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Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 4:33 UTC (Tue) by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
In reply to: Outreachy: an intern's perspective by k8to
Parent article: Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Yes, see the NPR Planet Money episode from up the thread.


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Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 8:18 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (5 responses)

The two NPR pieces linked support the idea that women being successful in programming (particularly in their higher education programs) is strongly linked to how computers were socialized as toys to young people in a highly gender-skewed way.

That's not what I'm asking about above. I asked whether there's a link to how specifically games are "inclusive", which basically means how women are represented inside games, and the options offered to the player as to what their in-game avatar or character should look like, and women's success in programming. It's not hard to imagine that in the current timeframe, games being male-player-pespective skewed reinforces the perception that computing is for boys, which might be a driver for representation in the field. However, games in the early 1980s were not nearly so codified about player avatars. Women heroes were represented in early videogames, and most early videogames had no gender representation at all, (though they might use themes that are gender-associated such as guns, planes, spaceships, race-cars, etc). Meanwhile, the representation of women among video game players has risen from the 1980s until now, while the representation of women in computer science (according to the NPR data) has fallen.

Therefore it seems overall that the NPR information and what I know about videogames isn't enough to suggest a link, though there may be one anyway.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 8:36 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (2 responses)

There's a least decade long latency between girls starting to play games and appearing at the job market.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 16:04 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, but the two things have basically been trending in opposite directions for 15 years or so.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 17, 2016 9:40 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

Maybe it has nothing to do with games today. 30 years ago only gamers had computers at home, nowadays they are ubiquitous in the developed world. But I still do think it's the 10 years old girls that should be introduced to programming - it's way too late to address adults.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 14:54 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> I asked whether there's a link to how specifically games are "inclusive", which basically means how women are represented inside games

While there was a dry spell in the '90s and '00s where there were very few games that weren't gender-skewed toward a male audience, today there is a vibrant Indie scene with plenty of quality games that are either told from a woman's perspective or are not particularly gender specific. Maybe in 20 years the demographics will be a lot less skewed and follow a more normal distribution based on interest and ability rather than gender.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 16, 2016 1:15 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

ISTR the NPR piece mentioned the games angle.


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