Where the women at?

That question was on my mind as, session after session, I found myself surrounded by men.  It reminded me the O.W.M. (Old White Men) who gather in corporate meeting rooms and government offices everywhere, though O.W.M. tend to be better dressed and don't sport purple mohawks.

Various statistics put the number of female video game players at 30%-60% of the total gaming populous.  You would have thought they were an endangered specifies relegated to myths if their attendence at the GDC was any indication of their existence.

It wasn't until I made my way over to the Expo portion of GDC on the second day that I saw the women.  They were a pretty lot, squeezed into tight shirts, handing out swag.  Booth babes.  They weren't as scandalously undressed as the ones that decorated the booths of E3, but it was obvious that men made the video games, made the business decisions, and did the secret handshakes in shuttered back rooms.

At the company I work for, less than 10% of my co-workers are women.  A quarter of them work in the front office.  It's not that we filter out women in the hiring process, it's just that we hardly ever see a resume from a woman.

If 30% of the doctoral recipients in mathematics are women, surely the video game industry can attract a better share of women into it's workforce.  Video games aren't just about wizards, orcs, and super soldiers on steroids--we've got, Barbie and Hello Kitty, etcetera, etcetera.