game girl advance: When Feminine is an Advantage

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December 15, 2006

When Feminine is an Advantage

There's a refreshingly friendly, balanced view of working as a woman in a mostly-male environment (in this case, the games industry) by Michelle Clay over at WomenGamers.com. Overall her points are very reasonable and mirror, I'm sure, a lot of similar experiences that women have had. There's just one teensy flaw: she seems to be encouraging more women to join the industry because there's a slight advantage to being the minority - although these points are somewhat played for humor in the article. And yet, if women did as the writer suggests, wouldn't their immigration annihilate the condition of their minority status and instead lead to a more equal distribution of men and women?

And isn't that, ultimately, what we want - including, I think, the writer of the article?

Wanting to be the only women in a group of male colleagues is a double-edged sword. If that's what you base your work happiness on, what will happen when another woman joins the team? Jealousy, and insecurity, because suddenly that which you valued is gone. I don't suggest that Michelle is advocating this; I think she's genuinely simply trying to persuade more women not to be frightened off by the male-ness of the industry. Still, I think there are some women who are drawn to the industry precisely because of its maleness.

Then there is the backlash - the feeling among some of your unkind male colleagues that you only exist there because you are a woman; and thus you are reduced to your femininity. Moreover, you become the focal point for any discussion of "what women want" - suddenly you are an expert, because you are female, and often you get put into the position of speaking for all womankind.

And what if you do have standards of behavior and language that are different? Do you feel compelled to suppress them because you want to fit in? I'm curious, this is a real question I have. I tend to have an "off" sense of humor anyway, as do many nerds and geeks, in my experience, and we used to make jokes about "sexual harrassment" and we could do so, because we all trusted one another. Michelle seems to have a graceful way to also upend gender stereotypes. But not all wpeople are comfortable in those situations; should we adopt similar standards to other business cultures? Or is it okay to keep acting on a case-by-case basis? Personally, I've been more pertrubed by offhand homophobic comments than ones that I felt were sexist, and I tended to speak up in those cases to make sure people knew, without being accusatory or unpleasant, that I didn't want to go along with their jokes.

I geniuinely miss my mostly male colleagues at Ziff Davis, at 1UP.com, and especially at Gamevideos.com. We bonded, after all - sharing hotel rooms and late nights and awful and wonderful experiences. And yet there is something refreshing about being in a more gender-balanced environment; and my currently team is almost all women. It's definitely a different sort of energy.

My only complaint: the women's bathroom gets a lot more crowded!

Other women who work in male-dominated places, what's been your experience?

Posted by jane at December 15, 2006 11:15 AM | TrackBack

Comments

In high school, I wore baggy pants, rock t-shirts, and tried everything I could to fit in with the other guys. It didn't work. As soon as I turned around and started acting like a real women, I actually doubled my respect and caught a nice, nerdy boyfriend. I continued the real woman policy into college. My male peers respect me more than the other females in my major simply because I am comfortable with myself and respect myself for who I am. I found this attitude also seems to have a positive effect at work as well. Like one person was once like, "Where's Milan?" and I was like, "Hello! It's like the fashion capital of the world... Italy..." And then he teased me by saying, "That's like nice like I think like." Hahaha. We have so much fun.

Posted by: ggKimmieGal

on December 15, 2006 04:17 PM

I'm going to try and keep this short because this is an awesome topic on which I would like every single woman in the industry's opinion. Maybe drinks at GDC are in order?

Anyways, I come from a half latino, half southerner family. And something I realized recently is that even though these two groups are known to typically marginalize women, I never once when growing up felt like I was ever being treated differently for being a girl.

It wasn't until I went to USC for my masters in Interactive Media that I suddenly felt uber-aware of my female status in a male-dominated room. You touch upon one reason for this - suddenly you are like the gay roommate in the Real World house: it's your responsibility to represent your entire race. And that's not fair. Making games for women is really a discussion about making different kinds of games that appeal to different people, and somehow women just slammed with representing that whole concept.

And as far as the environment, it seems a studio-to-studio thing. I've been at some that I never noticed the ratio, and some in which the boy's club is still very much alive.

Posted by: kellee

on December 19, 2006 10:49 AM

I've been in software development since leaving college and that is a very male dominated field. For the most part things go perfectly well and the guys don't tend to treat me any differently but there are those occasions where I feel completely on the outside just because i'm female. It seems that everyone is always on edge about sexual harrassment that it takes a lot of the fun out of normal playing. You get a bunch of guys together and there are going to be jokes and pranks on each other and when they stop when are you, it kind of makes you feel not really part of the group.

I have had to represent womankind on occasion since I was the lone girl in the area when a question came up. Very odd situation. While I would rather have more female companionship at work, it is kind of nice being surrounded by guys all day.

Posted by: wendy

on December 29, 2006 08:02 AM

I work at a power plant where there is only one other woman. All the guys were really apprehensive around me at first, being extra polite and suddenly hushing if I came into the room. But now that they've gotten to know me, they've definately loosened up and know that I can take the jokes with the best of them. I've actually made them blush with a few of mine. Now the only problem is they're too over-protective, I've got 30 big brothers watching out for any guys I date haha. There's always that underlying anxiety about the other gender "invading" in work places like that, but it loses its mystification eventually.

Posted by: saccharine

on December 31, 2006 10:27 AM

I now work at a game development studio, and am the only woman - there are 10 guys that work here.
There was an adjustment period for them, while they tried to figure out what i was about, and if i was going to freak out on them. The first day that i came to work, everyone was so cautious and worried that i would be offended (they would start to swear and cut themselves off, while shooting me worried glances). Now however it's much better - i get shot with the nerf darts just like everyone else, and am more than happy to fire back.

Posted by: Girl_from_Mars

on January 15, 2007 01:57 PM

I work in IT Security, and my current job is the first time since I graduated college that I've worked with another woman. It's far too common in IT, and especially in some sub-sections of IT (networking and security seem particularly devoid of women).

I've had pretty good experiences being the only woman in the office in the past. I do dislike the constant assumption that because you're a woman you'll know what all other women think. Eventually, the guys I've worked with figured out that's not a good assumption since I'm not really "normal" ;). Then again, what woman in a geeky field isn't a little weird?

Posted by: Disgruntled Ladye

on February 16, 2007 07:22 AM

I have been lucky enough to expierence both types of working enviroments. Personally for me, I preferred the mainly male offices. There seemed to be less drama. Of course this is only my expierence. I am sure that there are really good working enviroments that have more women than men.

Posted by: honda450girl

on March 22, 2007 02:22 PM

I'm like Wendy - I work in the very male dominated field of software engineering myself. However, I've always had hobbies that are male dominated. The guys are always apprehensive, but only until they see some of the things that I'm interested in. Then they see me as "one of the boys" so there's no issues. I also agree with honda450girl in that the male dominated offices seem to have less drama so are far better working environments for me.

Posted by: jeccaneko

on April 13, 2007 03:24 PM

I used to work for EB Games and was the first girl on the team. I knew well ahead that I was hired partially based off my "unoffensive" looks. Aside from that, I was never given preferential treatment, we were all equals and good friends. Not once did they ever belittle or objectify me because of my gender; although, whenever I did something dumb, we'd all jokingly attribute it to being a girl.

As for the customers, some guys have been surprised, but they were never snide when they'd ask if I really played games. Getting hit on was never a problem either. It only happened twice and were fairly tame compared to frequent creepy stories that I've heard/read from other female employees.

However, I had more of an advantage than just owning a vagina. Part of the reason why it was really easy to integrate me into the store was because I am Asian. I could easily be jumping to conclusions, but from what I gathered about the girls who were experiencing harassment were that they are white. I think a lot of guys have it in their mind that Asian girls are more credible when it comes to games so it's not that odd to see one working at a game store and get all crazy about it. ... Then again, it could be that I worked in the nation's safest city.

Posted by: Niko_LT

on April 13, 2007 04:56 PM