Phoenix Perry, who is passionate about gender balance in gaming, used primary documents and hard numbers to back up her case that the videogame industry is getting more hostile to women, not better, during the Code Liberation talk at Indiecade East, according to online video game magazine, The Escapist:
In her portion of the talk, Perry delivered harsh statistics. A Bureau of Labor Statistics chart showed a decline in women programmers since 1991. In 1987, 42 percent of American programmers were women. Now only 25 percent of programmers are women. In games programming specifically, women make up four percent.
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[Catt] Small explained to the audience that as a woman growing up during this time, media fed her messages that women lie, fight over men, and exist to have a family. She pointed to covers of Cosmopolitan and said, “Society pushes us to be this amazing, sexy, tiny goddess who does nothing but have sex and know the perfect moves for her guy and the perfect style.” In comparison, Perry showed an issue of Cosmopolitan from 1967 that featured a female programmer.
The organization provides women only coding classes, to increase diversity among gamemakers.
The detailed write up goes on to detail upcoming classes, including a C++ course for programming for a Kinect and online courses for women who aren’t in New York.
We covered Brooklynites at IndieCade East, including Catt Small, a member of Code Liberation and also a part of Brooklyn Gamery.
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