Whew, so much to respond to! ^^;;
I'm very tired today, so my apologies if I miss anything, or make any silly mistakes.
A survey done in 2004, asked 1,688 women who had left STEM fields the reason they left, 30% stated it was because they found "other fields more interesting". Not a large amount, but still makes the assumption that women (in general) don't have any interest in STEM fields or game programming a little more feasible.
But what percentage of men give that as a reason for dropping out? I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher.
Come to that, how does the overall rate of transferral compare? If, for argument's sake--and using hypothetical numbers--fifty percent of women and seventy percent of men switch fields (for whatever reason), then even if the percentage of such leavers who do so because they find other fields more interesting is the same for both genders the rate of men leaving for that reason is nevertheless higher than that of women. In short, and without the run-on sentence, there's not enough information in that bald statistic to really comment on how interest in STEM fields compares between men and women, I feel.
Additionally, it's highly plausible that at least some of those who gave that reason were doing so in order to not admit to being harassed, or simply found other fields more interesting because they felt unwelcome in their field of first choice.
Finally, I don't think that it's all that unusual for people--male or female--to start in one field, find that they don't like it, and switch to another.
Overall, that statistic, as given there, isn't all that convincing to me.
The problem, if you look through the feed of Sarkeesian, Wu, or Quinn, you see that a massive amount of the "harassment" they claim is just negative criticism about them or their projects(Tropes versus Women, Revolution 60, and Depression Quest, respectively).
But is it just isolated incidents of negative criticism, or is it out of proportion with that which male developers receive? I think that I recall reading somewhere that it was found that women tend to be criticised more harshly than male peers, and their ideas given less weight.
(A bit of quick searching turned up these two journal papers as examples, albeit not specific to game development:
"Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students" (reported on here and here, I believe.) and
"Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask".
I also found this article on fortune.com (again, not specific to game development): The abrasiveness trap: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews)
Will games with better representation attract more women into gaming? I'm doubtful as I don't see something as minor as the character you play ruining the experience of playing a game that is set in their world.
An individual character? Probably not. But, as I understand it, that's not the problem: the problem is rather than women more often than not are stuck with male protagonists.
As I think that I said in my gender-flipped scenario earlier in the thread, I think that if I were stuck in a situation in which most protagonists were female and most male characters were either stereotypes or eye-candy, then I suspect that I might get rather sick of the situation too. I might think: "Why can't I just play as a cool guy for once?" "Why are guys almost always vapid barbarian eye-candy?" and so on.
The character that you play in a single game might be a minor point, but the pattern of what characters are available to you may not be.
Will these politically correct games bring more women into game jobs? Again I'm skeptical because if you stay away from an industry just because of fictional characters that are oversexualized then you likely aren't going to make it in the industry.
I really think that you underestimate the effect that artistic works can have on people. I've already mentioned effects like propoganda. On top of that, I suspect that if works keep making you feel unwelcome in a medium, or if you're simply not enjoying said medium as much as you might, you may well be less likely to seek to become a creator in that medium.
Is this thread/discussion really productive, at all?
I think it has potential, at the least: even if none of the participants are swayed from their views, the debate may yet prove useful to any readers who may be less decided, providing them with viewpoints and arguments.
Well I guess it's a combination of both. Developers aren't really in a position to change the games much because of the culture already out there. No one wants to take the risk to change the games.
Perhaps, but--as I think that I indicated previously--I don't think that it's as hopeless as you're suggesting. At the least, raising awareness amongst developers might raise discontent with being strong-armed into such portrayals, and may lead to internal activism, which could well have some effect.
Right now, I'm going to stick with the incompetence theory, or pure laziness theory.
That is a reasonable theory, I do think. That said, if there is a broader pattern of which the Mass Effect covers are just one example then it occurs to me that, first, the Mass Effect covers seem less likely to result from incompetence (well, of the sort that you're describing), and second, even if they were born of incompetence that just makes them a poor example, not a refutation of the entire pattern.
So I firmly believe that the women who are subjected to that should absolutely out the person doing it so they are held accountable rather than risk a company possibly hiding it.
Hmm... While I think that I somewhat agree with you, it occurs to me that accusing a harasser may in some cases be rather difficult for a victim; I suspect that in some cases it's rather easier for someone outside of the events to take action. For one thing, a victim might fear reprisals, or being seen by potential future employers as somehow "weak", or "not a team-player", thus hurting their chances at later employment.
Indeed, remember the poem that you posted earlier concerning Jews being taken away--does the same principle of "not standing by" not apply here? Additionally, an aphorism comes to mind: "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
[edit] The following responses have perhaps been somewhat obviated by posts made while I was composing this one. [/edit]
Neither angry birds nor minecraft, fruit ninja,bejeweled,flappy bird,candy crush,geometry dash,plants vs zombies, temple run, farmville, tetris, solitaire, and hundreds of other extremely popular games with hundreds of millions of players around the world have anything in them that makes them more "male friendly".
They don't have to: they at the least aren't male-unfriendly.
Do we have any statistics that show what % of console buyers(and by consoles, I primarily mean Xbox and PS, since Nintendo is already more family/female friendly) are women?
I don't think that such statistics would likely help: we'd then have the question of whether the statistics reflect a general disinclination on the part of women (as you're suggesting), or is symptomatic of sexist portrayals, etc., discouraging women from taking part.
Further, even if women didn't want to play such games (and I sincerely doubt that this is the case), speaking as a male gamer, I want such changes. I want more than just juvenile power fantasies. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with such things, nor even that I myself wouldn't want to indulge (I rather like them from time to time)--rather, I'm saying that the industry feels somewhat... limited in its current form. Lacking. Less than it could be. (Albeit, I think, still growing.) I want games to produce works like The Fountain, or a Jane Austen novel (the movie adpatations, at least--I'll confess that I haven't read the books). Even something like the Mistborn trilogy would be nice--but what would that trilogy be without its female lead?
Come to that, do "boy's clubs" and "girl's clubs" do much good? Aside from safety concerns (such as handled by ratings systems), why not just market works on their own merits and let whomever wishes to consume them do so?
