Half of women have experienced discrimination while working at a tech firm, research from Studio Graphene has revealed.
The London-based digital agency commissioned a survey of 500 full-time workers in the UK tech industry. It found that 49 percent of women have experienced some form of discrimination in the workplace, while 20 percent have resigned from a role in the past because of discrimination or harassment.
The macho gaming world is about to be turned on its head by moves in Sweden to rate games on the basis of the way they treat women.
A video game trade group, inspired by the Bechdel Test, will study games’ portrayals of women and give each game a rating.
It is being seen as a precursor to a government-backed programme considering creating specials label for video games based on whether or not the games’ portrayals of women are sexist.
Inspired by the Bechdel Test, Vinnova is paying the Swedish video-game trade organisation Dataspelsbranchen approximately $36,672 to study the industry’s female characters.
“I do not know of any other project in the world asking this question, and of course, we want Sweden to be a beacon in this area,” said project manager Anton Albiin, who notes that it has not been determined whether all Swedish games would be graded on their treatment of women or whether only games with positive portrayals would receive special labels.
Only 16 percent of people working in Sweden’s growing, $935 million gaming industry are women, according to Dataspelsbranchen.
“Of course games can be about fantasy, but they can be so much more than this,” Albiin said. “They can also be a form of cultural expression — reflecting society or the society we are hoping for. Games can help us to create more diverse workplaces and can even change the way we think about thing.”
Moves to rate women as equals in games have been contested by male gamers who have aggressively been shouting down those wanting to reform the industry.
Blizzard Entertainment’s president and CEO Michael Morhaime surprised the software industry by referring negatively to Gamergate.
For those who came in late, Gamergate is a campaign by backward misogynistic gamers to chase women from the industry with death threats and online harassment so that they can continue to play games where big-breasted women are saved by men. All this is done under a pretext that women gaming journalists are corrupt.
Morhaime has to be careful, after all, he sells many games to people who support Gamergate and have views about women which make cavemen look enlightened. He did not mention he was talking about Gamergate but it is not difficult to spot the thread.
“Over the past couple months; there’s been a group of people who have been doing really awful things. They have been making some people’s lives miserable, and they have been tarnishing our reputation as gamers… “It’s not right.”
Blizzcon is a great example of how positive and uplifting gaming can be,” Morhaime added—speaking to his company’s long-running convention dedicated to its small but enormously popular handful of games. “Let’s carry the good the good vibes from this weekend out into the world all year round.”
“There is another person on the other end of the chat screen,” he continued, making a strong reference to the online harassment that has flared up unpleasantly in recent months. “They’re our friends, our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters.”
“Let’s take a stand to reject hate and harassment,” Morhaime said.
“Let’s redouble our efforts to be kind and respectful to one another. And let’s remind the world what the gaming community is really all about.”
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