E3 Has Always Illustrated the Game Industry's Problem With Women and Likely Always Will

Iris' post on the lack of women presenting at E3 reminds me of something I wrote about the game industry conference

It's the dearth of women, among other things, that consigns games to their geek ghetto, with no genuine celebrities, or pop-cult recognition outside its narrow subculture... [G]aming may well be a burgeoning new medium growing in prominence and economic leverage, but E3 itself is proof that the industry is still flailing about for respect and general acknowledgment. The hypesters can try all they want to market gaming as a cultural force destined to overtake Hollywood, but the industry's dogged unwillingness (or inability) to join the mainstream right now is about as obvious as a too-big silicone tit stuffed into a too-small T-shirt. Boys will be boys, after all -- you have to wonder if the pandering is really holding gaming back, or if it's just what these hormonally supercharged teenagers deserve. Whatever the case, mainstream cultural credibility is still a long way away: This year's E3 was a snapshot of an industry stuck in the geek ghetto, with little hope of breaking out.

And here's the thing about what I wrote:

I wrote that thirteen years ago for Salon, around the start of my writing career. That rant went viral, and generated a lot of discussion. And at the time, I naively thought things would get better. But despite the growing popularity of games among women, especially for mobile games, social games, indie games like Minecraft, the Wii, and growing presence even on the dude-friendly AAA consoles, at E3, that state of things never seems to improve.

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Comments

[Pussycat Catnap]

Spot on, and the dial...

...

It ain't done moved a single inch...

for sex, race, and sexuality identity.

Sometimes I wonder about the Silicon Valley - parts of it feel like they're in the Deep Old South... where rape is a property crime, and POC's get out of town by sunset, and every tree has rope burns...

Yet we keep propping this culture up year after year...

As they stuff that boob into that too small t-shirt for some booth-babe at the convention, fill out screens with Asian women in school-girl minis, women needing to be rescued, make all the black characters have afros and gold chains, all the brown people part of cartels and terrorist cells, and then tell us women and colored folk just lack the interest, intelligence, and imagination for gaming...

Money flows into that industry like a flood, and it wonders why it lacks any respect as it spits out imagery even the conservative South rejects (unless they're talking about the POTUS...).

[Iggy]

I have always wondered when geeks got started. I doubt there were Roman or Merovingian geeks.

Seriously. I have traced geekdom back to the "telegraph boys" of Tom Edison's youth, and Edison was one himself: boys too precocious for conventional schooling, autodidacts entranced by a new technology and not able or unwilling to compete in normal "manly" pursuits.

No wonder today's geeks have that eternal attachment to Asian women in schoolgirl outfits or babes clinging to Conan's leg as he cleaves hordes of bad guys.

Obscure and unreachable objects of desire, to be had on-screen or in the pages of the comics.

[Adeon Writer]

Try to avoid the tired "boys will be boys" if we're talking about gender labeling here. >_>; all other points are spot on.

[Adeon Writer]

(Just clarifying, the "boys will be bots" excuse is really unwarranted .. It excuses behavior and just blames it on hormones. They can't help being sexist! It's chemistry!)

[2014]

As long as that perception of "guys make up most gamers" even though stats say 48% are female, things aren't going to change.

[zzpearlbottom]

So many different cultures, still i do doubt we can compare Silicon Valey to any of the so known countries where Women and minorities rights just don't exist at all!
And we all the share virtual worlds should be grateful, cause in no other social platforms i found the lvel of tolerance as on Second Life and/or open sim.

[emily owen]

I think that a lot of the problem is actually with the user base. It's still considered exceptable amongst a lot of male fans to send women threats, sexual harassment and lewd photos. Keep in mind the big companies are just trying to make a buck. If they see the user base will buy this and think it's exceptable that's what they'll sell.

[Ugh]

If it works, don't fix it. Not everything benefits from changes.

[Merit Coba]

My observation (as shallow and prejudiced as it is)is that the priorities of any industry are money, more money and even more money. And since the biggest chunk of the income comes from the (very) young white male population -who are willing and able to bunk up on someone's doorstep to be the first to spend fifty bucks on a game which you can get for half six months later- they aim their products at those guys.
It doesn't matter that 48% of the gamers are female, what matters is how much money they are willing to spend. And perhaps it is not a bad sign that women won't spend so much money on what is a shallow stereotypical product by any definition. But then again, industry has always been committed in taking the lead in any emancipation movement, when it boost profits or at least prevents a loss. It is just how you sell it.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I had this discussion just yesterday with a young man who confidently asserted that 95% of gamers are male. When I provided the real figure (about 55% and shrinking), he blustered that he meant that 95% of "real" gamers were male. I helpfully corrected him with a breakdown of just how many women were playing "real" games like Call of Duty and consoles, the surprising representation of women in guild leadership positions in MMOs, and the astonishing growth of the demographic over a very short period of time across ALL genres of gaming. He started flailing around pathetically, with no evidence, that women console players were all playing Wii and the statistics didn't matter anyway -- since they were a minority, they didn't have any right to comment, I guess. Then he threw in a slam at Andrea Dworkin and I knew what species of mouth-breathing australopithicus I was dealing with, and I knew he lacked the brain capacity to learn and change, so I bowed out.

Let me be blunt about this: anybody who thinks gaming is a white male thing at this point in history is being deliberately obtuse. The boys' club was NEVER 100% boys, and it's just going to get less and less so.

And Iggy... yes, the Greeks had geeks. They called them "philosophers" and were rather fond of them, when they weren't executing them, but they have all the hallmarks of the geek. One of my personal heroes is Hypatia, a girl geek from the 4th century AD who was key to the development of mathematics (a fect that has been suppressed and virulently disputed by conservative revisionists). Up to her murder by a Christian mob, she was THE number one intellectual light of her age.

There are some misogynistic boy geeks who reject the very idea of a girl geek, but you have to realize that they are a very small (albeit) vocal minority, and a lot them change their tune once they hit puberty... assuming they ever do.

[Hamlet Au]

"Try to avoid the tired 'boys will be boys' if we're talking about gender labeling here."

My editor and I meant to use the term ironically, but yeah, in retrospect that should have been phrased better.