I agree with Kirschwasser.
To Mirta and others who pointed out that these aren’t serious problems.
You cannot separate the gaming industry from the rest of a given society, inevitably it will reflect that society, since it is part of it.
From games produced in markedly misogynist countries in the east, where women are portrayed accordingly, to the more subtle ways of western countries.
I find depressing to read an article about the E3, for example, and very much the only women you see are “Booth Babes”, good role models don’t ya think? no developers, nor programmers, just some babes to leer at
— of course as I say before, the game industry is not more guilty of this than any other industry, just more of the same trash we see everywhere.
Girls growing up learn fast what society values, so there we go with surgery, with anorexia, to be just a body, because if you are a woman that’s the only thing that matters at the end — regardless if some people say otherwise, is after all not what people would say, is what people do.
And we always see them doing the same.
Not even going to enter in how many doors are closed for women working in this industry, because it will be very much as in any other industries.
Given that these are general problems that affect billions of people in the east and in the west, of course — matters. And its impact is too far reaching to even begin here. What society expect of them, their self image, the lack of confidence in their potential, how they relate to other people, the relationships, and the uglier consequences as violence and abuse against them.
Just to be clear. I defend individual rights. Each person must have the same rights as every other person. (Of course) and thus, I am against positive and negative discrimination.
The only way bias can be overcome is by formation, and how people are portrayed in the media is a vital part of it. it is by example everywhere how people learn social roles. If some gender, or group of people is consistently portrayed (in the more benign cases) as inconsequential — just the girls in the movie that the male hero invariably conquest, a sidekick, and in others, in pretty obvious demeaning ways; what the general public learns?
We are flooded with this. it is so much everywhere that you hardly notice it, we are conditioned to not notice it. It is just how things are.
BTW I am a woman too.
(Sorry for my English)
