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[Sephiroth_VII]

It's been proven that other than certain things related entirely to sex and reproduction habits, male and female brains are pretty much identical

You telling me this doesn't change my mind. Some good sources might.

Peer-reviewed, scientific sources mind you, not YouTube.

Spoiler

Unless it's one of those rare videos with really great citations. I love those.

Why do you believe that though? Why do you think men and women gravitate toward different jobs? Do you think that societal and cultural norms have nothing to do with that? That media has nothing to do with that?

No, I believe it's a combination of all those factors. AFAIK, most researchers do as well.

 

[CryptiK]

Argh facepalm. Those people dont get those jobs precisely because they are women or minorities. Its already happening.

Its literally like no one has bothered to look into hiring statistics.

Ugh facepalm. This is what people in this thread are saying should be done. Picking someone because they need to diversify a line up of judges over picking someone because they should be there.

 

[Shadoken]

Whats the ratio of races on the judges? Lets force equal percentage on that too. Every race must be equally represented too.

This whole diversity for the sake of it is fkin BS. The whole panel can have 32 women if they are better qualified.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

No, I'm arguing this is not the right way to go about it. The end doesn't always justify the means.

What is the right way? Because frankly while affirmative action is not perfect its literally better than nothing. Suggest something man.

 

[213372bu]

Ehh it's getting that point in thread where people are posting crazy shit.

At the end of the day, let it be known that I support more women in the jury and was shocked there weren't more and just don't see how "50/50 or no involvement as it is problematic" is weird to me.

Just don't lump me with some others.

 

[Dice//]

Seriously with some of the comments here?
Should men not cook because more women are expected to do it and are "more qualified" then? Not the best analogy (thinking fast), but I mean the whole "most qualified" logic here is too.

 

[Weltall Zero]

See. I found this kind of thinking as racist and sexist as what people are outcrying about. You don't need a different pigment on skin to have different opinions. A white male growing up in NYC and those growing up in south Texas share nothing resemblance in their life. Every single human has their own individuality and personality. Why people think same race shares a hive mind is really beyond me.

Let me shot down your argument with a meta example. I can tell you're a white male because that blind idealistic view of the world is something only someone who has never faced discrimination would hold (you could also theorethically just be the most sheltered black transexual lesbian woman in existence, but I somehow doubt it). If that's not ironclad proof of race, gender and sexual orientation coloring your experiences and entire world view, I don't know what is.

 

[jmood88]

Because then you are giving the jobs based on gender and skin colour. Which is one thing the world should be stopping, it should be flat out based on qualification and merits nothing more nothing less. Otherwise its discrimination.

You say this as if white men haven't been getting jobs based on being white males since the founding of this country. Meanwhile, everyone who isn't a white male has been excluded from jobs due to their skin tone and/or gender.

 

[RichyDevil]

This spotlights the continual hypocrisy of this industry. I see article after article and post after post screaming about gender issues in games, media, and development.

Yet year after year, no one hires women with any urgency. Every major site is fronted by a dude. All the big podcasts and personality-driven 'new media' Patreon-fueled organizations are fronted by dudes. Almost every major development studio is fronted by a dude.

Lots of people pompously congratulate themselves for being progressive yet do absolutely nothing about the actual issue.

Makes the industry look stupid. Which, in many cases, it is.

Do something or shut up about it. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Cloyster]

Ugh facepalm. This is what people in this thread are saying should be done. Picking someone because they need to diversify a line up of judges over picking someone because they should be there.

if you had a fucking bucket full of mixed colored m&m's of equal taste, don't you think it would be a little fucking weird to JUST take the red ones?

Now make them people, and it's racism.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Ugh facepalm. This is what people in this thread are saying should be done. Picking someone because they need to diversify a line up of judges over picking someone because they should be there.

There is literally nothing to imply that there are not qualified women that could suit the role. There is about 100 articles that say when everything is equal men will get the default assumption of competency over women. Soooo . . . Give your reasoning to why this occurs and give a solution besides do nothing. Right now your argument is the most qualified person is always a white male.

 

[Dice//]

I see we have the old "white men suddenly really caring about meritocracy" chestnut in spades here.

Yup.

 

[mgs2master2]

You understand it right.

So then the issue is on the sites for not having diversity, not Geoff. Why are people accusing The Game Awards of it when the blame is on their own respective organizations? Doesn't make any sense to me.

Nah, these are special judges who Geoff has hand-picked and personally anointed with Mountain Dew.

Praise be to the Doritos pope. Bless us with this holy anointment. Bless us with the holy communion of Doritos.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Whats the ratio of races on the judges?
Lets force equal percentage on that too. Every race must be equally represented too.

This whole diversity for the sake of it is fkin BS. The whole panel can have 32 women if they are better qualified.

This is basically how I feel. Diversity is lovely, nice and always welcomed, I mean, it should be! But if there are situations where stuff like this occurs and there's a legitimate reason as to why the outcome isn't more diverse doesn't mean we need to take out torches and pitchforks...

 

[Aaronrules380]

You telling me this doesn't change my mind. Some good sources might.

No, I believe it's a combination of all those factors. AFAIK, most researchers do as well.

I've never heard of a single reputable researcher suggest women or men are genetically predisposed to any sort of occupation other than those that depend on things like physical build and strength. Also look up stuff like stereotype threat, where people who were at a perceived disadvantage because of a group they fell into (for instance, women in stem fields) performed worse on tests where they had to identify with that group (such as marking a gender box) than they did when they didn't have to

 

[stufte]

if you had a fucking bucket full of mixed colored m&m's of equal taste, don't you think it would be a little fucking weird to JUST take the red ones?

Now make them people, and it's racism.

That analogy doesn't work if they all tasted the same. In that case what would be the point/difference of having a handfull of red or a handfull of mixed colored ones? If they tasted the same both options would have the same taste outcome. It wouldn't matter what you choose.

 

[Feichaw]

For those who want to know, here are the top video game journalism websites, according to Alexa, with some interesting data, including audience demographics. Keep in mind that it's all estimated.

For IGN, for exemple, they say that, relative to the general internet population, females are overrepresented in the site's audience, while the same can't be said for Game Informer.

I don't know how many judges each site has chosen, but I think the ones that have a large presence of women in their audience should have chosen at least one woman, to represent the people who see their content.

 

[QuickSilverD]

if anyone cares, here's Richard Lewis (the Breitbart guy) talking about this issue

 

[Moonlight]

No need for gut feelings. It already happened with the new Canadian Prime Minister's gender-balanced cabinet. All of a sudden people were questioning the merits and qualifications of his cabinet, which they never did for past PMs, who mostly appointed their friends and shuffled ministers around from one unrelated department to another. Because, of course, they were white males, so no one questioned their "qualifications".

This was especially kind of funny because when the dust settled it became pretty clear that Trudeau's new cabinet held more 'qualifications' toward their positions than Harper's.

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

For IGN, for exemple, they say that, relative to the general internet population, females are overrepresented in the site's audience, while the same can't be said for Game Informer.

IGN's a general entertainment site, and not gaming exclusive, which probably accounts for the discrepancy.

 

[Aureon]

What's the staff makeup of gaming review sites?

 

[jmood88]

And a black woman from a rich background will have an entirely different life experience than a black woman from a poor background. An asian woman from the US is going to have an entirely different life experience than an asian woman from the UK. A latino woman who was bullied in school will have an entirely different life experience than a latino woman who was homeschooled. A white man who had an abusive father is going to have a different experience than a white man who was raised by a single mother.

People are unique individuals, not representations of whatever ethnic, gender or sexual groups they may fall under.

You're completely ignoring how the world works to try to justify keeping things as homogenous as possible.

 

[thefro]

I don't think a 50/50 split is realistic for this year given the demographics of game journalism outlets right now, but certainly there should be more than 2 women on the panel.

 

[Mesoian]

For those who want to know, here are the top video game journalism websites, according to Alexa, with some interesting data, including audience demographics. Keep in mind that it's all estimated.

For IGN, for exemple, they say that, relative to the general internet population, females are overrepresented in the site's audience, while the same can't be said for Game Informer.

I don't know how many judges each site has chosen, but I think the ones that have a large presence of women in their audience should have chosen at least one woman, to represent the people who see their content.

...G4tv.com is up there.

 

[Dice//]

Because then you are giving the jobs based on gender and skin colour. Which is one thing the world should be stopping, it should be flat out based on qualification and merits nothing more nothing less. Otherwise its discrimination.

http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias

 

[Vlitra]

I don't think women were intentionally kept from being judges. But I do believe they should of made an effort to encourage more diversity.

Games are still young. They don't need to fall much deeper into the trappings of other entertainment industries.

 

[IcyStorm]

This spotlights the continual hypocrisy of this industry. I see article after article and post after post screaming about gender issues in games, media, and development.

Yet year after year, no one hires women with any urgency. Every major site is fronted by a dude. All the big podcasts and personality-driven 'new media' Patreon-fueled organizations are fronted by dudes. Almost every major development studio is fronted by a dude.

Lots of people pompously congratulate themselves for being progressive yet do absolutely nothing about the actual issue.

Makes the industry look stupid. Which, in many cases, it is.

Do something or shut up about it. You can't have it both ways.

One problem is that I think those men who are head of their respective sites (such as Chris Grant of Polygon, Stephen Totilo of Kotaku, etc.) have to move on to something else (or get fired) for a woman to become head of it. And it's not really fair to fire them just to hire women. But both sites do/have feature(d) women and have (or had, I haven't checked Polygon's staff recently) a fair amount of women writers.

You have cases like Susan Arendt, who I think was the EIC of Joystiq? Except AOL shut down Joystiq and a few other blogs.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

That analogy doesn't work if they all tasted the same. In that case what would be the point/difference of having a handfull of red or a handfull of mixed colored ones? If they tasted the same both options would have the same taste outcome. It wouldn't matter what you choose.

Because if I'm a blue M&M I sit in the bag forever and melt never given an opportunity to fulfill a purpose. Maybe they are picking the red M&Ms because . . . Racism is basically what he is getting at.

 

[CryptiK]

Seriously with some of the comments here?
Should men not cook because more women are expected to do it and are "more qualified" then? Not the best analogy (thinking fast), but I mean the whole "most qualified" logic here is too.

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

 

[Mesoian]

What's the staff makeup of gaming review sites?

Better question, what's the makeup of people writing news/reviews/editorials vs people doing on screen games coverage or show hosting?

Because we're getting to the point where the people doing one aren't doing the other, an the people doing the latter are becoming more important than the people doing the former.

 

[Curufinwe]

Polygon has chosen to have deputy managing editor Megan Farokhmanesh represent the site, arguing that they "can make more of a difference from the inside than the outside." (take that as you will)

Polygon should help lead the fight for equality by letting go some of their male staff members who have a long track record of being fucking terrible at their jobs.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

What is the right way? Because frankly while affirmative action is not perfect its literally better than nothing. Suggest something man.

I'm not going to. I just don't think this is the right one. Just like I don't think the best way to achieve peace in the middle east is to drop the nuclear arsenal of the United States on it.
Now, that's obviously a problem, and a potential solution, on a ridiculously different scale. But surely, you wouldn't ask me for alternatives just because I disagree with a so-called solution.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

This was especially kind of funny because when the dust settled it became pretty clear that Trudeau's new cabinet held more 'qualifications' toward their positions than Harper's.

Yeah. Then again it's not hard to beat Harper there. Nominating an actual scientist as Minister of Science, instead of a creationist? Trudeau could win this without even trying.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

You say this as if white men haven't been getting jobs based on being white males since the founding of this country. Meanwhile, everyone who isn't a white male has been excluded from jobs due to their skin tone and/or gender.

A name is enough, there's been a study in my country where they applied to a bunch of jobs with identical resumes and qualifications but half of them had foreign sounding names. Came down to 25% to 30% lesser chance to receive an invitation to a job interviews.

The system just won't fix itself by itself.

 

[Spirited]

Didn't they just send their EIC, then why is this thread even a thing?

Atleast if it's only about shitting on the game awards when the real "problem" is that there's almost no women in the higher positions at these video game outlets.

 

[Feichaw]

IGN's a general entertainment site, and not gaming exclusive, which probably accounts for the discrepancy.

I totally forgot about that! I'm sorry

Is that the case for GiantBomb? Because Alexa says that happens in that site too. I'm not familiar with them, and the only thing I know about them is that they're probably GAF's favorite website.

 

[Jonneh3003]

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

I was going to post something along these lines. Best person for the job, gender doesn't matter. Why make exceptions or stop a more qualified from having the job just to seem non-sexist.

 

[Dice//]

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

Problem is that men, IN MANY THINGS, already had the leg up; women and minorities have had to work harder and in a world that typically applies prejudice/bias against them. The REASON affirmative action or blind auditions exist is to help eliminate bias: http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias and

A name is enough, there's been a study in my country where they applied to a bunch of jobs with identical resumes and qualifications but half of them had foreign sounding names. Came down to 25% to 30% lesser chance to receive an invitation to a job interviews.

The system just won't fix itself by itself.

 

[Mr. RHC]

I'm not going to. I just don't think this is the right one. Just like I don't think the best way to achieve peace in the middle east is to drop the nuclear arsenal of the United States on it.

Yeah, that nuclear thing doesn't sound like a good idea. Maybe get someone from the Middle East to be a juror instead.

 

[CryptiK]

There is literally nothing to imply that there are not qualified women that could suit the role. There is about 100 articles that say when everything is equal men will get the default assumption of competency over women. Soooo . . . Give your reasoning to why this occurs and give a solution besides do nothing. Right now your argument is the most qualified person is always a white male.

Not once have I said that the most qualified person is a white male. Not once. A hundred articles can say that those articles are not me. What I am saying is qualification and merit>>> race or gender. While people in this thread are saying it should be equal because it should be equal.
I dont care who you are I hire you based on your experience thats it.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

I'm not going to. I just don't think this is the right one. Just like I don't think the best way to achieve peace in the middle east is to drop the nuclear arsenal of the United States on it.
Now, that's obviously a problem, and a potential solution, on a ridiculously different scale. But surely, you wouldn't ask me for alternatives just because I disagree with a so-called solution.

I said affirmative action in regards to quotas. Quotas of women, of indegenous people etc.

But honestly this whole "its not the right way" is always followed by no legitimate solution to the issue. And it always ignores the fact that the way the system is right now is inherently designed to be unfair. These biases will forever remain unless you make an active stance to do it differently. So I ask you again, what is a legit solution, because quotas while not perfect do infact still achieve a better mix than nothing.

 

[Moonlight]

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

Ignoring that your post has like zero relevance to that analogy (which is coached in a premise of societal expectation), I wasn't aware being a video game pundit was literally the same thing as cooking five star food.

This whole qualification shit is nonsense until someone can actually explain how you can measure that in the context of critical game discussion. Being a good critic is about sharing a perspective and arguing for it succinctly and intelligently. It's not some merit system.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Not once have I said that the most qualified person is a white male. Not once. A hundred articles can say that those articles are not me. What I am saying is qualification and merit>>> race or gender. While people in this thread are saying it should be equal because it should be equal.

People want MORE diversity. No one is asking for a 50/50 split.

 

[Sushi Nao]

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

...that's one position, governed by one metric. Totally inapplicable to the 50-2 split in this case

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

Why reduce it to 2 and make it such an extreme discrepancy?

If only 2 people applied to the job makes you wonder what's wrong with the restaurant and if those 2 where the only ones to make it through the screening of a much bigger pool they should already be of similar qualifications.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Not once have I said that the most qualified person is a white male. Not once. A hundred articles can say that those articles are not me. What I am saying is qualification and merit>>> race or gender. While people in this thread are saying it should be equal because it should be equal.

I know you havent said it. I'm trying to get you to recognize your argumemt is saying the same thing. Things are inherently designed to pick white males even when merit is the same. So how do you solce that issue?

And jeez if the split was 12-20 we wouldn't even be having this discussion. We want balance. Shit does not need to be 50-50.

 

[CryptiK]

People want MORE diversity. No one is asking for a 50/50 split.

People on the last 2 pages were saying that

 

[Mr. RHC]

Didn't they just send their EIC, then why is this thread even a thing?

Atleast if it's only about shitting on the game awards when the real "problem" is that there's almost no women in the higher positions at these video game outlets.

Can't believe that there are no female editors working for these outlets.

Maybe double the number of people every outlet is sending? Rent a bigger venue, Geoff, more seats too!

 

[tim.mbp]

if anyone cares, here's Richard Lewis (the Breitbart guy) talking about this issue

That guy really doesn't like Brianna Wu, but at least he agrees women should be better represented on the jury.

Edit: Also says he was asked not Breitbart.

 

[Cloyster]

Your right thats an awful analogy. Who should get the job as a head chef at a 5 star redtraunt

1. The woman with 10 years experience.
2. The guy with 1 year experience

Spoiler number one because she is more qualified. Now flip it

1. Guy with 10 years experience
2. Woman with 1 year.

Who now? Number 1 again more qualified.

Way to make it as binary as humanly possible.