作者：Genna Habibipour

几乎所有关于“游戏行业为何缺少女性”的文章开篇都会遵循如下套路：

“游戏领域的女性从业者太少了。主要是因为这一行的男性太多，而女人们都害怕男性。除此之外，还有千百万个理由可以解释为啥女人们都不乐意进入游戏行业。如果游戏领域再多一些女性，那么开发者在工作中的表现就会更为成熟，而公司也会对我们更好。我遣责造成这一切的教育体系，公司，社会、大自然、性别歧视……”

首先要说明的是，没错，电子游戏开发领域确实没有多少女性人才（游戏邦注：作者认为女性开发者的比例大约是10%）。

但需要注意的是，这一行还有许多女性工作在HR、PR、市场营销和其他大量需要经常与开发团队沟通和交流的部门。

所以请不要再有因为女人们怯于与男性开发者打交道，而且开不得玩笑，所以这一行缺少女性这类怨言了。这种说法根本站不住脚。

此类文章的另外一堆理由也基本上缺乏根据，容易误导大众。它们所奉行的观点包括：

female developer(from bellaonline.com)

生活质量：这一说法认为女性无法承受长时间的工作。但请想象一下这种工作情形，你得全天候随叫随到，每天辛勤工作16个小时（周末也不例外，偶尔才有一两个晚上可以睡个好觉），而且这份工作没有假期，没有医疗/牙医补贴，甚至没有任何薪酬。更重要的是，这项工作会持续18年！没错，这就是带着孩子的家庭主妇的工作。如果将照料小孩的骄傲和关爱，替换成将一个创意落实成一个项目，给她们高于全国平均标准的薪水，假期以及一个可为她排忧解难的团队成员，这种情况对她们来说是不是更乐观？

所以说这一行缺少女性是因为她们通常还有更有压力的事情要做。

成熟：我们可以继续接上有关家庭主妇的话题，应对一个3岁小孩反复无常的情绪（而且你还不能对其置之不理），其实并不比处理上司无故闹脾气更容易。另外，多数开发者都爱开玩笑，这一点和跟小孩打交道可大为不同。

我想知道这里所谓的“成熟”是何定义。我认识的多数女性游戏从业者都懂得领会同事开的玩笑，可以和男同胞们打成一片。我们怎么可能将开不得玩笑的女人引进这个本来就不能没有乐趣的行业？

薪水：看看游戏开发者收入调查结果就会发现，女性成员一般会比男同事少赚1万美元左右。但我想知道的是，这些数据会不会随着资历加深而发生巨变。假如所有人都以同一个薪资水准起步，那这里就会涉及留存因素……

如果有20%的男性不会在电子游戏行业呆上5年，你仍然会有相当一部分收入可观的薪酬数据可以提升一般男性职员的薪资落差。假如你将已经非常稀少的女员工薪水下调20%，那么这一行业的平均薪酬水平就会急剧降低，因为你只有一小撮高薪数据可抵消起伏不定的初级薪酬水准。再把这个年限延长5年，然后再折扣20%……到最后你会发现这一行已经完全没有女性了，所以这1万美元的差距也许跟这一行女职员的低留存率有关，而非源于人为的同工不同酬。

关于开发者薪酬水准的另一个真相是：在电子游戏领域有些人付出的少，但赚到的钱多，还有些人多劳却并没有多得。无论是男性还是女性，其薪水都和他们与公司的协商结果有关，美国公司也无权根据性别（或种族、年龄）下发工资。所以如果你真的值这个价钱，那就应该大胆提出要求，否则就会像其他同事或行业的交易一样，只能听凭公司的裁决了。女性开发者低薪并非仅仅源于她是女性。

性别歧视：没错，对普通大众来说，确实有些男性不愿与女性共事。这在任何一个行业都不鲜见。而漂亮的女人总是和占优势的男性一样受捧，甚至还有些人在其位却无法司其职。遇到这种情况大家就只有两种选择：要不然就是将某人的意志视为一种无法克服的障碍，要不就是以无所谓的态度将其落实。

尽管这一行存在一些坏蛋，但跟大家共事也还有许多值得高兴的事情。

现在如果想说服女人们进入游戏开发领域，就不要挑选那些完全荒唐的理由了，例如：

“女人们可以让工作氛围更加平衡，她们可以促使我们创造出更成熟的游戏。她们会开阔我们的眼界，将电子游戏推向一个新起点。她们可以证明游戏也是一种艺术形式。这样公司才会应她们的要求改善所有人的生活质量。”

奉劝大家还是放弃这类不切实际的幻想。

女人们并非电子游戏行业的救世主，不要再说她们的存在会转变整个行业格局。这是一种最蹩脚的抱怨方式，也是一种最不可能的空想。

那么我们应如何鼓励女性加入游戏开发行列呢？

欢迎她们

不要说她们肩负改变游戏行业的使命，不要称她们进入这一行是整个职业生涯中的重大挑战，不要说出千百万个她们不愿入伙的理由（更不要告诉她们，这一行需要她们来教小伙子们学习礼仪和修养）。

应该激发她们创造故事、设计角色、解决问题等事务的兴趣，让她们将这种兴趣投入这一行中最有创意的事业之一。用这一行引导他人的方法来引导她们，不要过于拘泥那些无谓的内容。如果我们真想实现这个目标，就得改变我们的说服策略。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

You’re doing it wrong! How (not) to persuade women to enter game development.

by Genna Habibipour

Here’s how an article about the “lack of women in gaming” typically unfolds.

“There aren’t enough women in gaming.  This is because there are too many dudes, and women are terrified of dudes.  Besides that, there are also a million reasons why a reasonable woman would not want to get into games anyway.  If we had more women in gaming, developers would be more mature and corporations would be nicer to us.  I blame the education system, corporations, society, biology, sexism…”

Etc, etc.

First off, yes, there aren’t a lot of women in video game development.  (I believe the average figure is somewhere around 10%.)

However there are a lot of women in the fields of HR, PR, Marketing, and a good deal of women working in all kinds of positions that need to interact with the development team on a regular basis.

So please stop using the argument that there are no women in development because they are terrified of being exposed to the typical male developer and can’t handle a fart joke.  That’s just nonsense.

As for the countless reasons often named in these kinds of articles, lets say they seem a bit misleading.  Here are some of the points that get thrown out the most.

*QoL: The argument is that for some reason, women are less tolerant of working long hours.  Now imagine a job where you were on-call 24/7, with 16 active hour workdays-including weekends (if you’re lucky enough for a break that allows a full night’s worth of sleep).  This job doesn’t offer vacation time, no medical/dental/vision plan and NO PAY.  Best of all, you’re locked into it for the next 18 years!  Yes, it’s the stay-at-home mom with a young child.  Now replace that pride and love that makes raising a child worth it, with developing a project from an idea, add a salary that’s better than the national average, add vacation time, and add a team of people to help you out with making sure the project develops into something great.

Lets just say there are more stressful things that women regularly take on.

*Maturity:  Going along with the above caretaker point, dealing with the temper tantrum of a director probably isn’t much worse than dealing with the public temper tantrum of a 3 year old that you can’t just walk away from.  Plus, unlike dealing with small children, most developers restrain from crapping themselves to make a fart joke.

I’m also trying to figure out what point “maturity” is supposed to make.  Most of the other women I know in games will laugh at the fart jokes, geek out on nerd culture, and goof around with the guys without any issues.  Are we trying to recruit women that are incapable of having fun into the industry of fun?

*Pay:  If you look at a game developer salary survey, women earn about 10k less than their male coworkers.  Now, that’s not a chunk of change to sneeze at, but I do wonder if those numbers wouldn’t drastically change when factoring in seniority.  Say everyone starts out with the same entry-level salary, lets factor in retention…

*Regardless of the reason for quitting the industry!*  If 20% of men don’t stay in the video game industry past 5 years, you still have a decent number of high-level salaries to pull up the average male salary.  If you get a 20% drop in an already sparse female workforce, the average salary is going to be dramatically reduced because you only have a handful of high-level salaries to offset the revolving entry-level income.  Now extend that out another 5 years and another 20%…  (And if a train leaves Chicago at 2pm…)  Eventually you just run out of women, and it’s possible that the 10k salary gap is due to the lack of retention in a small population of the industry, and NOT based off of a pay conspiracy.

The other fact about developer salaries is this:  There are some people in video games that make more money than they’re worth, and there are others that don’t make as much money as they should.  Male or female, it comes down to negotiation, and a company in the U.S. can’t legally set a policy of paying people based on their gender (or race, or age).  Ask for it, and if you’re worth it, you might get it.  Otherwise, just like with any other employee or any other business transaction, employers are going to try to get you as cheaply as they can get away with.  A woman that is underpaid isn’t necessarily underpaid specifically because she is a woman.

*General sexual discrimination:  Yes, as it is with the general population, some guys do not like the idea of working with women.  You will get this in ANY profession.  And pretty females are favored just as much as dominant males; up to the point where they fail to perform their job.  Everyone has two choices when confronted with this scenario; you can choose to allow one person’s views to be your insurmountable roadblock, or you can choose to pay it no mind, and succeed by working around it.

And despite the few bad eggs, there are a great deal more that are glad (or even thrilled) to be working with you.

Now, if you’re going to say that there is a need for more women in game development, don’t give women completely ridiculous reasons to consider working in games.

“Women will balance the culture.  Women will force us to make mature games.  Women will open our eyes to new possibilities and bring video games to the next level.  Women will prove that games are an art form.  Corporations will only improve the quality of life if there are women asking for it.”

…And on and on with the idealistic fantasies.

Women are not the saviors of video games.  Please stop saying that they will magically transform the whole industry by their biological presence alone.  Just about the worst way to pitch something is to complain about how terrible it is and follow it up with impossible expectations.  It comes across as too desperate, too demanding and too much pressure.

You also don’t want the women that feel like it is their single-handed duty to force square pegs into round holes either.  They are completely bonkers and they will drive the rest of your team insane.

So what do we do to encourage (sane) women to join the ranks of development?

WELCOME THEM.

Don’t tell them that they need to change the tides to get into the industry.  Don’t insist that they are going to be fighting an uphill battle their whole career.  Don’t give them a million reasons why they don’t really want to join anyway.  (Especially don’t say that the industry needs them because they need to teach the boys how to have manners…)

Encourage their interest in creating stories, designing characters, solving puzzles… and investing those interests in one of the most creative (and financially viable) careers out there.  Inspire them the same way everyone else in the industry has been inspired, without attaching all of the meaningless drama and desperation to it.  We really need to change our campaign if this is a goal we really wish to achieve.

It’ll happen if we welcome it to happen.（source:gamasutra）