I had an extended conversation recently with a student interesting in pursuing game design beyond our undergraduate program at my college. We spoke about the types of things you would expect for any student considering grad school- what types of things to look for in a program, how to begin preparing sample work, who to ask for recommendations, which courses to look at in the fall to help her succeed. We also spoke quite a bit about a subject I don’t cover as much with my English students (though, perhaps I should): the culture of the industry and how to handle it.
My Video Game Design II class this semester has fourteen students, five of them are women. I’ll be honest- at first I thought my balance of male and female students was 50/50. When I actually went to the roster and counted I was myself astonished to realize that it’s really only 35% female students- essentially a third. I’m so used to seeing more men than women in tech/programming courses, both previously as a student and now as a professor, that a third seemed like an improvement.
This morning I read a fairly controversial article on Gamasutra (only partially relevant, linked here for reference) and found the oft-repeated argument in the comment section that there aren’t as many women in STEM fields because they simply don’t like those subjects. Further, the commenter argued, young women are negatively influenced by people scaring them off with stories of alleged misogyny and inappropriate behavior. Note: it’s not the misogyny, abuse, or discrimination that the commenter was citing as an issue, but instead women telling stories of their experiences and others sharing those stories that are creating this negative effect.
So, against this backdrop, my student and I had a conversation. We spoke about her goals, her academics, and possible trajectories, but we also spoke about surviving in a culture that is, at times, hostile to our very presence. We spoke about the culture of gaming, the culture of academics, and the culture of the industry, and this conversation moved from positive to negative, stopping at every point in between. She, in particular, spoke about how she already knew that she would have to be strong and bold moving forward, that simply trying to join in this conversation and be a part of this industry was, to an extent, activism in action.
In some ways, this conversation made me a bit sad. It’s sad that I have to have a conversation with a student about the abuse she may be opening herself up to simply by pursuing a career in this field we all love. It’s sad that our conversation spoke as much about surviving the culture as it did about her abilities and aptitudes (which are numerous). At the same time, the conversation made me hopeful. Despite the “negative stories” we tell and despite many recent events which could serve to push students like mine out of the field, out of the industry, not only does this student wish to push forward, but she does so with eagerness and enthusiasm to be an agent of change. In the past few months the whole Gamer Gate fiasco has made me extremely depressed and cynical about popular gaming culture, but after this conversation I felt a bit more optimistic about what’s coming just around the bend.
