So.. Scantily Clad Women at the IGDA Party Made The Industry Freak Out.. Sexism Again?

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WereKitten said:

Kantor said:

 

Well, I was basing this on the original article and reactions rather than your post, so I'm not sure to what extent you agree to that.

Firstly, let's focus on the event itself. I'm glad you agree that what the dancers did was not offensive, but surely you have to understand that the dancers themselves did not think it was offensive or demeaning, because if they did, they would not have done it. And to quote Ms Choudhary, a woman herself:

YetiZen did not hire dancers,” wrote Choudary. “We hired avid gamers, who happened to be models, to discuss gaming with the invited guests. The YetiZen team — myself, my co-founder, and our resident artist — were invited by the rappers, along with our gamer-models, to dance for a few minutes on stage.”

So clearly she isn't offended by it either, because she organised it. It's not like they were stripping or pole dancing, they were just dancing.

As for the difficulty of working in the game industry as a woman: I don't deny that, I'm sure it's true. But there are women - Amy Hennig, to name just one - who stick with it anyway, and manage to succeed in it, and don't complain about people dancing at a gaming event. Perhaps more could be done to make the industry seem more attractive to women (stopping short of affirmative action), but that has nothing at all to do with the events of the IGDA party.

I'm with you on booth babes, again, to some degree. I don't think there's anything wrong with having someone dressed as a character from a game, but to have blatant eye candy at what is supposed to be a trade show is wrong.

But to some extent it is always going to be masculinised, like the fashion industry is feminised. Perhaps that's a bad thing, but it's an inevitable thing.

 

You can't point to Amy Henning, an accomplished successful writer in full control of her career, as a typical representative of the condition of women in the game industry. And thus I can't see the reason for naming her success story.

And I can't see how you can reconcile this:

I'm with you on booth babes, again, to some degree. I don't think there's anything wrong with having someone dressed as a character from a game, but to have blatant eye candy at what is supposed to be a trade show is wrong.

With YetiZen hiring "avid gamers, who happened to be models". Happened to be models? Please! They were selected to be eye candy for the boys, just as booth babes are. The fact that they were asked to dance on stage by the rappers? It must have come as a total impromptu surprise... Let's be intellectually honest here: this is just YetiZen clumsily covering their asses - no pun intended.

Finally, I can't see the sense in the comparison with the fashion industry. The fashion industry for women brings in much more revenue than the one for men, because shopping habits are very different between men and women. Thus it gets more limelight and results in higher fame and more money for the female models than the male ones. Is that what you would call "feminised"?

The similitude would be the game industry producing more games for male players in the 15-35 bracket, and companies that produce that kind of product being more successful. There's a big step going from that to a woman-hostile workplace of brogrammers or to a chauvinistic treatment of real women.

I "just" very much hope for less childish dudebro games. I can vote with my wallet against that and speak against the culture they support, but I can't stand to hear excuses for a childish dudebro industry.

That is what this whole thing is if everyone would just straight up be honest

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