twitter.

AlexJowski wrote:

Now this is an issue of sexual harrassment in the workplace - these women are working in the gaming industry for their employer. While people will often turn a blind eye to some of the sexism within the community - that sort of gender-based harassment is a legal no-no. That shouldn't be happening at all! And sadly, it does. Those women really should be reporting their woes to a lawyer instead of over twitter.

Doesn't make the problem go away. As one of the ladies I follow said in response to someone telling them to just file a police report if they get groped "Filling out a police report doesn't magically make it not affect you." And talking to an attorney about sexual harassment doesn't automatically make everything better. There are DEEP & FUNDAMENTAL forces that need changing here. A couple of sexual harassment suits, which will be settled out of court and get no publicity, won't change anything.

The tweets and the stories are horrible enough, but DAMN the comments really take the cake.

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So if these people are apparently having all these problems, why don't they band together to make their own studio and release their own AAA game to prove themselves?

So, as long as the game is great, it's okay to be sexist? You know, I hope these ladies do start their own studio. Some of the best games from this year are indie games.

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No matter what gender, color, religion, what taste in music, movies, etc.. you are going to deal with some things of this nature if you don't fit the what would be considered average for whatever thing it is that you are involved in.

So it's okay to think that it's "average" for a software developer to be male or for a nurse to be female? This is a problem that expands far beyond development. Find a small business and you'll likely see how the jobs are divided by gender (and only by gender, regardless of what the men and women are mentally and physically capable of). It's an artifact of an older way of life and, damn it, it's time for society to move on and embrace the idea that "Hey, guys and girls can do the exact same thing!"

Sexual Harassment is wrong regardless of gender, and just because women do it to men doesn't mean that it's okay for men to do it to women. It's time to break the circle.

The comments on these sorts of articles on Kotaku are always bad. That's because the same sexist assholes who discriminate and abuse women in the industry are the same sexist assholes who make up the community. I'm honestly ashamed to be apart of the gaming community these days. Really depressing.

WOW, i kinda didn't think treatment of females was still that bad....i guess this proves me dead wrong....damn

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WOW, i kinda didn't think treatment of females was still that bad....i guess this proves me dead wrong....damn

Sadly, it really never went away. It just got that "equal opportunity" gloss on it. Instead of "Women should be at home cooking and cleaning", it's turned into "Yeah, we'll hire just as many females as we hire males... they can still answer the phones and make the coffee as we men make all of the 'important' decisions."

As I said before, it's a disgusting aspect of society that needs to stop. I do think that this won't be as much of a problem with the next generation being raised to treat women as equals. Yeah, I still see college-aged individuals who have been raised to treat women as subhuman servants, but those are in the minority and will hopefully either change their ways before having kids, or not have kids at all.