Before you read this article, put down the magazine and wander around the office. Go ahead. We’ll wait. . . .
Besides the fact that Lennie was playing WordJong instead of finishing up his overdue documentation, what else did you notice? How about the fact that just about everyone you work with is male? Have you ever wondered why that is?
The casual games industry is not the only technical field that skews male. (“Skews” male? How about “tilts with a steeper slope than Kilimanjaro”?) For years academicians have wrung their hands over the fact that so few women who begin preparing for a career in, say, physics actually take and keep a job in the field. The phenomenon is commonly referred to as the “leaky pipeline.” Something must be broken, some argue, or else there wouldn’t be so many women “leaking out” along the way.
Something may indeed be broken, but some folks who worry about the problem are starting to get the idea that we are thinking about it in the wrong way. After all, are women really like inanimate drops of water? If we just push more into the system (for example, by requiring or cajoling more girls to take physics in high school), and plug the leaks (by removing discrimination and providing resources) will more women physicists really come out the other end?
Of course we need to take down the “Boys Only” signs, however subtle they may be. But maybe we also need to think about changing the pipeline itself—and the jobs it leads to. The truth is that even when women make it through the pipeline—successfully landing a science or engineering job—they are still more likely than their male counterparts to leave the profession.1
It’s easy to think of possible reasons for this. It’s hard, for example, to raise a family in the laboratory, although some women have done it, and the tenure clock and the biological clock often force women to make a choice between an academic career and a family. But it’s also possible to imagine how that leak might be fixed by creating a longer tenure track for both men and women who want to start families.
Other problems are harder to fix: What if the pipeline is going somewhere that women just don’t want to go? A study of women with the background to be successful in a variety of careers showed that they were more likely to choose law or medicine than science and engineering because they did not see the latter as providing a useful role in society.2 Although it may be obvious to a community like this one how the technical sciences are “useful,” many women in the study clearly did not get that message from their coursework and opted instead for fields that they perceived as relating more directly to the real-world needs of people.
Think about the implications of that perception. If that is an accurate characterization of women’s perspective, then perhaps women are not “leaking” from the pipeline so much as “escaping” to other destinations. It suggests that science may not have shut the door to women, but neither has it been done enough to make itself appealing to a broader constituency. Thus, instead of trying to get more women into the technical club, perhaps we need to consider whether the club is even worth joining. We certainly could use more women in technical fields in order to produce results and products that meet the needs of all consumers—including those of women.
So what is the message here for casual games? As your budgets continue to grow, the casual games industry runs the serious risk of repeating the mistakes of other technical fields, namely: Building a club of so many like-minded guys that every product seems to be aimed at the same demographic. For now, casual games are for everyone, but this could change drastically if you do not keep a watchful eye on your industry.
And lest you doubt what I’m saying, take another walk around the office and ask yourself whether a woman would want to work there. Go ahead. We’ll wait.
Dr. Jill A. Marshall is an assistant professor in the Science and Mathematics Education group and a member Women’s Board of the American Association of Physics Teachers. She received her BS in Physics from Stanford University in 1980 and her PhD in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984. She currently teaches professional development courses in the UTeach Natural Sciences certification program and graduate courses in Science and Mathematics Education. Dr Marshall can be reached at jill.marshall@casualconnect.org.
1 Preston, A. E. (1994). “Why Have All the Women Gone? A Study of Exit of Women from the Science and Engineering Professions.” The American Economic Review, 84 (5), 1446-1462.
2 Lightbody, P., Siann, G., Tait, L. & Walsh, D. (1997). “A Fulfilling Career? Factors Which Influence Women’s Choice of Profession.” Educational Studies, 23 (1), 25-37.
