Really long discussion on specific things to do to better include women in gaming

[zdashamber]

So in the community of Forgish people who talk about rpgs, the most recent kerfluffle is that someone called someone on using sexist language, with predictable results: "You're oversensitive. Shut up."

However, there are some bright points. Matt Wilson posted a good overview of the problem of sexism, and Thomas lordsmerf was interested enough to ask, what is all this about? and discuss it with me. (Since I started writing this, Matt added a second post about the solutions he suggests, and John Kim added a post to the discussion, too.)

While I was following this, I found in the work lunchroom a recent issue of Nature, the cover of which linked (heh. first verb that occurred to me) to a story inside about a study of gender inequality in British physics departments. Carried the magazine away, read the miniscule story, hunted down the website of the organization mentioned (the Institue of Physics), hunted down the unlinked study on the website, downloaded the pdf (!!), and was pleased to find that after all that there was, in fact, a good amount of useful bits to the study.

Basically, the Institute of Physics (which seems to be the UK equivalent of the American Physical Society) set on a scheme to offer the heads of university physics departments throughout the UK the chance to have a panel of women and men visit their institution to provide an outsider’s view on the gender friendliness of their department. "About 40% of the heads in the UK and none of those in Ireland requested a visit." The visits took place between 2003-2005, and then the IOP wrote up a detailed survey of what they'd seen and the solutions they'd offered the heads.

Here are some of the suggestions they offer to make physics more welcoming to women. How does this relate? Physics, like gaming, has nothing to do with gender, but is presently male-dominated. I'm going to discuss how some of the specific suggestions the IOP offers could be implemented by forum leaders, concomm members, and other big fish in the gaming world. A lot of the discussion will refer to Story Games, since that forum ultimately spawned this post. A lot of both the IOP study and this discussion won't be particularly about females, but rather about creating a better environment for everyone. That's what feminism is: attempting to make the best things available to everyone, no matter what gender the things have traditionally been tied to.

• One of the major beneficial effects of the visits was in raising the awareness of gender issues within a given department. (2.1)

It's a good point. Every discussion we have about gender issues and gaming has the potential to clear away cruft in people's heads and and make the internet a friendlier place.

• The majority of departments had a policy on harassment, although this was not usually accompanied by a satisfactory scheme (2.4).

As I'll get into more downblog, a written policy of welcome and equality will do a lot to set the tone of the discussion following.

• The panel found that the social atmosphere in departments varied considerably. It was noticeable that groups with a strong multinational flavour tended to be more welcoming to women and less likely to revolve around “laddish” culture.

Oh hell yes. As long as you're recruiting women, why not recruit people from other countries, people of other races, people of other classes? One problem pointed out specifically in the Very Special thread was that the vast majority of posters were comfortably-off white males from New England. A guy from Spain to back up the guy from the American Southwest could have short-circuited a lot of irrelevant discussion.

• Isolation of women within particular research groups could also be alleviated by a dedicated social space for the whole department; for example, a coffee room. (2.8)

It may seem like the whole internet fits this qualification, but having thought about it, this is a great place to enact change. In a coffee room, you happen across people and then group together in small conversations. But on the internet as a whole, every conversation you have is as if it's done on a stage. The places you go for small group conversations are blogs.

Many a time a person will venture out into the trashing waters of controversy only because they have a solid foundation of support at home on their blog. And making friends and following their blogs allows people to split up controversies. When it comes to feminism and rpgs, for example, I could have a debate every. single. day of the year... But that's not how I want to spend my time. So if I can instead back someone else who's covering the most recent thing, it makes me far more likely to not walk off in disgust.

So, for the specific examples of changes that could be made: In the "shut up!" thread when Mo came in with the righteous smackdown I was like, Damn, now here's a woman after my own heart! I want to talk to her! But Story Games has no way for me to find her. There are no sigs where she can put her blog info. There are no e-mail addresses where I can send her words of praise and support. The setup of the forums at Story Games keeps everyone isolated from each other, which plays to the majority.

The other important part of the suggestion is social space. Rpg.net has a good thing going in their Tangency forums: a specific place where people can get together and talk like friends, without the looming specter of relevance to any topic. People can make connections and deepen ties to each other. For example, I just recently started cruising rpg.net, but already Amado G has won a place in my heart for being a fellow Ozomatli pusher. (They're an awesome hispanic hiphop fusion band.) If it someday comes to pass that we are on opposite sides of an argument, I will now be less likely to ignore his argument because he's [of some underrepresented group].

Con runners could add an option to the nametag that would show your e-mail address or blog address, to make it easier for people to connect to each other once the con has passed.

• The administrative and management arrangements for the department should be agreed and presented in a transparent manner. The roles of committees should be publicised along with the criteria for membership. There should be clear guidelines for the eligibility and application procedures for sabbatical leave and the allocation of teaching and administration should be made as open as possible. (2.9)

This is a good thing for everyone. What are the rules? How does someone get to be one of the rulemakers? Making the process open ensures that anyone can see how fair it is.

• Childcare facilities should be re-examined and universities should ensure that there are sufficient places to cover the needs of both staff and students. (2.10)

I remember at a past Ambercon Northwest, one couple had to trade off slots so there was always someone to watch the sprog. And many times only one member of a couple with a kid comes to a convention at all... And it's usually the man.

It's something to consider, especially for conventions with upwards of a hundred people. Does any con with a con suite has enough volunteers and cash to have day care? I wonder if Ambercon US could add day care--the volunteer each slot seems to have little to do, and I'd guess it would help at least 5 couples... I'd sure be willing to pay the sitter, if I had a kid. And I'd probably be willing to be paid to watch kids for a slot, too, for that matter...

I suspect the holdup is liability. Could the concomm contract it out and just alert babysitters to the potential motherlode, and gamers to the potential service? It's a problem that we all need to put some serious thought into.

• Women speakers were under-represented in the programme of colloquia and seminars. There was no evidence of active discrimination, but the organisers had not registered this anomaly. (2.11)

Are women game designers and theorists equally sought out for opinions? Has anyone checked? I suspect we'd find a similar anomaly. To actually get numbers on this, though, you'd need a person to conduct a survey of threads, and you'd need hard figures on the number of females in the rpg industry.

• The appointment of a diversity officer sends a clear message to staff and students that
  diversity issues are important. (2.12)

An avowedly feminist mod might serve the same need online.

• There is also no excuse for the presence of any posters or pictures that are offensive or alienating. (2.13)

This has been covered at great length many times before. Crap rpg art is a simple and easy thing to chuck. Sexist art shouldn't be used to advertise cons.

However, on the internet we've got the thousand words to replace the pictures. Thus, there is no excuse for holding to exclusionary terminology. I covered this to some degree when I talked with lordsmerf (linked above). The one-sentence summation is, don't drag gender-specific words into genderless activities like gaming.

When you're talking about rpging, women are your colleagues in the discussion. Basically, don't say things on the internet that you wouldn't say at work. Call people on it when they do. Would you say "y'all got a purty mouth" at work? Would you say, "I detail cars... With my penis!"? God, I hope not. Ew. ;)

• Most departments are offering an excellent support infrastructure to their students although there was not always a female member of staff available for pastoral support on confidential matters. Secretarial staff who take on a pastoral role should have this recognised in their job description and receive appropriate training. (3.1, 3.2)

"Pastoral." Don't say something along the lines of "If they have no bread then let them eat cake." ::snrk::

Right, excuse me. The British use interesting words. The point I think we can take from passage 3.2, though, is that the people up at the forefront of providing equal ground, mods and high wookies and such, shouldn't be thrown out there with no background. It's not trivial for people to learn to notice equality issues.

• Networking between the female undergraduates, postgraduates and research assistants (RAs) should be encouraged, especially in departments where there are very few or no women lecturers. (3.3, 3.4)

This ties back to the points in 2.8: make it easy for people to find each other's blogs.

• Where there are specific measures in place to support female students, explicit reference should be
  made to them. A simple statement that the department particularly welcomes female applicants is also encouraged. The presence of women students and staff at admissions open days was found to be important. (3.6, 3.7)

Oh hell yes. If you want to redress the imbalance of males and females in gaming, specifically point out that women are welcome. Point to the feminist mods, too.

• There was a surprisingly wide variation in the proportion of female undergraduates. Where possible, links should be made with schools and colleges to encourage more local students to apply to do physics. (3.8)

For example, plug Story Games on Women in Gaming boards and forums.

• Also, a recurring theme of the visits was that specific supervisors, male and female, were consistently more successful in attracting female students, largely for the simple reason that they made them feel welcome. (4.1, 4.2)

One bizarre trend I've noticed among Forgish theorists is the demand for a real-sounding name upon first meeting someone. Why don't they call people by the names those people have chosen? Why not warn people not to bother with handles at all? The initial smack to a newbie who feels they've misstepped stings.

Then they use the "real" name when talking to the person in the future, which is baffling to a person just joining the conversation. Bubba Ho-Tep and Tiny Minnows are talking, so who are Marie and Alfred?

As for positive steps to make people feel welcome, there's nothing to compare to saying, "Oho, that's neat, here I am building off of it in my post on your thread..."

Something that Story Games does well is that it has no post count associated with each poster. A newbie need not have it constantly pointed out that they have not been around as long as some of the other posters; there's no implicit "better than" attached to a person's name.

• Many of the departments had no or only one female member of staff. Management often said this was because so few women applied for posts. There is nothing discriminatory in encouraging women to apply. Steps that can be taken include making women feel welcome by stating that the department actively encourages female applicants, and targeting specific women. The best candidate must be appointed but there is no harm in increasing the number of women applicants. (6.1)

Again, specifically invite women to join your gaming discussions or come to your con. Seek them out.

• Management at both university and department level should accept that childcare is a universal feature of human life and not a “problem” associated with women. (6.11)

Word. It's not so much relevant to rpg discussion, but it's good to take care that games you're designing don't settle unwatched into stereotyped gender roles like poop drifting to the bottom of a toilet.

***

That was the stuff I found applicable from the overview... In the discussion section, there were several nice bits of writing that triggered further thoughts or elaborations:

The departments were asked for a set of information (admission statistics, PhD completion rates, names of seminar speakers etc) to be supplied before the visit. It was immediately apparent that the majority of departments had a great deal of trouble providing gender-disaggregated data, indicating that the idea of looking for evidence of dissimilar treatment was a new one to them.

It would be a good idea to have statistics for each discussion board: Numbers of males, females, decline-to-states, others; genders of highest posters; number of threads started by gender. Same for each gaming convention: breakdown of attendees; GMs by gender; genders of invited guests. These statistics should be on the internet, available to all.

Ignorance by the masses doesn't do the underserved any good.

The departments that seemed most welcoming for women were those where there was a high level of gender awareness. Often, this was reflected in their attitude towards the visits visits themselves. Good practice: Gender issues should be discussed openly by all staff within a department in as constructive a manner as possible. Often, the mere recognition of a problem can lead to an improved atmosphere.

In addition to the written policy of welcome, a "no threadcrapping" policy would greatly aid discussion of tetchy subjects like equality.

On a more general level, it was striking the effect a sympathetic head of department or research group could make. There were numerous examples of groups with a large number of women members as a result of the personal qualities of the group leader. In one case, the mere fact that a (male) group leader had publicly stated that he wished to encourage more women into the subject had had a positive effect.

Board leaders and con chairs, you have power undreamt!

By and large, the undergraduate admissions material is of a high standard almost everywhere, in the sense that the design is attractive and the brochure is usually printed on high-quality paper. However, it was rare to find anything that was particularly appealing to women. For example, although there were usually photographs of both male and female students, it was noticeable that the men were usually the active ones, with the women shown in more passive roles.

This points to another common discussion that happens whenever women and gaming are brought up together, and it's a good point: to make women feel included in gaming, it's best to include them in the examples in game books, as active participants in the game; and female characters in the art should be no more naked/passive than the male characters.

A simple statement that the department particularly welcomes female applicants, highlighting the support provided, is also to be encouraged.

Once you've adapted your con or message board to make it more female-friendly, brag about it! Advertise it on the rules sticky or website, and reap the benefits to a greater degree.

***

So that's the last of the stuff I gleaned from going through the report top to bottom.

Now, I condense it into suggested best practices for evening up the percentage of women involved in rpgs!


Stuff everyone can do:


• Eschew gendered language, harassing language, sexist art, and stereotypical gender roles.
  
  
• Keep an eye out to see that you're mentioning women game designers and theorists when you can.
  
  
• Seek out and recruit women specifically to GMing, theorizing, and the hobby in general.
  
  
• Support childcare at cons.
  
  
  Make your board/con a welcoming place:
  
  
  • Make sure the rules and the explanation of the purpose and general social "feel" of the board are easily found.
    
    
  • Explain what will happen to those who break the rules, who determines whether someone has broken a rule, and how those decisions can be appealed.
    
    
  • Make sure the actual process of finding new mods, or enforcing the rules, is crystal-clear to all.
    
    
  • List the current mods, with a 1- or 2-line blurb so they can tout their feminism or Audobon Society membership or whathaveyou. The idea is to make it clear what the balance of moderation is, and let people know who they might want to approach if they're concerned.
    
    
    Add to the rules/practices post:
    
    
    • Specific mention of welcome for women.
      
      
    • Explanation of any in-jokes or commonly-used jargon.
      
      
    • Mention of any hazing newbies might expect.
      
      
    • Specific mention of ways to encourage people with words to make the board more welcoming.
      
      
    • A ban on posting to a thread just to say it's stupid and shouldn't be discussed.
    
    
  • Fill in your mods on the problem of female exclusion.
    
    
  • When there's an opening for a mod or other important person, see if you can find a female to fill it.
    
    
  • Don't have post counts.
    
    
  • Provide a social space so people on your board or at your con can talk about random things and become friends with each other.
    
    
  • Make it as easy as possible for people to find each other's blogs, and make sure people can talk to each other privately one-on-one, be it by e-mail or private message.
    
    
  • Sticky all the gender-related statistics you can get your hands on for your board/con. Actively seek out gender-related statistics. Knowing is half the battle.
  
  
• Brag about what you've done to further the cause of equality in gaming.

Brag: I, for example, have poured insane amounts of time into writing this post. I hope you all find it useful.

Comments

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Would the con still be liable if they just set up a message board so babysitters and parents could connect at the con?

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

They shouldn't be, and that's a good way to go. They could probably even recommend a local babysitting service. Either way, they'd want to use a disclaimer saying that they weren't endorsing, etc.

Another option would be for a con to contract with a licensed and bonded daycare service to offer care onsite. That's more expensive, but would at least bring the service's insurance into the picture and show that the con took precautions by using licensed providers (though there's still the risk that a vengeful parent will keep the con in the lawsuit, the parent's lawyer isn't emotionally invested and knows where the money's coming from).

The problem, of course, is that some parents are very freaky people, and sue everyone in sight if something minor happens to their kid. A professional day-care service with an insurance policy has some protection, but an average con committee would bankrupt itself just hiring a lawyer to defend it. Psycho parents are a big risk for a con committee to deal with (though some do -- ConFusion, here in MI, provides a kid track where many parts of it don't require parental supervision). UCon does not -- there's a "Kid UCon," but one parent has to accompany the kid at all times. We've looked into hiring pros but can't afford it.

[a2macgeek.livejournal.com]

At Ambercon, we have a general purpose white board. People are free to post stuff on it (this year, it mostly seemed to be people looking for online video game groups). We also have an online message board, which no one has used for what you describe thus far. For a couple of years, we even had an option on the registration form for people to indicate they wanted to be put in touch with other attendees with small children. It was used so rarely that we dropped it. There just wasn't any interest.

For actual Con-sponsored childcare, there are huge liability issues, not to mention it being very expensive. Ambercon isn't remotely big enough to afford it.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I haven't gone to quite a lot of local game cons because there's no childcare.

Wiscon has it, and BlogHer is about to.

Would the liability issues be all that much different from the usual ones? Are they really that huge? Anyone have numbers? What if someone who's just an attendee at the con sues the con for some reason? Isn't that also a huge liability issue?

[(Anonymous)]

In theory the liability issues should be about the same. The problem is that if the con is sued because something happens to a kid, they're gonna lose, and damages are going to be big. If an adult gets hurt, people figure he was probably being a dolt and he can lump it. It is never a kid's fault that they got hurt, always the fault of an irresponsible adult. So there'd have to be ugly off-putting waivers and stuff.

My parents were toymakers and had to carry a massive amount of liability insurance because of this phenomenon.

Clay Dowling

[lintra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I can speak to this too - we *tried* to get it together one year, by putting all the 'parents who are interested in childcare' together on a mailing list. Nothing came of it.

For this 'the group builds the group' approach to work for ACUS, it needs a leader. I've never been *that* leader. There are certainly enough kids in the community to spur it at this point, if a leader would step up and take it.

But the con can't really touch it, as milady said, huge liability issues.

Same thing needs to happen at ACUS for a kids track and an indie track. But that's another ball of wax.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about it ever since the study brought it into my mental landscape. You'd need the babysitter to be someone staying at the con, probably, because otherwise where would they put the kids? I can't imagine the hotel would be terribly happy with them running around the lobby all day and night. So, someone with a room (and for ACNW, a room with an attached bathroom).

Ideally, you'd have someone devoted to it, instead of swapping off between slots and shepherding kids from room to room. I'm thinking, if one of the congoers had a teenage kid, or spouse, who already babysat, and didn't game, but wouldn't mind giving up the weekend to make some money?

Could the con maybe offer a discount to people who are bringing a babysitter who will look after more kids than just their own? Or if that's over the liability line, perhaps just mention the need on the webpage and in early "register for the con" e-mails?

You're right, either way, there would have to be a babysitter coordinator. Sounds like matching kids with sitters might be almost as tough as matching people with games.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

As badgerbag noted, WisCon already does at-con child care. They assign a room for day care, just as if it were a programming space. They hire child care workers who are licensed and bonded by the state -- this helps cover the liability issues, as I understand it. The con pays their fee, and the child care is free to attendees (who must nevertheless register for it, for capacity reasons).