Crouilla: "Rather than saying "We should help introduce women to programming", "

But I did say that.

"Just work on the delivery of that message."

My delivery is imperfect. I''m rather direct, and don''t tend to say polite things to bookend my comments. My first email or post to a subject is usually pretty rough-draft, and easy to misread, and so I rewrite and polish in successive posts. I tend to get misunderstood; I think it is because my rough drafts are not clear, because the internet is one of the worst forms of communication that exist (that is another subject, though), and because it''s hard to read a post well. Or I don''t read them very well, anyway. So I make myself read every post twice, to understand better.

Would you do me that honor? Reread my posts? Reread my posts understanding my motives: the first one I made because I had seen only one female on this site. The second one I made after having read the previous discussion on gender which fel directed me to, and which reminded me that I had been thinking a lot lately about gender and programming. Being thus reminded, I decided to bring the issue up. I decided to use the statements that had already been made. They certainly weren''t flames, and I didn''t see them that way. But I hadn''t yet thought through what I wanted to say, and some things I wasn''t even sure what my opinion was. In succeeding posts, my desire was to clarify, discuss, and debate, but show respect. However, I had no intention of backing down if someone disagreed with the conclusions I had come to. Neither was it my intent to attack them for thinking differently; just to challenge their ideas, and suggest new perspectives.

I think my points are valid and thought-out (even if all my posts aren''t!). I am not "attacking men" with them and anyone who thinks I am, I would ask to reread them as if you believed I was not being hateful; don''t read "between the lines", just read the lines themselves. The truth is, I wasn''t hateful; I wasn''t even emotional. I was expressing thoughts and concerns, but with no strong feelings surging up in me as I spoke (if we were in RL, you would have seen ...). I thought of myself as being in an intelligent discussion with intelligent people. I got a bit frustrated, after my last post. But not until after I had posted it, when I began to feel like even though I was trying to speak more and more clearly, I was being less and less heard. I did make a few of my point awkwardly, and gave the wrong impression. For example, I''m still not sure I was clear that I have seen, specifically, male-biased gaming sites, but *not* male-biased programming sites (I didn''t seperate these two as I should have). Also, I was trying to say, societies ties its own knots, and we are a part of society. So if society causes someone to suffer, we are part of that, but we are not *directly* to blame. What we are as members of society is capable of accepting the responsibility of society''s failings *if we so choose* and doing something about them. That I think wasn''t clear at all. I had to figure out what I meant by that myself. I still don''t think that''s entirely clear. The point is, I''m not pointing at you and saying, "You''re a fucking asshole if you don''t make little girls program." If that''s what I thought, I would have said it exactly that way, and I would have repeated it over and over again and called all of you "jerks" and "sexist pigs" which you are not.

Please don''t put words (and especially emotions) in my mouth that aren''t there. If there are specific lines in my posts that upset you or give you the impression I am hateful, or want to force guilt or anger on you, please quote those lines directly, tell me why they make you feel what you feel, and wait to see if that is, indeed, what I meant to do or if maybe I did not speak clearly, or even spoke foolishly.

You see, I am still learning to communicate. I spent most of my 23 years in isolation.

Thanks, crouilla, this kind of post is very useful to me and I am glad you made it. I see better now how my posts were perceived, and why. I guess I could start over, and bring up the subject freshly, but I feel like my last couple posts clarified things as much as any new post would.

No worries, Ack. In your past few posts (especially the one after fel''s post), you clarified what you meant. THAT''s why I sent the last post commending you on your efforts.

You''ve got to remember one thing -- the only impression we got from you was off of your initial (well, second) post which SEEMED to berate people. Whether that was your intention or not isn''t the issue -- the issue was that we saw someone jumping down our throats out of left field, and responded accordingly.

I just hope that if you make posts in the future, try putting a little more tact in them, and people will respond to you accordingly.

-Chris

---<<>>---
Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

Just a side note, although it''s probably already been said, I wish I had a friend who was a girl who could program, my own age. But I''m not gonna get one of my female friends into programming, any more than one of my male friends. If they don''t take the initiative on their own, then they shouldn''t be doing something that requires as much devotion as programming. Just because somebody wishes something, doesn''t mean it''s their responsibility to do something about it. If you want more girl oriented sites or games, and it''s affecting you directly then do something about it yourself. Become the first "Joanna Carmack" or something. You know what I mean. When I say it''s "not our problem" I don''t mean that in a harsh way, I mean that throughout history the people who change things tend to be the people affected directly by them, not those only who sympathize with causes from the outside.

------------------------------
Jonathan Little
invader@hushmail.com
http://www.crosswinds.net/~uselessknowledge

Ok thats it...

I''m problably not going to colledge or university... I''m interested in programming and sometimes i''m depressed by this fact. Seeing people say that you need a colledge education to become a programmer gets me kind of down sure, but i''m resolved and i''m not going to give up.

Its the same with you and your conception that girls are thinking "I''m a girl, There is no way I can become a programmer, Its a male domentated society, I wouldn''t be accpeted"

I don''t want to sound like a motivation speaker or anything but, Don''t give up, Follow you dreams and don''t listen to what anybody says.

Let me ask you what women like?
What do they want in a game?
Do women like saving the day?
Being the hero?

Also Tell me what would marketing to females intail?

Let me answer these questions from my perpective:

Guys like good stories, and well made games.
Guys want well thought out characters, plot and fun factor
Guys love saving the day, Especailly in RPGs...
Guys also enjoy being the hero, saving the world from evil

You can''t tell me that most female gamers like the same things that guys do.

I''m going to flip to a random ad in a ramdon magazine and read it: ok, Tomb raider last revelation (No really! honest!) "Could the next tomb Lara Croft enters be her own? Find out in Tomb Riader: The Last Revelation, her latest adventure. With seemlessly intergrated gameplay and FMV sequences, new skin and 3-D texture mapping, diabolical new puzles and totally new inventory control system this is a totally new Tome Raider. Lets Just hope its not Lara''s last"

Its shows Lara pointing her gun at some skeletons...

I didn''t see any of that biased towards females, mabey i''m worng.

-Trev

Wow.. some long posts there. But I'm female so I guess I should put my two cents in.

I love playing games. Just not the typical games that most younger males enjoy. I've seen quite a few males that never even knew there was a world of games outside of the shoot'em games.

I have to agree that the market for *computer* games is generally targeted at males. It's pretty much a fact of life that most females do not find much enjoyment in shooting, killing, death, and blood....those games the invade the shelves at best buy and cost a pretty penny. And I admit they seem to add a bit of *sex* to the mix to even make it more enjoyable for males.

But there are..

Games like Acrophobia, Out of order, the games at the zone and yahoo. Many MANY women play those games. It seems that most of the games that women do enjoy playing are free. There are some commerical games, like scrabble for instance, that women enjoy playing.

But..

Most people (women or men) would not spend 50 bucks to play acrophobia even tho it's a very fun and addicting game (more fun to me and many others then Quake or Doom). But people WILL pay 50 bucks to play diablo. Why? I don't know why really. Maybe it's because it "looks" more appealing. Or maybe it's because it is more complicated. Maybe it's because they have to whereas acrophobia and the like are free. Maybe it's because women have better things to spend money on. I'm not really sure. But I do know it's those shoot'em up games that I see the most on the shelves at best buy and therefore it's those games that keep getting published.

But then you have the console games. With a wide assortment of games that everyone can enjoy. I can't tell you how long me and my friends sat and played Tony Hawk's All Pro skating. That game is just too cool!

I don't think it's society or the lack of female oriented games that is keeping women from the wonderful world of programming. Maybe it's a lack of interest. Or maybe it's a lack of time (running a household and working full time doesn't leave much time for much else). But I highly doubt the reason is that no one was there to push them into it. Or that someone told them they couldn't do it. Or because they have no desire for it because they don't enjoy computer games..


No one ever told me not to do it. But there was one person that recognized my talent way back in high school that fired the desired. My computer teacher Mr. Campbell. He saw my enthusiam for programming and put me on the right path. There were other females in the computer courses. Most were very bright and they did just as well as I did. I don't know where they are now or what they are doing but I do know any one of them could have made it big in the programming industry.

I don't know the answers to the rest of the world. I know my answer tho. I'm prefectly content where I am. I've found many people who are supportive of my programming dreams. Support from both from the females and the males in my life. I'm happy knowing I'm one of the few that wish to cross over into the world that is mostly filled with men. Maybe I can leave a mark. But whatever happens I will know that I did my best with something I loved to do.

And I guess that's the bottom line. I do what I do because I love it. Everyone else should to. It's as simple as that.

Ps. On a side note. I had a male friend that found it terribly enjoyable to watch Laura Croft swim. It was rather disgusting to watch him but hey.. he's a male.

Waves Hello to felisandra

-Tasm

Edited by - Tasm on 3/7/00 12:51:50 PM

Edited by - Tasm on 3/7/00 12:53:26 PM

Ack wrote "Over 50% of game players, and close to 50% of online game players are female."

The statement above and the fact that most of game programmers are male raises a number
of interesting questions.

Were all the games that ''over 50% of the game players'' play created by the small minority
of women in the game programming industry? If not, then the men in the game programming
industry must have been pretty damn good at creating games that appeal to women even
though they supposedly lack the ''female perspective'' that female game programmers are
supposed to bring to the industry.

In other words, if the two statements above are true you can not make the generalization
that games created by men appeal more to men than they do to women (if that was the
case, the percentage of female gamers would be proportional to the number of female game
programmers).

Now, if you absolutely want to believe that female game programmers really do bring a
''female perspective'' to games that make them more appealing to women you can explain the
quote and the fact (most game programmers are male) in a number of other ways:

1) The reason that more than 50% of the gamers but a much smaller percent of the game
programmers are female could be that women are geneticly better suited to play games. When
the number of female game programmers rise to 50% the percent of female gamers will be 99%.

Now, This would not go well with Ack''s theories though since she seems to belong to the
school that puts social influence over genetical heritage. She writes about how people are
influenced subconsciously by the opinions in the society etc. This is a THEORY, not FACT and
it would be even harder to show how that theory would apply to this particular case.

2) Female game programmers are 5-100 times more efficient than their male counterparts and
women really do create more than 50% of the games while men takes all the credit for them.

3) Female gamers are masochists. They really hate all the games that men make but play them
anyway.

I write to provoke, to explore. Personally I believe that the whole debate is pestered by
overgeneralizations. Ack wrote that HTML is programming. Normally I would say that there are
a lot more male programmers than female ones but if you count everyone who has created a
homepage as a programmer I would not be so sure. Anyway, I look forward to seeing if my
arguments and conclusions above will make anyone see any flaws in the theories/assumptions/generalizations
etc. put forth in the debate.

Anonymous... but you can call me Henry

btw, English is not my native tongue so... that''ll explain typos

*is laughing really hard*

Great post "Henry"!

-fel

Can I throw in 2 cents? As a female programmer, I''ve often wondered about this subject myself.

I think there is something that happens to girls in adolescence that turns them away from academics. Around the age of 11 or 12, when the hormones kick in, girls start getting awfully silly. They start worrying about things like makeup and hairstyles, and fitting in with their peers. Parents try in vain to keep their attention focused on school work.

The problem is, with hard sciences like mathematics and programming, you need to keep up. Once you get behind, you are completely lost. So many girls say "I''m just no good at math" when all that really happened is they missed long division in the 5th grade because they were busy giggling about their first training bra.

Boys, meanwhile, are a little behind in development, which makes nerdiness a natural for them. Where the girls were smarter in the lower grades, the boys catch up in middle school, and start to pull ahead. By high school, they''ve won the race, and the girls give up, preferring prom dates over math homework.

I know, this is all too general, and probably doesn''t apply to any of the women in this forum. But I''m a mother of a middle school child. I see some of the silliness that goes on. I have no idea what to do about it, though.

Diana

I was originally going to answer to the post yesterday... but am in the habit of reading everything before posting... and by then it was about 12:30 with school next day... so I left it till today and having finally finished reading all posts will contribute...

I asked a few of my female friends at school (I''m 16) about whether they liked computer games and if not, why the most common responses were they were boring or too expensive to be worthwhile. I only can think of two girls offhand that I know that have enjoyed acutal full-priced commercial games: my sister, and one of my friends younger sisters... the games they liked were: the sims, theme hospital and (from a while back) normality.

I thought that these results do fairly well agree with many things that have been said... *most* girls aren''t as interested in fps''s or other violent games, though exceptions will always exist. However the console games market is less "gender-biased" (whatever that means) and it''s not uncommon for some of my female acquaintances to play them on occasion... platformers being rather popular.

I''m not really going to draw many results, letting all yous out there make them. One other point that I''ll make is in my computer science class there is only 1 girl, and due to rubbish teaching, anyone without previous programming is sure to thoroughly hate programming and find it boring... this is a pity and causes my to say that many of the potential programmers in the class, including the girl will definitely never even consider it again...

I''ll just leave this as it is...
J2xC

Ack: Forgoing previous miscommunications (on both parts )I''d like to tell you my views on gender. Some of the stuff''s rather obvious; but, hey!, I''ve got to start somewhere...


Before you can debate gender-based bias, you must decide what gender means. I believe that there are two types of people: men and women. The fact that there are two types leads to the rather obvious conclusion that there are deep differences between the types, and not just the way they look, but how they think. Differences which cut down all the way to who they are. I''m not purposely going to "get religious" on you; but, my opinions are deeply rooted in my religion so I can''t separate the two. Obviously, men and women were made to work together. Because they''re different (both physically and mentally), they have different roles, different interests, different viewpoints, etc.

On the other hand, you also have individuals that make up those groups. Individuals have their own preferences. Thus, you may find a woman who likes blood-and-gore shoot ''em up games -- you may find a man who likes to own a hat shop. It''s not necessarily bad; it''s their own preferences -- I''m just pointing out that being individuals is a large part of (but certainly not all of) gender. It''s a mix; to dwell on one (gender differences) or the other (individual differences) is to miss the whole picture.

What I draw from these ideas is that men and women do have inherent differences. That''s not being prejudiced, or offensive -- just acknowledging reality. And I personally think that people are just not smart enough to be able to put those differences into numbers and compare them directly -- so I look at it like the differences (greater dexterity/lesser strength, or whatever combo happens to be in a particular person) happen to equal themselves out. Particular attributes might be more or less useful at a particular time; but, to single out one attribute and make it the most important attribute is only ignorance.

I don''t think there''s any purpose in either blurring the differences or exaggerating them.

There''s no cause for women disliking some traits common to many men or thinking it''s offensive. There''s no cause for men disliking some traits common to women or thinking it''s offensive. Both groups can find plenty of "dirt" on each other. So it''s pointless to say "typical male" and for men to get offended. It''s pointless to say "typical female" and get offended. Note that I am talking here about traits, not abilities.

Rather than picking apart each other''s differences (I''m not accusing you personally, just referring to anyone that does it from time to time), men and women ought to enjoy those differences and get along.

Please don''t get offended about what I''m going to say: learning how to (correctly) interact with women is quite a struggle for men. Instead, I''m trying to relish those differences (talking about intellectual and emotional differences particularly here ) instead of getting offended by them. It''s hard work -- kind of like learning a different language. I mean really learning a different language -- the grammar''s different; it might not have the same verb tenses; it might seem totally backward; etc.

I can only guess that it''s very difficult for women to learn how to (correctly) interact with men...please don''t fall into the common trap of thinking men are simple-minded or anything demeaning like that. (I''ve also seen much bias against males -- both groups do it and neither is right in doing so.) I sincerely hope everyone on this post will go away appreciating gender more than trying to eliminate it or "shove it under the rug."


My final "take" on this is that man and woman were made to compliment (meaning: complete) one another. They should work together, and the roles they fulfill to that end (the roles are different for each individual couple) are very much a part of who they are as individuals.

To state that another way, men and women are not complete separately -- only when they come together do they have true strength.

What you decide with your role is up to you, but part of caring is considering your future (or current -- it''s hard to tell these days ) husband would appreciate. Part of caring is considering and giving up things for other people. I''m not saying women should do this all the time or in any particular area; men should do this for women, too.

I would definitely not mind if my future wife knew how to program or fly a jet or pilot a space shuttle or anything else technical. It''d be kind of neat, but it''s certainly not a requirement! More important than what you do is who you are! (That was meant to be encouraging. )

Good Luck!


- null_pointer