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USC Canceled Video Game Panel For Too Many Men

Started by April 30, 2016 06:42 PM
297 comments, last by Gian-Reto 8 years, 7 months ago

USC just canceled Video Game Panel

http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/29/usc-cancelled-an-awesome-video-game-pane

Citing reason that there is too many men. According to the article, one (1) lone woman voiced her concern and that was enough to make the entire university pull the plug. I think this is another retarded move by politically correct society.

This.. this isn't an Onion article, is it? Please tell me this is just one of those things mistakenly sourced from the onion and taken as fact.

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I hope this is fake.. I go to USC as a Masters in Compute Science, I'll probably ask around. I didn't know it was canceled.

According to the article, one (1) lone woman voiced her concern and that was enough to make the entire university pull the plug.


You apparently read a different article than the one you linked.

According to the very clear text you linked, some "lone woman" didn't "complain" and cost us poor gamers our event. The event only had one woman, she turned out to be unable to attend for unstated reasons, and then some unidentified school administrators decided on their own to cancel the whole event.

At the very least, make sure your manly indignation is pointed at the right people and not some mythical "woman who complained."

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According to the article, one (1) lone woman voiced her concern and that was enough to make the entire university pull the plug.


You apparently read a different article than the one you linked.

According to the very clear text you linked, some "lone woman" didn't "complain" and cost us poor gamers our event. The event only had one woman, she turned out to be unable to attend for unstated reasons, and then some unidentified school administrators decided on their own to cancel the whole event.

At the very least, make sure your manly indignation is pointed at the right people and not some mythical "woman who complained."

I'm pretty sure he's referring to the organizer rather than the attendee, although he's mistaken in that the woman who voiced her concern and the person who pulled the plug are one and the same.

Interesting. Makes me wonder of Tom Sloper has some insights he could share. Seems odd/frustrating that the school would cancel the same day of the event because one panelist didn't show and the one panelist happens to be the only female.

An all-male panel on "Legends of the Games Industry" seems as unsurprising as an all-male "Business Leaders of the 1960s" panel. This industry historically is predominantly male, and incoming programmers represent very few.

Government stats for 2013 show 14% of CS graduates were female, down from 18% in 2012. ("Minority women" represented 4.8% of CS graduates nationwide in 2013.) Gender diversity is something worth addressing, but it is not unique to video games and endemic of computer programming and to STEM broadly. As they run the program at the school they would know that women represent that tiny percentage.

It seems a little bizarre that USC Games would not know this reality and would attempt to distort the reality rather than acknowledge the present lack of diversity. "Legends of male-dominated industry are predominantly male. News at 11."

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At the very least, make sure your manly indignation is pointed at the right people and not some mythical "woman who complained."

Sound logic and reason in the Internet, what a rare occurrence.

Some people are so frustrated about who has what in their pants that should be all interned to mental hospital..

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

Any non-biased articles on this? When I search, it only comes up with overt right-wing / mens-rights nonsense sites, none of which bother to tell you where their sources come from.

Not saying that this didn't happen - I'd just like some actual journalism please. The "right side of history" quote is so strange that I'd like a primary source please...

Interesting. Makes me wonder of Tom Sloper has some insights he could share.


Well, there is another article about the incident, at DailyTrojan.com - actually,
it's point-counterpoint, so two articles.
http://dailytrojan.com/2016/04/25/point-postponement-sca-panel-reveals-snowflake-culture/
http://dailytrojan.com/2016/04/25/counterpoint-campus-programming-important-address-diversity/

My colleague, Anthony Borquez, organized that event, and I was coincidentally organizing a similar but
much smaller (and less publicized) event for the following night. I was unaware of the event he was
organizing. Mine was "Game Industry Careers Night," and I do it every April. I get some folks to come
and share their stories and advice, then take questions from the students and mingle afterwards.
I announced a list of speakers (all men at first, because I hadn't yet received confirmation from a
female invitee) and got an inquiry if I couldn't invite a woman. Within minutes of that inquiry, my
female speaker confirmed she would be coming, and that satisfied the matter. Since my event was the
night after the cancelled event, I brought up the issue of diversity. It's something I do bring up in my
game classes, too. My event was very small (maybe 30 students in all, in a regular classroom). Started
at 7PM and the speakers and students were still chatting after 9PM when the staff was trying to lock up
the building.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

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