Gender and Gaming

This is a post on about gender within the games industry.

According to Miller Et Al. People tend to go by gender for their occupation. I agree with this point to a degree, as it has something to do with gender role. Gender role are social and behavioural norms that are considered socially acceptable based on their gender .Something I picked up from Sociology, when children are growing up, the toys we are given to us at a young age kinda affect the sort of paths we take in life. If your a boy, your given things like toy tools, action figures, play mobile cars and so on, wheras if your a girl your given thigns like tea sets, dolls, a kitchen play set and so on.

Implict sterotypes have also been a factor on gender differences in est. salaries; money + wealth are viewed as masculine. The sterotype implying that when it comes to finding jobs, males tend to go for jobs that are highly paid.

Women are segregated to certain jobs that have fewer job oppurtunities, which also pay less. Women's cognitations + beliefs about technology and science are more negative towards technology and science than that of men's - mainly why most women tend to move away from the video game industry. Only 0.4% of women have lead only positions in the industry, whereas 1.2% are men. Also only 23% of senior position within the twenty UK games companies.

The percentage of men and woman in each job description within the games industry

                                      Male (%)                Female (%)
OPS/IT/HR                       53                           47

Writing                              70                           30

MKt/PR/Sales                   75                           25

Production                         79                          12

     QA                               87                          13

Excutive                             88                          12

Visual Arts                         89                          11

Design                                90                          10

Programming                      95                            5


http://www.tnsglobal.com/_assets/files/Factsheets_UK.pdf (Source material for a few of the points I will bring up).

I also looked at National Gamers Survey in 2009, where there were studies on gamers within the UK. The first survey "Percentage of UK Population Playing Games and Time Spent. It was shown that Males play ALOT more games than Females, but it shows that at aged 50 + years that 43% of women play games (more than males in that group which is 41%) which shows that males hold onto their gaming habits then. Also I noticed that the 8 - 12 year old have a 99% (Male) playing games than the 96% (Females). But, the 13 - 19 year old group holds less, but more hours are accumulated within that group from the males at a total of 11.1 hours. It also shows that Males play more console games than women, however, women player more game portals.

Well, this is it for this entry, the link is up where I got the information from, feel free to have a look, comment and share your thoughts.