Women in Tech Speak Out
Author of this post: Johanna Lenander | About Blog Authors »Beth Dillon at our sister blog Notes on Game Dev wrote a very personal post yesterday about her frustration with the subtly chauvinist attitudes in the game industry and issued a call for other women in her business to share their experiences. Beth recounted how, again and again, she would hear the same line from by recruiters at industry events: “You should come work for us, we could really use a woman on the team”.
“They don’t care what I actually do, what my credentials are, what genres I’d like to work in or what audiences I know best.” Beth writes, “I’m a woman, therefore I know what all women want, and I can give them the secret key into awhole new market of money. Oh, that and it looks good for them to have a woman on the team if they’re going to make games for women.
If we’re so precious and have some special knowledge, why aren’t we getting paid as much as men? On average, we get about 10k less per salary, although this changes relative to the position.”
The post immediately elicited a slew of passionate and eloquent responses. Which made us think that women in the game industry are probably not the only ones that feel stereotyped by a male-dominated tech industry. So we would love to hear what women
in the web design and design business have to say. Please join the game dev women and post your comments here
May 24th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
This is not new.. unfortunately it’s old. .. this comes from the days when the women stayed home to raise the children and the man left the house to go into the world to earn the money. Employers knew these guys had a wife and kids at home to feed and cloth and made sure there was enough to help them get by with the salary they made. However when a woman would ask for work, she might get the job, but never at the same rate of pay as she was not thought of to be raising a family, so would need less.
Anyway, times have changed, but the same stigma remains in place pretty much worldwide. This should not be happening and things will slowly begin to change, but I don’t see it happening fast, as money is tight with gas and food at all time highs right now. Unfortunately, there always seems to be some excuse as to why this does not get resolved.
Cooper