Gender wage gap: How the game industry compares to the U.S. average

According to the newly released Gamasutra's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014 [PDF], women make less than men in every department in the game industry.

For the full article on Gamasutra, see Gender wage gap: How the game industry compares to the U.S. average

NY gender gap in tech jobs is widest in nation

 38% of NYC-area tech companies have women in top jobs.

"Women are still being "actively discouraged" from entering the tech field, said Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a nonprofit working to close the technology gender gap."

For full article, see New York gender gap in tech jobs is the widest in the nation, report says

New Toys for Girls

Frustrated by the lack of non-Barbie-type toys for girls and armed with research on girls' play patterns, these entrepreneurs decided to create toys for girls that would ignite creativity, promote positive self-images, and interest girls in science and engineering.

In particular, I found the research very interesting:

"The play is also very precise with girls," says Kaskey, referring to the way in which girls set up the sports figurines on which the portable playing field and then add their own stuffed toys as spectators.

For the full article and to read descriptions of non-"pink" toys, see "New Toys for Girls" from Westchester Family.

Feminist Game Design Explored

NYU Game Center recently announced an upcoming series of lectures on feminist game design. To kick off the series, game designer and researcher Jessica Hammer described the design process of a game intended to strengthen the emotional skills of Ethiopian teenage girls.

For more information on other lectures in this series, check the NYU Game Center blog.

Reactions to female voices in FPS games

Over the weekend, Wai Yen Tang posted some findings from a study on how female voices are perceived in multiplayer FPS games.  Female voices received three times as many negative comments than male voices or mutes.

For the full analysis, see Wai Yen Tang's blog post.

The Risks of Telecommuting

Beware!   A telecommuter's lack of "face time" may be leading to smaller raises, less promotions, and poorer work evaluations.  Whether unintentionally or not, managers seem affected by "passive face time" (being observed in the workplace or working) or "extracurricular face time" (being seen at the workplace or near co-workers outside of normal hours.)

If you're telecommuting, you can try to make a bigger impression by getting colleagues to mention you, by visiting the office more, giving regular status updates, and sending all your e-mail really early or really late (gives the impression you're working beyond normal business hours).

For the full article and to read how employers can avoid unfair evaluations based on face time, see "Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters."

Passion Capital

"Passion Capital" is the world's most valuable asset, according to Paul Alofs, author of the book, Passion Capital.  Many businesses are recognizing that in order to tap into a worker's passion capital, especially in creative industries, they may have to re-envision their work policies. When or how an employee is inspired may not be up to a regular 9-5 work timetable and thus, innovative businesses are allowing more flex-time, telecommuting, employee perks, employee choices, and are looking to see how they can reward and encourage their employees.

More and more studies indicate that working longer does not equal more productivity.  In fact, after more than 8 hours of work, productivity drops by half.  Moreover, long overtime hours cause an employee's health to worsen and doubles the employee's risk of depression.  European countries where working over 48 hours a week is prohibited still manage to maintain a competitive edge while also having a high happiness quotient.

As mentioned on my other blog, in the article "On Volunteering", one of the worse feelings is a person putting in the work and not being appreciated for it.  Major companies like Symantec and Intuit have instituted a type of crowd-sourced bonus system whereby anybody in the company can nominate a co-worker for a bonus.  Not only does the employee get a bonus, but the social recognition helps too!

Take a look at some of the ways companies are trying to tap into and recharge passion capital:

AOL Huffington Post Media Group:  Special nap rooms to rest during the day.

CouchSurfing:  Option to work one month from anywhere in the world

Autodesk:  Pipes in soft ambient noise to help employees focus

Betterment:  No official work hours; employees choose when and where they want to work

The three biggest myths about women in tech

For full article, click on link above.

"One common response from the mostly male responders was that these data must be incorrect and misleading because they personally have not witnessed these issues. In other words, if I haven’t seen or experienced bias, it cannot possibly exist.

Interestingly enough, when presenting these findings at different companies and organizations, we got the same response time and time again from the women and people of color who work in IT: “This data doesn’t surprise me at all; it is perfectly aligned with what goes on here.”

Booklist: Walking Out on the Boys

Frances Conley was the first woman ever appointed to a full professorship of neurosurgery at an American medical school. But she resigned due to sexual harassment, revealing tales of fondling in the operating room to Time magazine. In 1998, she published a tell-all book called Walking Out on the Boys.

The publication of this book coincided with the results of a 30-year MIT study on female faculty members. The study concluded that there was a generational pattern: that while junior faculty thought sexual discrimination was a thing of the past -- when they were promoted, they felt "invisible" and excluded.

One even wrote: "I mean literally not heard! Where you say something, and it's just ignored until one of your male colleagues says the same thing 10 minutes later!"

The study concluded that "in no case was this discrimination conscious or deliberate. Indeed, it was usually totally unconscious and unknowing. Nevertheless, the effects are real."

Between the 1960's and 1990s, there was a big increase in the number of women earning Ph.D.s in math, science, and engineering. Yet, the number of female research faculty members at MIT remained at 9%.

Gaming with Your Daughter is Good for Her

Link to full article above:

This study linked positive outcomes for parents playing video games with daughters, but did not find the same results for parents playing video games with sons. The authors theorize that it may be because sons have more video game time with friends.

In addition, parents (usually fathers) playing video games with boys played games like Halo while games like Mario Kart were usual when playing games with girls.

Another interesting note:

The BYU researchers found that 31 percent of the children reported playing age-inappropriate games with their parents (42 percent of boys, 15 percent of girls) and they report that "heightened parent–child connection was not found for girls who played these age-inappropriate games with their parents."

Young women possess characteristics of inventors, but do not see themselves as inventive

MIT study:

"Further demonstrating inventive traits, young women show a strong affinity for math and science — two of every five female respondents (42 percent) rate these as their favorite subjects in school. More than half of male respondents (53 percent) agree. 35 percent of young women also say they have a family member working in a field related to science, technology, math or engineering. The results reveal young women’s innate interest in inventive fields; however, recent statistics show while more women are entering college and obtaining degrees, less than ten percent earn them in technical majors such as computer and information sciences, engineering or math. This proportionately small group indicates a need to educate women about translating their skills and academic interests into inventive careers."

For the full article, click on the link above.

Inside the Minds of Girl Gamers

Click the title link for a presentation with stats on female gamers.

Gender discrimination linked to poor project management

There's also evidence of bias against women in recruitment and job assignment in places where high-tech corporate cultures thrive on this "hero mindset" that "rewards a 'last minute' crunch where 24/7 work becomes necessary to 'save' a project, failing to acknowledge family responsibilities and flexibility needs," the report says.

Women earn more than men in UK games industry

"Whilst women are still a minority in the sector’s workforce, they are earning more than their male counterparts, according to research conducted by MCV.

Average female annual salaries are £2,000 higher than the male wage, at £33,260."

Longer Vacations = More Productivity

In Europe, 4 to 6 weeks of vacation are mandated by law. Compare that to the U.S., where we have no such mandates and are sometimes asked to give up our vacation time for a pressing project. According to Joe Robinson, author of Work to Live, those European countries with mandated vacation are all as productive or in some cases, more productive than the U.S. Studies have shown that when you do take time for vacations, your overall performance improves. Vacation time, which doesn't include "working vacations" of checking e-mail and still actually working, renews the spirit and provides fresh inspiration.

The news is worst for women workaholics. The Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, WI conducted a study of 1500 working women and found that women who only had a vacation once in 6 years were twice as likely to report damaging problems to their health such as hypertension, anxiety, and depression, than women who took regular vacations each year.

Women are over-worked and under-served by businesses

Excerpt:

Mr. Silverstein added, “Companies are failing to meet the needs of women in five key ways: Poor product design and customization for women; clumsy sales and marketing; inability to address the need for time-saving solutions; inability to provide a meaningful hook and differentiation, and failure to develop community.”

Beyond 'Sweetie'

New York Times Article that looks at female learning styles. Does the Socratic method put women at a disadvantage? How can we incorporate knowledge of female learning styles into our games? Now that there are more women in higher education, classroom dynamics have changed...

"The criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz, an advocate of the Socratic method who has taught at Harvard for four decades, has found that classroom dynamics have ''changed dramatically'' with the increase in women's enrollment. After he commented in one class that rape was -- statistically speaking -- ''a rare crime,'' a group of women complained to Professor Minow. When their concerns were relayed to Professor Dershowitz, he asked them to teach a lecture on rape from the victims' perspective. The women assigned the class to read the standards of consent to sexual intercourse and argued that statistics on rape could be inaccurate because of underreporting."

Play Games to Work Smarter: Why It is More Critical than Ever that Women Play and Develop Games

This article originally appeared as part of GameDev.Net's coverage of GDC 2009.

by Sande Chen

In this panel put together by the IGDA Women in Games SIG, academics and business leaders came together to discuss the importance of video game literacy for women in the upcoming years. In addition, the leadership skills involved in playing some video games can help women succeed in their jobs.

"Cyber-socialization is different from socialization," said Diane Pozefsky, a research professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With businesses increasingly using distributed teams of people who have never met face-to-face, women who want to succeed in business will need to understand the subtleties of communication between avatars versus body language.

Moreover, the skills involved in running a remote team are the same ones needed to run a successful guild. As Phaedra Boinodiris, Serious Games Product Manager for IBM Software Group, revealed, IBM has been studying MMORPGs to see how they can be used in leadership and teamwork training. The military has even used fantasy raids in video games in its training.

Tracy Fullerton, Associate Professor of Interactive Media at the University of Southern California, agreed with this practice: "Games naturally help us to understand the forces that are at work in the leadership process. It allows us to rehearse bad and good strategies in leadership."

Online games can also teach women how to deal with environments dominated by males, something that may come in handy if they decide to work in game development.

But more and more, video game technology and video games are entering fields where women, rather than men, are the dominant population. These serious games, as they are called, will become part of the tools used in corporate culture, in the classroom, and in healthcare.

Noah Falstein, a serious games consultant, noted that at the most recent Games for Health conference, the audience there was much more balanced than at GDC. There was no gender or age bias since the teams and audiences for these games exhibit diversity.

That's an ideal the panelists hope can happen for regular game development, although they acknowledge that obstacles exist.

Fullerton observed that when young women come to her game design class, they often sit in the back and think that they don't belong. She has to convince them that they do in fact play games, even if the games they like are not Halo 3 but some Facebook app. These young women could not imagine themselves as game designers.

Falstein relayed a similar story: "I talked to a young woman on Monday and she said, 'I was a psychology major in college and I design games on my own, but I'm not sure if I would be a good game designer." The punchline was that the young woman was Erin Robinson, who two days later was one of the winners of the Game Design Challenge at GDC.

It's a familiar sentiment spoken by women, who have been beaten down by the prevailing judgment, that women aren't gamers and women shouldn't be in game design.

"The game industry has created a box around itself that says GET OUT," Fullerton said. "If you're not dedicated to hardcore games, then you're not a gamer." Instead, Fullerton felt that it was up to the industry to invite women into the fold. Research has shown that this could have a beneficial effect for games.

For instance, when boys and girls are asked to develop games, it's the girls' games that are enjoyed by everyone whereas only boys seemed to like the games they developed. Women developers tend to add more play patterns, enabling more people to enjoy the game.

Falstein remarked after telling the story of his daughter's playtime with Diablo 2: "Watching a bunch of 10-year-old girls play Diablo 2 was eye-opening. It was completely different from boys." The girls tended to play collaboratively whereas boys would compete for control of the avatar.

The panelists agreed that more mainstream games, such as Wii Sports, are a positive trend for the industry. If more women play games and more women develop games, then they can be part of this growing trend.

"Hopefully, we won't have stereotypical games that young male designers think little girls want, but about what people want," said Falstein.

Could You Imagine "Blind" Interviews?

from Women for Hire newsletter:

Before blind auditions became common in the 70s, just 10% of new hires at major U.S. orchestras were women. The theory was that women weren't very good musicians. But labor unions protested the hiring process and pushed for blind auditions where musicians would try out behind a curtain so appearance and gender were concealed. In studying personnel from 11 major orchestras, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin and Princeton’s Cecelia Rouse found that 29% of females and 20% of males advanced to the final round in blind auditions. When auditions were not blind, only 19% of women advanced compared to 23% of men. Even though sex discrimination is hard to measure, those stats speak volumes. Fortunately, since the 80s, about half the new hires at the New York Philharmonic, 40% at the San Francisco Symphony and more than a third in Boston and Chicago have been women.

Why Women Managers Shine in a Downtown

In this article, Michel Ferrary, Professor of Management at Ceram Business School in France, finds that his research shows that companies with more women in management seem to be better protected against financial crisis. In contrast, companies with mainly male management had their stock prices decrease more than the French CAC 40 stock exchange index. The more women in the management, the less the share price decreased. There is a significant coefficient of correlation.

Excerpt:

In conditions of high uncertainty, financial markets value companies that take fewer risks and are more stable. Several gender studies have pointed out that women behave and manage differently from men. They tend to be more risk-averse and to focus more on a long-term perspective. A larger proportion of female managers appears to balance the risk-taking behaviour of their male colleagues.