The International Game Developers Association drew quite a bit of backlash Thursday morning after reports emerged that a GDC party it co-hosted contained entertainment by way of "scantily-clad female dancers."
As part of its annual meeting at GDC, the IGDA executive Kate Edwards read the following statement, which we've reproduced in full:
"As many of you know, the IGDA was a co-presenter of the Yetizen party Tuesday evening.
We recognize that some of the performers' costumes at the party were inappropriate, and also some of the activities they peformed were not what we expected or approved.
We regret that the IGDA was involved in this situation. We do not condone activities that objectify or demean women or any other group of people.
One of the core values of the IGDA is encouraging inclusion and diversity.
Obviously we need to be more vigilant in our efforts. We intend to be so in the future."
Update: IGDA executive director Kate Edwards added the following at the IGDA's annual GDC meeting Thursday, in response to a question asking what the organization would do to prevent a similar incident in the future:
"What we need is... participation and dialogue. We would love to have members of our organization speak up, give us advice, tell us what you think. So we need to know what we can do to do a better job in the future.
"We realize that we make mistakes sometimes, and we want to make sure that all of our programs and activities are considered inclusive and professional."
And in response to a question about those who resigned this morning:
"We regret [their reactions]. We do hope that they continue to work with the IGDA, we'd hate to lose their participation. It's their decision, but we continue to hope that they'll work with us to do what we need to do to make better decisions in the future."
As for reconciliation: "We're open... we need them more than ever."
On details of how the party happened:
"This was a partnership. We partnered with YetiZen, we were approached to do the party with them, and we agreed to do so for various reasons.
"We approved the costumes that would be used for the promotion out on the street on Monday and Tuesday [but] ... we did not see the costumes of the stilt walkers during the party, we didn't know the performers were doing things on the stage or anything like that, we didn't even know the models would be at the party necessarily.
"[For] both the costumes and the activities that were at the party... we apologize and agree. It doesn't agree with our core values as an organization.
"We hope people who see this will realize that we're human… and we'd love for them to help us."
You'd think that by now, the industry would've realized that they can no longer treat these events like some kind of boys club meeting. While I understand and side with WIG on this issue, I think that the severity of the reaction, while impacting, doesn't serve to improve the situation. The best way to affect change in an institution is from the inside.
I hope these two groups can come to terms for the good of the industry, and would simply remind WIG that you can't pull a bunch of us barbarians from the depths of our man caves and not expect us to stub a toe or two in the dark. ;p Eventually, there will be light enough to find our footing, but these intrepid women aren't just battling against a few decades of drastic misrepresentation in the gaming industry, they're one of the many generations that must shoulder the burden of lifting us from millenniums of ignorance and inequality.
Really? "How are they not aware of how huge of a topic sexism is"? How are 90%+ of US companies "not aware" of how huge a topic unequal pay for women is? Sexism is pervasive in our society and has been for millenia. Acting surprised at anyone continuing to engage in sexism is more the "in a bubble" reaction.
I'm saying this in the context of the fact that this is a touchy subject in the industry and it would definitively cause an outrage, because these days when people see anything that remotely seems like sexism, they panic. It's just a huge PR fiasco due to a lack of imagination on the organizers' part.
"scantily-clad female dancers." are not sexist and this was an after party. This is not out of the ordinary. It's just that this was a gathering for huge nerds that have been to a club 3 times in their life, so the whole thing felt out of place.
Wow, this sounds awful. I think they should invite me to the next one so that I can, er, chaperone.
Seriously though, this kind of thing just keeps happening over and over and will continue to do so until the industry stops creating itself as an industry for men by men. With almost 50% of gamers being women, it really is counterproductive that it remains gender unequal.
such a dumb mistake with such a simple solution. shocking how people can be so completely daft.
i think we can all agree that future parties and industry events would best be served by having an equal share of both female AND male strippers, gogo and cage dancers, and erotic acrobats of various kinds. and these male and female performers should be of every race and creed on the planet. we need a FULL SPECTRUM representation in our industry event adult entertainments or we will be fighting the same battles over and over again.
The Kixeye party had a bunch of hunky bare-chested guys in unicorn masks. Not sure everyone would agree that's the right solution, but at least someone was out there trying it!
We still don't, and probably will never, know the exact particulars of how this embarrassment came to pass. That being said, does it feel like Yetizen got thrown under the bus to anyone else? Granted, there's Yetizen's former record of similar controversies but on the other hand, there's this little bit right here:
"we didn't even know the models would be at the party necessarily."
Necessarily? What does that even mean? This wasn't some instance of managerial oversight. Whether the models were scheduled to appear at the party or not, the fact is that someone hired models and approved of costumes.
In our culture, the idea of "women" has a history of being reduced and simplified in some pretty tedious and demeaning ways. Many women are aware of, and bothered by, patterns of that sort of imagery. They have to confront it all the time. Adding similar provocatively dressed men probably wouldn't help because most men don't spend a lot of time feeling bothered by similar stereotypes.
Let me make a comparison that might be more apples-to-apples. A lot of us men are becoming more and more aware that there's a nasty, horrible image that is perpetuated by our alarmist news media that a single man, trying to interact with a child they don't know, should always be suspected of being a pedophile. Almost to the point that the only reason that a man might ever play with a kid on a playground is that they want to rape or molest them... and to the point where there are parents at day care centers who are not comfortable with male employees being left unattended with their children. I'm not making this up; this is a real thing. If you're a man who likes children, and thinks its good for society for kids to have comfortable relationships with adult men who aren't family, then your world is made immeasurable worse by this ugly, statistically incorrect, abusive anti-social stereotype.
Now, if you went to a professional organization's event, and they had some male, and only male, actors up on stage, pantomiming abducting and molesting stranger's children from a playground, you might very well take offense at that, especially if you were a man, especially if you wanted to live in a world where men were not always suspected of being child molesters, especially if you felt like you were constantly barraged by images like that from all your media sources. You might wonder why that those images were showing up in a professional setting. And if someone came along and said, "Well, what if we also have some female actors up there pantomiming molesting children", you might very well say, "It's not the same. No one is worried that all women are possible child molesters."
...
Or if none of that works for you, you could just observe that it's all pretty unprofessional anyway.
There's a time and place for these things. GDC is not one of them. This whole thing had to be awkward for the participants. I know i'd feel uncomfortable. Most people don't go to a game conference to get their dicks hard.
The whole sexism drama is over-exaggerated though, IMHO. A bunch of people are throwing their hands in the air saying that half naked women equal sexism. Again. This whole thing was inappropriate because this was a conference for professional game developers, no more than that.
@Nathan McKenzie - that's a pretty flawed analogy. pedophiles are felons committing crimes on children. sexy chicks are sexy chicks. even full on strippers are not criminals.
"In our culture, the idea of "women" has a history of being reduced and simplified in some pretty tedious and demeaning ways."
as if the exact same kind of thing doesn't happen with guys. can't imagine that a lot of game developers look like magic mike or jonny depp?
women do the same thing to men and the problem, historically, has been that the enthusiasms of men have been put out for mass market consumption but not the enthusiasm of the ladies.
this stops being a problem when both are served and both perspectives and enthusiasms are catered to.
everything else seems to be re-branded puritanicalism.
Jim, the problem is this situation doesn't begin and end at these parties. Women are subjected on a massive scale to unequal job opportunities, unequal pay, unwanted advances in the workplace, and millions of rapes per year. 30-50% of women are either molested, raped, or sexually abused before they reach their 18th birthday. At present, sexy booth babes or cartoony-breasted characters being the only avatars available in some games serve as a reminder "most men don't know or care or understand about the problems of our unequal status in society". Putting hunky guys in parties or games won't remind men "Oh us guys get a lot of sexual harassment and objectification from our lady bosses all the time", because that's not happening much. I agree in an eventual egalitarian society, we should have sexy females and sexy males in entertainment media, along with plain looking males and females, and every other kind. But right now it's a reminder for many of how oblivious the majority of our industry is to the many other (and much larger) problems women face in our society every day. Personally I feel just sick about the fact that so many women don't even feel safe walking home alone after dark in our society - a fear that certainly has some grounding in actual fact. Men who've never experienced those concerns and fears aren't going to ever totally understand how women feel about equal rights issues.
It's obviously both. If there were also mansluts around it would have naturalized the sexism argument, but it would still be inappropriately sexual for a GDC party.
All you need to do is run a google search for "Yetizen party" to see how bad an idea this was in the first place. Noah Falstein resigned from their board last year and wrote a Gamasutra post for exactly the same thing. The IGDA should have already been aware of this. It's a shame that the people at Yetizen still haven't grown up even after so much public backlash.
"We approved the costumes that would be used for the promotion out on the street on Monday and Tuesday [but] ... we didn't even know the models would be at the party necessarily."
So, it's alright to have scantily clad women on the street handing out flyers for your party, where they will likely be seen by most of the conference attendees. But it's not alright to have them at the party where they will be seen by a couple thousand people?
It's categorically absurd. Either you're alright with having models, or you're not. If you make a mistake, own up to it, don't try and deflect blame. If the IGDA was able to give approval for the presence of the models on the street, do you really think they would disapprove of their presence at the party?
I think what is being implied by that statement is that the street costumes were different than the performance costumes and were not deemed inappropriate.
"what's that? and who determines it? there are businesses far older and more profitable than ours where taking clients to strip clubs is de-rigeur."
... um, other than the porn, prostitution and gambling industries, no, there aren't. At least, not in the US. I don't think some game developers realize how much respect we lose by pulling this kind of shenanigan. In almost any other industry, having strippers at a professional conference wouldn't be controversial at all -- everyone involved would be fired on the spot.
All kidding aside, Jin is right in that aspect where some companies, business, or whoever will often try to court other business partners by treating them to things such as that. It is often doen back room/under the table style but it happens.
You know, the moment I wrote that I thought, hm ... maybe I'm being naive about this :)
But here's the thing -- let's say a male sales rep invites a male customer to a strip joint, after telling a couple rude jokes to see if the guy is game. A little sad and disgusting to me, maybe, but why should I fuss? What I don't know doesn't hurt me.
Here's another scenario, though, and one that's far more analogous to the current situation. Now *I'm* the customer, along with several of my male colleagues. We meet a sales rep, who invites us all to a strip club? That would not happen. No-one invites a professional woman to a strip club, even in politics. (um ... I hope)
The point is, having strippers at a professional party, they might as well have a sign on the door saying, "Women not welcome, at least not if they're wearing most of their clothes." Other respectable industries might do the stripper thing, but not right out in the open like this, not if they expect women to be attending the event.
Too much controls (regulation & compliance) would be more than annoying, yes.
Reaching any end of a spectrum is bad (no controls / too much controls). We are mainly on the "no controls" side at the moment (other than irritating game rating and basic HR laws from each country).
One little judgment error (and not everybody agree its even an error) has lead to a large public reaction. Proper (a minimum of) risk management and governance would have help prevent such issue. I am not sure that the minimum exist at the moment. Every company seems to be freestyling their leadership and governance as it goes.
On their company page it says: "YetiZen - Leveling up the gaming industry ..."
[edit:] Kotaku update YetiZen CEO Sana Choudary non-response response ... is amazing? Is she aware that she is losing her business by the minute? http://kotaku.com/two-game-developers-quit-non-profit-objecting-to-femal-4617177 26?rev=1364501678
"We would love to have members of our organization speak up, give us advice, tell us what you think. So we need to know what we can do to do a better job in the future."
Because without someone standing there telling them, "Don't hire table dancers for a professional function," the IGDA is just helpless to figure out what these gosh-darned women are on about. I mean, who could have known?
I do have to say, having been at the party for half an hour, I would not describe the yeti women on stilts as "table dancers". Nor were the costumes extremely skimpy (I would call them "slightly skimpy") or sexy (I would call them "weird"). Their actual interaction with the audience didn't seem inappropriate, I would call them more "blue man group" or "cirque du soleil" than "table dancer" (artsy and entertaining rather than flirty or lascivious). I understand there were some other costumes up on the stage later, but I can't comment on those, having left the party for a better one by that point.
This is exactly it, Doctor Cat. (Thanks for giving me an oppurtunity to say that sentence, btw.)
Gameloft also got some flack on Kotaku for this exact same thing and commentors along with journalists alike get way too carried away with describing what was actually happening. I've been to strip clubs and I've been to normal parties, these girls aren't strippers or table dancers and to call them that is insulting.
I find it more sexist to scapegoat the girls by saying you didn't know what they were going to do, rather than take responsibility for what was actually happening.
I do think there was improvement over last year (no way Yetizen could have failed to notice last year's complaints). Overall I think this is more of an E3 problem than a GDC problem. I saw two "booth babes" on the Expo floor, total. (They were cat-girls to show off the battery powered cat ears that respond to your brainwaves. As a cat myself, I can't complain much.) Fifth Column Games had some women dressed up as Flappers for their Speakeasy party, while the guys were dressed as bootlegger/gangster types. The Flappers were skimpier, sexier costumes than the yetis on stilts, but I got the impression they were women who worked at the company & I didn't find it offensive. They certainly weren't acting like they were there to be table dancer type entertainers, seemed more like they were running and organizing the party. Kixeye had women wearing skin-tight shiny gold pants, but they also had hunky guys wearing unicorn masks and going shirtless. One of the women offered to take my photo with a unicorn guy, and I did that. The other parties I went to didn't have any suggestively or scantily clad women present at all. Again, super tame compared to E3. Of course if I had one wish that could be used to get fair workplace treatment for women in our industry, or no more booth babes at conferences and parties, I'd take the workplace thing in a heartbeat. I wouldn't fault any woman (or man) who wants to fight the battle on all fronts, but I'm very much a "prioritize your battles" kinda guy.
Except, this was a party after the hours of GDC. This was a mixer, and had no relation to the GDC or the IGDA whatsoever other than some guys going out to the nightclub and having a good time. My problem with these kinds of articles is that they never tell you the intimate details. The fact that they did this with YetiZen should have been enough of a sign that it was meant for recreational reasons. It would be different if they had the same women at their arms and standing at their tables during each conference session.
except IGDA, an organization that is supposed to stand for equality and the rights of game developers everywhere, put their name on the party. It's as if out of greed or neglect Nintendo let Playboy use their brand to endorse their party and suddenly claim ignorance. "We didn't know it'd be THAT sort of party!"
It is a mixer for game developers. That's the whole point -- come to our party, network with the international game developers association! Having strippers there is saying -- this is a party for male international game developers. Women developers are welcome -- if you can network with guys while they drool over table dancers, you'll fit right in! Come on, don't be such puritans, drool with us! We'd love to see a little lady on lady.
F that. It's a stupid move that deliberately alienates women and decent married men. I don't think it's too much to ask that people at a professional party stick to booze and leave their sexual fantasies at home.
Fair points to be made here. However it's hard to pass judgment over the IGDA, or the party itself unless you were there to see it. Otherwise, this turns into a "groupthink-bandwagon-snowball" effect with the vocal equality movement using it as another rallying cry to have their points made. While not trying to discredit their argument about equality in the industry, it truly would be interesting to see if a party with male strippers would get near as much attention as this, I'd wager that it probably wouldn't (That wouldn't be okay either).
The point is, we honestly won't get anywhere by using shaming tactics on an internal scale, leave that to the politicians. Lastly, even if we magically reach this utopia of 100% fairness and equality in the industry, the "evil sexist game content" will still be there unless we change the expectations and spending habits of consumers. (We tend to forget this is a business)
There's nothing wrong with examining practices/events and challenging their professionalism and how "proper" they are given the context, but let's try to avoid knee jerk reactions for the sake of the sensationalist journalism.
@Vicki Smith "I don't think it's too much to ask that people at a professional party stick to booze and leave their sexual fantasies at home."
but that's a completely arbitrary line.
why booze? isn't that stepping on the toes of tea-totalers, ex-alcoholics and druggies and mormons?
how puritan and kid-safe must these business "parties" be then?
erotic entertainers aren't appropriate at ALL company parties but at some parties... why not? just as with booze. and nobody has to attend. if booze and/or strippers bugs your sensitivities... people can opt out.
the feminist based argument ends when there are an equal number of magic mikes on stage.
if you still have a problem with such entertainers, it's personal predilection... not moral imperative.
From the Forbes article:
"On a stage at a crowded industry party, there were “at least three girls in white outfits–one was in a skimpy t-shirt one was in this weird furry get-up–dancing.”"
This is it? Funny thing, googling GDC 2013 90% of the pictures coming up show soldiers, guns, battlefields, more soldiers, blood, violence and more guns. It seems the industry is getting more prudish every day while living out it's bloody red wet dreams of murder and torture like a psychotic teenager boy that badly aches for sexual experiences he doesn't get and who compensates his frustration with fantasies of blood and gore.
Grow up industry start living in the world of adults.
Fighting women in white outfits and skimpy shirts dancing on a stage is not fighting sexism, it's propagating the values of christian/jewish/muslim fundamentalism.
"Creating an environment where women feel welcome and comfortable isn't religious fundamentalism. "
Creating an enviroment where people of a certain gender (women) are dismissed as women that other women find it uncomfortable to be in their presence because of their clothing (skimpy t-shirt) and for what they do (dancing) is exactly what religious fundamentalism is about.
That's a ridiculous straw man. No one is dismissing the women or suggesting that merely being in the presence of women dressed a certain way makes for an unwelcoming situation. The point is that the *organizers* have created a situation where women are treated as objects for the amusement of men. There's a huge difference between someone choosing to wear a certain kind of clothing and a company employing people wearing a certain kind of clothing with the intent of providing those people as amusement for one particular gender.
"where women are treated as objects for the amusement of men"
The women were performing on a stage. Calling this treating women as objects for the amusement of men is a strange way to look at the several thousand years of dance culture.
"There's a huge difference between someone choosing to wear a certain kind of clothing and a company employing people wearing a certain kind of clothing with the intent of providing those people as amusement for one particular gender. "
That's called entertainment, do you speak out against movies like "Twilight", because the male actors in these movies are employed to wear "a certain kind of clothing with the intent of providing those people as amusement for one particular gender"? Do you speak out against Robbie Williams performances, because him stripping is surely with the intent of providing amusement for his female audience?
If clothed female dancers on a stage are seen as sexist, it's speaking out against dancing performances in general. Dancing is an art form performed with the body, it's impossible to hide the body under a Burka, if you want to perform a dance show, so this means no dancing at industry gatherings at all.
Welcome to the fundamentalist world, they hate dancing as well and they love guns as much as the video game industry loves guns.
I prefer looking at dancing women any time over looking at armed soldiers and at least the women in my circle of friends don't feel per se objectified, when they are in the same room as some clothed dancing women on a stage.
You're right, my bad, I'm sure the women were there and dressed as they were because the organizers thought that attendees were dance aficionados. And people who feel that it's inappropriate, even those who have no religious beliefs at all, are actually secret religious zealots. And a private performance of Twilight in a movie theatre is totally the same thing as a professional industry event. How could I be so foolish as to not see all of these things?
I am not fighting women in white outfits. I have no problem with sex. I want to belong to an industry where I can attend professional networking events. I want to network at those events. I don't want to have to network with men who are busy catcalling strippers. It makes women uncomfortable and puts us at a professional disadvantage. If you want to watch women demean themselves for you, knock yourself out. But I shouldn't have to wade through it in order to maintain industry contacts.
Oh, I'm sorry -- if you want to watch women perform artistic dance for you in skimpy outfits while you of course don't objectify them, knock yourself out. Just, ah, do it in the privacy of your room, ok?
And for the love of God, will people quit with the "they wouldn't kick up a fuss if it were sexy men" thing? It's wasn't sexy men. It's NEVER sexy men. It's always a room that's 90% male and that doesn't care if the remaining 10% are intensely uncomfortable.
but that's simply your mores and predilections. there's nothing intrinsically "right" about that (if there were male strippers as well, that is).
i argue that the issue here is there were skimpy chicks dancing and no skimpy dudes.
if there were skimpy dudes, then this is not a "women in the industry" problem. this is not a feminism problem. it's just old fashioned prudery.
which is fine - some people really like puritanical, child safe events... but not everyone does. not everybody considers orange juice and cookies to be "cutting loose".
heck, some people may have a problem with alcohol. who's to say there AREN'T puritans and mormons in attendance?
so just how stuffy do these events need to be? how G-rated?
again, if there were male and female strippers (or whatever the hell they were), this stops being a feminist issue and just becomes one where straight lacers don't like seeing others have a good time.
what a cop-out. Partnering with Yetizen in itself is a conflict of interest. They are like a matchmaker company partnering developers and startups with VC and Angel investors. As such, the VCs are their primary clients and they will be catering to them and their tastes (thus scantily clad women). If you look back to their GDC 2012 party, it was not only painfully apparent that this was their M.O. their company heads went so far as to defend their parties as to be geared towards catering to their clients and that it was for the benefit of developers and startups to be put in an environment with high powered investors so that they might network and mutually benefit from those connections (this in the face of the same accusations of marginalizing females). all fine and dandy at their party. it's their prerogative but when you put your IGDA brand onto something like this without doing any homework (REALLY? you approved of the costumes used to promote the party but have no knowledge of them being used at the party? I'm calling bullshit or epic incompetency/neglect), they really deserve everything they are getting. The MEMBERS of IGDA don't deserve this however and everyone is suffering for some one person or persons short-sighted mistakes. I can only imagine this was a greedy cash grab. Yetizen offered to fund their party outright and they said "YES" no questions asked. You had to know they would prioritize their VC clients over IGDA members. Equally short sighted are the comments of "what if they were scantily clad men?" What if Hitler was Vietnamese? (invoking Godwin's Law). Just because you so boldly claim you would not be bother or offended by this (and to those people, I challenge you to go to Folsom Street Fair and see just how comfortable you are and how much of a good time you can have) does not diminish another persons claim of distress.
Knowing all this, I am equally flabbergasted that in the 3 or so months leading up to this party, no one spoke up and objected to this partnership. It was painfully obvious this was going to happen.
The important thing is that lots of us talk about this endlessly until someone tells us we don't know what it's like and renders all discussion meaningless. Hopefully no one gets any work done either, but that'd just be wishful thinking.
@Justin
A feminist is a person (man or woman) who supports and defends equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Most feminists are not man haters or extremists as they are typically portrayed in popular media.
So, as your comment suggests, scantily clad men won't appease all feminists, not even all women. The way you use the word is ignorant. Your comment is offensive because appeasement implies that feminists are the aggressors and everyone else needs to make concessions to them, when all feminists are really trying to do is defend women's rights for equal treatment.
>"Do you really think you're going to get people to stop being human?"
Are you suggesting that discriminating against gender is human nature?
>"everyone else needs to make concessions to them"
>"Ummm....."
You are quoting out of context. Concession is something done or agreed to usually grudgingly in order to reach an agreement or improve a situation. I used it in relation with appeasement.
@Michale Karzay "The way you use the word is ignorant. Your comment is offensive because appeasement implies that feminists are the aggressors and everyone else needs to make concessions to them, when all feminists are really trying to do is defend women's rights for equal treatment."
it's not ignorant. but your argument sure is.
appease - v.
1. Pacify or placate (someone) by acceding to their demands.
2. Relieve or satisfy (a demand or a feeling): "we give to charity because it appeases our guilt".
THE RIGHTNESS OR WRONGNESS OF THEIR POSITION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
to give in to their change, even if the change they're asking for is correct, **IS** APPEASEMENT!
if you're going to be pedantic, at least be right.
------------------------------
and if there WERE male strippers there in equal representation, nobody can say anything from the position of "feminism" or "women in the workplace".
at that point, it purely becomes an issue of some people being prudes.
No woman demanded male dancers. Even if they had after the fact, it's beside the point. It's the exclusion and lack of consideration that women find offensive. (I wish I could underline that last sentence.) Appeasement isn't the right word, because women shouldn't have to demand respect or consideration in the first place. It should be given regardless.
>"appease - v.
>to give in to their change, even if the change they're asking for is correct, **IS** APPEASEMENT!"
Read my comment again and ask yourself if I argued the definition of the word or it's usage? It's not because Justin used the word incorrectly, I meant in the sense that it shouldn't have to be used at all. Woman shouldn't have to demand fair and equal treatment.
>THE RIGHTNESS OR WRONGNESS OF THEIR POSITION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
It has nothing to do with the definition of the word "appease," if that is what you meant, which is ridiculous to even suggest, but it does have everything to do with the situation.
>and if there WERE male strippers there in equal representation, nobody can say anything from the position of "feminism" or "women in the workplace".
That much is fairly obvious. Congratulations! :)
>at that point, it purely becomes an issue of some people being prudes.
So it was essentially what you'd expect to see in any large nightclub night, but the problem is the company officially sponsored a party that was supposed to be an emulation of a normal large nightclub night...
All these comments calling the IGDA a "boys' club" or suggesting that men and their ways were wholly responsible for this dehumanizing of women, and not one person seemed to get the fact that Kate Edwards, executive director of the IGDA, is a woman. Obviously the solution to this very real problem is deeper than, "If we get women into decision making roles this won't happen anymore," or, "If more women were involved this never would have happened." (It is also a whole lot more complicated than just "Why not also have scantly clad men?" Not arguing that point because I feel that should be obvious.)
What we need is a larger scale understanding of who the real bad guys are and that sex positive feminists are distinct from those bad guys. Historically, the debate over things like, "Is pornography empowering or demeaning?" tore apart the second wave feminist movement. Do we really want feminism to die for another 10-15 years like it did in the 1980's? Do we really want that to happen for the same reasons?
I would be interested to hear from people that were actually there. I looked at the pictures online, and the outfits didn't seem that offensive, but I admit it was rather distasteful.
I'm just not sure why they thought it was necessary to do that. Did they think people would actually be interested in seeing... well, whatever the women were doing?
If it were men dancing instead, I'm sure that people would have been even more confused, but it probably wouldn't have gotten as much negative press.
Lol the article makes it sound like they were pole dancing strippers, i found some photos on neogaf...lol much ado about nothing. They were not "table dancers".. they look more like some indie dancers trope.. someone much exaggerate for the controversy i suspect. As for women in games, yes there is a long misogynistic stream in games but that's a different matter. But judging all games and the game industry by their lowest point would u also judge all moves and books by the same standard?
It is painfully clear by now that the original drive and aspirations behind game development are dead and buried as far as the industry at large is concerned. Games as art, ha ha ha
I'd just like to say the "dancing girls" at the club, show, whatever probably got paid more than the women who resigned in protest over the demeaning dancing girls.
I didn't attend this, but people need to speak up in the planning of these events, and not just in the flakfest afterwards. I have been with the IGDA for 12 years, been to every E3 (so far) and have seen a lot worse about the way games are marketed to the public. I would like to say grow up, but I think that has passed and it is time for us to stop being silent about things that offend. Nothing ever got done by sitting after the fact and pointing fingers.
I am far more shocked by the amount of hypocrisy on these comments than by the subject matter itself.
Innapropriate? Certainly so for GDC. But making this about sexism and gender inequality? Seriously?
Only int he US.
EDIT: after seeing what the "innapropriate" stuff really was, ie. the costumes and the dancing, it take it back, nothing there was innapropriate for a GDC party.
Like any sub culture - game developers as a group have a cultural center of gravity. People outside of that norm will experience alienation to some degree. I have no problem accepting that some people will experience that alienation in ways that are not as central to my perception - like patriarchy. They are welcome to try and move the center of gravity in a direction that allows them more comfort.
Showbiz, circus costumes, super hero costumes, the wardrobes of gods and goddesses, professional dancers, are areas known for exhibiting over sexuality. So I'm perhaps less optimistic that a stauch second wave approach to feminism is the right posture to influence gender dynamics and the signification of gender in game developer culture and computer game products. We shall see.
[updated first wave feminism to second wave. my bad]
A first wave feminism approach would be the proper one to tackle the issue. Instead we have the very vocal anti-pornography branch of feminism vs sex-positive feminism argument time and time again overshadowing the more important issues that a first wave feminism approach would handle.
I don't see how carrying on like frat boys in a co-ed profession has anything to do with feminism.
This is about maturity. Ok, perhaps then feminist movements and all social movements represent not just an underclass struggling for equality and respect, but a struggle for the society as a whole to become more mature in their views and attitudes and behaviors.
"Instead we have the very vocal anti-pornography branch of feminism"
My bad, I meant second wave feminism. The late 60-70s version of feminism, fighting against objectification and etc. I updated the post.
"This is about maturity."
Exactly - YOU are alienated by the lack of maturity. Other people will feel uncomfortable by any number of things. I think that people should feel welcome to express their alienation and attempting to change culture into a more comfortable zone.
classy cultured intelligence surrounds us
so happy to be... wait... dancing girls?
I guess joke's on me.
--
I imagine for the people who resigned or withdrew support, that more than anything, deep disappointment is felt when things like this occur particularly if they felt progress had been made and that their peers were "better than that." And some of the comments here are saying "no, we're not better than that!" with a little too much pride.
I wonder if this happened at E3 would we be talking about it? Then again, I could argue that without the IGDA's association, we wouldn't be talking about it. Can we finally get back to the fundamental idea that GDC is for developers to learn their craft. Parties are nice, good to mingle, but very quickly it becomes a marketing event and those should be reserved to E3.
Hiring female dancers for entertainment isn't sexist. It could be considered sexist that IGDA didn't hire any male dancers for the female audience, because women enjoy entertainment just as much as men, but only if it was intentional. If that is the case, then IGDA should apologize for being inconsiderate to females, and not for hiring dancers to entertain.
It's easy as a man to feel like the whole thing is grossly overblown, an overreaction by hypersensitive PC police. But you have to put it in context. A couple of women dancing in furry costumes at a party is not a big deal. An individual "booth babe" at E3 is a not a big deal. A coworker calling you "honey" one time is not a big deal. Listening to some guys behind you at a conference telling a stupid joke is not a big deal. But the near constant slow-drip of all of these things added up year after year, in and around the career that you spend 40+ hours of your week in is a pretty big deal.
On top of that, agree with earlier comments about the lack of imagination. We're supposedly a creative industry. Couldn't they think of anything a little more fun? Jugglers? Fire eaters? Magicians? Anything?
Excluding the female audience from the entertainment - Sexist.
If sexy male dancers were hired, then I doubt this would be such an issue. It still may have been perceived as unprofessional. If kept in context with everything else women face in the industry, it's easy to understand why women are fed up and hurt by this.
I don't disagree, but I have a hard time believing many of the women offended by exvlusively female dancers wouldn't be just as put off by the inclusion of male dancers. What if there were nondancer, female friendly entertainment present as well? Would that be ok?
I think some people should relax a little bit and go visit a car show...
Seriously, I've witnessed financial conferences for VCs with hookers and escorts invited for the guests. Our industry is actually much more mature on this than most of us think. What we need to really worry about is is our quality of life, not the parties at industry events.
From what I understand, they threw a rave with standard rave fare. I wouldn't label them as sexist but it's probably inappropriate. Trying to turn a corporate/professional event into a real party/club venue is always going to lead to situations like this as these venues are generally packed with alcohol, scantily clad women and women in skin-tight clothing. That's just how life works and trying to simulate that is going to give you problems for people who say a women showing skin is sexist and borderline misogyny.
They should probably just get rid of all industry parties and just hold lounge events that are more like eating appetizers and having drinks at a restaurant than trying to simulate some super party.
I hope these two groups can come to terms for the good of the industry, and would simply remind WIG that you can't pull a bunch of us barbarians from the depths of our man caves and not expect us to stub a toe or two in the dark. ;p Eventually, there will be light enough to find our footing, but these intrepid women aren't just battling against a few decades of drastic misrepresentation in the gaming industry, they're one of the many generations that must shoulder the burden of lifting us from millenniums of ignorance and inequality.
"scantily-clad female dancers." are not sexist and this was an after party. This is not out of the ordinary. It's just that this was a gathering for huge nerds that have been to a club 3 times in their life, so the whole thing felt out of place.
Seriously though, this kind of thing just keeps happening over and over and will continue to do so until the industry stops creating itself as an industry for men by men. With almost 50% of gamers being women, it really is counterproductive that it remains gender unequal.
i think we can all agree that future parties and industry events would best be served by having an equal share of both female AND male strippers, gogo and cage dancers, and erotic acrobats of various kinds. and these male and female performers should be of every race and creed on the planet. we need a FULL SPECTRUM representation in our industry event adult entertainments or we will be fighting the same battles over and over again.
"we didn't even know the models would be at the party necessarily."
Necessarily? What does that even mean? This wasn't some instance of managerial oversight. Whether the models were scheduled to appear at the party or not, the fact is that someone hired models and approved of costumes.
Let me make a comparison that might be more apples-to-apples. A lot of us men are becoming more and more aware that there's a nasty, horrible image that is perpetuated by our alarmist news media that a single man, trying to interact with a child they don't know, should always be suspected of being a pedophile. Almost to the point that the only reason that a man might ever play with a kid on a playground is that they want to rape or molest them... and to the point where there are parents at day care centers who are not comfortable with male employees being left unattended with their children. I'm not making this up; this is a real thing. If you're a man who likes children, and thinks its good for society for kids to have comfortable relationships with adult men who aren't family, then your world is made immeasurable worse by this ugly, statistically incorrect, abusive anti-social stereotype.
Now, if you went to a professional organization's event, and they had some male, and only male, actors up on stage, pantomiming abducting and molesting stranger's children from a playground, you might very well take offense at that, especially if you were a man, especially if you wanted to live in a world where men were not always suspected of being child molesters, especially if you felt like you were constantly barraged by images like that from all your media sources. You might wonder why that those images were showing up in a professional setting. And if someone came along and said, "Well, what if we also have some female actors up there pantomiming molesting children", you might very well say, "It's not the same. No one is worried that all women are possible child molesters."
...
Or if none of that works for you, you could just observe that it's all pretty unprofessional anyway.
The whole sexism drama is over-exaggerated though, IMHO. A bunch of people are throwing their hands in the air saying that half naked women equal sexism. Again. This whole thing was inappropriate because this was a conference for professional game developers, no more than that.
"In our culture, the idea of "women" has a history of being reduced and simplified in some pretty tedious and demeaning ways."
as if the exact same kind of thing doesn't happen with guys. can't imagine that a lot of game developers look like magic mike or jonny depp?
women do the same thing to men and the problem, historically, has been that the enthusiasms of men have been put out for mass market consumption but not the enthusiasm of the ladies.
this stops being a problem when both are served and both perspectives and enthusiasms are catered to.
everything else seems to be re-branded puritanicalism.
So, it's alright to have scantily clad women on the street handing out flyers for your party, where they will likely be seen by most of the conference attendees. But it's not alright to have them at the party where they will be seen by a couple thousand people?
It's categorically absurd. Either you're alright with having models, or you're not. If you make a mistake, own up to it, don't try and deflect blame. If the IGDA was able to give approval for the presence of the models on the street, do you really think they would disapprove of their presence at the party?
The industry needs to learn more about governance, regulations and compliance.
If male dancers would have been there, that would have been inappropriate as well. It's not about diversity. It's about appropriate business conduct.
However we call it, the activity was inappropriate in this context.
what's that? and who determines it? there are businesses far older and more profitable than ours where taking clients to strip clubs is de-rigeur.
sure, you don't have strippers in the boardroom (except on weekends and holidays) but this is an industry P A R T Y.
and especially since we're an industry concerned with games, it would seem remiss if our events didn't recall the glory days of caligula. no?
"what's that? and who determines it? there are businesses far older and more profitable than ours where taking clients to strip clubs is de-rigeur."
... um, other than the porn, prostitution and gambling industries, no, there aren't. At least, not in the US. I don't think some game developers realize how much respect we lose by pulling this kind of shenanigan. In almost any other industry, having strippers at a professional conference wouldn't be controversial at all -- everyone involved would be fired on the spot.
You are obviously not involved in politics. ;)
All kidding aside, Jin is right in that aspect where some companies, business, or whoever will often try to court other business partners by treating them to things such as that. It is often doen back room/under the table style but it happens.
...at which point it won't be an industry I want to participate in. Yuck.
You know, the moment I wrote that I thought, hm ... maybe I'm being naive about this :)
But here's the thing -- let's say a male sales rep invites a male customer to a strip joint, after telling a couple rude jokes to see if the guy is game. A little sad and disgusting to me, maybe, but why should I fuss? What I don't know doesn't hurt me.
Here's another scenario, though, and one that's far more analogous to the current situation. Now *I'm* the customer, along with several of my male colleagues. We meet a sales rep, who invites us all to a strip club? That would not happen. No-one invites a professional woman to a strip club, even in politics. (um ... I hope)
The point is, having strippers at a professional party, they might as well have a sign on the door saying, "Women not welcome, at least not if they're wearing most of their clothes." Other respectable industries might do the stripper thing, but not right out in the open like this, not if they expect women to be attending the event.
Too much controls (regulation & compliance) would be more than annoying, yes.
Reaching any end of a spectrum is bad (no controls / too much controls). We are mainly on the "no controls" side at the moment (other than irritating game rating and basic HR laws from each country).
One little judgment error (and not everybody agree its even an error) has lead to a large public reaction. Proper (a minimum of) risk management and governance would have help prevent such issue. I am not sure that the minimum exist at the moment. Every company seems to be freestyling their leadership and governance as it goes.
Partying doesn't mean there is no rules and ethics. You are no longer at university mate. ;)
[edit:] Kotaku update YetiZen CEO Sana Choudary non-response response ... is amazing? Is she aware that she is losing her business by the minute? http://kotaku.com/two-game-developers-quit-non-profit-objecting-to-femal-4617177
26?rev=1364501678
Because without someone standing there telling them, "Don't hire table dancers for a professional function," the IGDA is just helpless to figure out what these gosh-darned women are on about. I mean, who could have known?
Gameloft also got some flack on Kotaku for this exact same thing and commentors along with journalists alike get way too carried away with describing what was actually happening. I've been to strip clubs and I've been to normal parties, these girls aren't strippers or table dancers and to call them that is insulting.
I find it more sexist to scapegoat the girls by saying you didn't know what they were going to do, rather than take responsibility for what was actually happening.
it seems like it's just the puritanical impulse dressed up as feminism.
i repeat, if there were male strippers there too, there would be no reasonable outrage to be had.
juvenile? sure. but it's a party.
F that. It's a stupid move that deliberately alienates women and decent married men. I don't think it's too much to ask that people at a professional party stick to booze and leave their sexual fantasies at home.
The point is, we honestly won't get anywhere by using shaming tactics on an internal scale, leave that to the politicians. Lastly, even if we magically reach this utopia of 100% fairness and equality in the industry, the "evil sexist game content" will still be there unless we change the expectations and spending habits of consumers. (We tend to forget this is a business)
There's nothing wrong with examining practices/events and challenging their professionalism and how "proper" they are given the context, but let's try to avoid knee jerk reactions for the sake of the sensationalist journalism.
but that's a completely arbitrary line.
why booze? isn't that stepping on the toes of tea-totalers, ex-alcoholics and druggies and mormons?
how puritan and kid-safe must these business "parties" be then?
erotic entertainers aren't appropriate at ALL company parties but at some parties... why not? just as with booze. and nobody has to attend. if booze and/or strippers bugs your sensitivities... people can opt out.
the feminist based argument ends when there are an equal number of magic mikes on stage.
if you still have a problem with such entertainers, it's personal predilection... not moral imperative.
"On a stage at a crowded industry party, there were “at least three girls in white outfits–one was in a skimpy t-shirt one was in this weird furry get-up–dancing.”"
This is it? Funny thing, googling GDC 2013 90% of the pictures coming up show soldiers, guns, battlefields, more soldiers, blood, violence and more guns. It seems the industry is getting more prudish every day while living out it's bloody red wet dreams of murder and torture like a psychotic teenager boy that badly aches for sexual experiences he doesn't get and who compensates his frustration with fantasies of blood and gore.
Grow up industry start living in the world of adults.
Fighting women in white outfits and skimpy shirts dancing on a stage is not fighting sexism, it's propagating the values of christian/jewish/muslim fundamentalism.
Creating an environment where women feel welcome and comfortable isn't religious fundamentalism.
Creating an enviroment where people of a certain gender (women) are dismissed as women that other women find it uncomfortable to be in their presence because of their clothing (skimpy t-shirt) and for what they do (dancing) is exactly what religious fundamentalism is about.
The women were performing on a stage. Calling this treating women as objects for the amusement of men is a strange way to look at the several thousand years of dance culture.
"There's a huge difference between someone choosing to wear a certain kind of clothing and a company employing people wearing a certain kind of clothing with the intent of providing those people as amusement for one particular gender. "
That's called entertainment, do you speak out against movies like "Twilight", because the male actors in these movies are employed to wear "a certain kind of clothing with the intent of providing those people as amusement for one particular gender"? Do you speak out against Robbie Williams performances, because him stripping is surely with the intent of providing amusement for his female audience?
If clothed female dancers on a stage are seen as sexist, it's speaking out against dancing performances in general. Dancing is an art form performed with the body, it's impossible to hide the body under a Burka, if you want to perform a dance show, so this means no dancing at industry gatherings at all.
Welcome to the fundamentalist world, they hate dancing as well and they love guns as much as the video game industry loves guns.
I prefer looking at dancing women any time over looking at armed soldiers and at least the women in my circle of friends don't feel per se objectified, when they are in the same room as some clothed dancing women on a stage.
And for the love of God, will people quit with the "they wouldn't kick up a fuss if it were sexy men" thing? It's wasn't sexy men. It's NEVER sexy men. It's always a room that's 90% male and that doesn't care if the remaining 10% are intensely uncomfortable.
@Vicki Smith Fortunately games are made for the market that will buy them. But, I suppose proper targeting of your market is wrong in this case.
but that's simply your mores and predilections. there's nothing intrinsically "right" about that (if there were male strippers as well, that is).
i argue that the issue here is there were skimpy chicks dancing and no skimpy dudes.
if there were skimpy dudes, then this is not a "women in the industry" problem. this is not a feminism problem. it's just old fashioned prudery.
which is fine - some people really like puritanical, child safe events... but not everyone does. not everybody considers orange juice and cookies to be "cutting loose".
heck, some people may have a problem with alcohol. who's to say there AREN'T puritans and mormons in attendance?
so just how stuffy do these events need to be? how G-rated?
again, if there were male and female strippers (or whatever the hell they were), this stops being a feminist issue and just becomes one where straight lacers don't like seeing others have a good time.
Knowing all this, I am equally flabbergasted that in the 3 or so months leading up to this party, no one spoke up and objected to this partnership. It was painfully obvious this was going to happen.
Look at last year Yetizen party girls. Mainly wearing body painting...
http://twicsy.com/i/yX7web
By the way, this pic was tweeted by a girl.
Feminism... you keep using that word (in a negative light). I do not think it means what you think it means.
@Justin
A feminist is a person (man or woman) who supports and defends equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Most feminists are not man haters or extremists as they are typically portrayed in popular media.
So, as your comment suggests, scantily clad men won't appease all feminists, not even all women. The way you use the word is ignorant. Your comment is offensive because appeasement implies that feminists are the aggressors and everyone else needs to make concessions to them, when all feminists are really trying to do is defend women's rights for equal treatment.
"everyone else needs to make concessions to them"
Ummm.....
>"Do you really think you're going to get people to stop being human?"
Are you suggesting that discriminating against gender is human nature?
>"everyone else needs to make concessions to them"
>"Ummm....."
You are quoting out of context. Concession is something done or agreed to usually grudgingly in order to reach an agreement or improve a situation. I used it in relation with appeasement.
it's not ignorant. but your argument sure is.
appease - v.
1. Pacify or placate (someone) by acceding to their demands.
2. Relieve or satisfy (a demand or a feeling): "we give to charity because it appeases our guilt".
THE RIGHTNESS OR WRONGNESS OF THEIR POSITION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
to give in to their change, even if the change they're asking for is correct, **IS** APPEASEMENT!
if you're going to be pedantic, at least be right.
------------------------------
and if there WERE male strippers there in equal representation, nobody can say anything from the position of "feminism" or "women in the workplace".
at that point, it purely becomes an issue of some people being prudes.
No woman demanded male dancers. Even if they had after the fact, it's beside the point. It's the exclusion and lack of consideration that women find offensive. (I wish I could underline that last sentence.) Appeasement isn't the right word, because women shouldn't have to demand respect or consideration in the first place. It should be given regardless.
>"appease - v.
>to give in to their change, even if the change they're asking for is correct, **IS** APPEASEMENT!"
Read my comment again and ask yourself if I argued the definition of the word or it's usage? It's not because Justin used the word incorrectly, I meant in the sense that it shouldn't have to be used at all. Woman shouldn't have to demand fair and equal treatment.
>THE RIGHTNESS OR WRONGNESS OF THEIR POSITION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
It has nothing to do with the definition of the word "appease," if that is what you meant, which is ridiculous to even suggest, but it does have everything to do with the situation.
>and if there WERE male strippers there in equal representation, nobody can say anything from the position of "feminism" or "women in the workplace".
That much is fairly obvious. Congratulations! :)
>at that point, it purely becomes an issue of some people being prudes.
But that isn't the point, now is it?
What we need is a larger scale understanding of who the real bad guys are and that sex positive feminists are distinct from those bad guys. Historically, the debate over things like, "Is pornography empowering or demeaning?" tore apart the second wave feminist movement. Do we really want feminism to die for another 10-15 years like it did in the 1980's? Do we really want that to happen for the same reasons?
I'm just not sure why they thought it was necessary to do that. Did they think people would actually be interested in seeing... well, whatever the women were doing?
If it were men dancing instead, I'm sure that people would have been even more confused, but it probably wouldn't have gotten as much negative press.
Is that a good or bad thing?
It would be like if a party at the WMC hired trick shooters (shooting shot glasses off of peoples heads and etc.). People would FREAK OUT!
Innapropriate? Certainly so for GDC. But making this about sexism and gender inequality? Seriously?
Only int he US.
EDIT: after seeing what the "innapropriate" stuff really was, ie. the costumes and the dancing, it take it back, nothing there was innapropriate for a GDC party.
Showbiz, circus costumes, super hero costumes, the wardrobes of gods and goddesses, professional dancers, are areas known for exhibiting over sexuality. So I'm perhaps less optimistic that a stauch second wave approach to feminism is the right posture to influence gender dynamics and the signification of gender in game developer culture and computer game products. We shall see.
[updated first wave feminism to second wave. my bad]
I don't see how carrying on like frat boys in a co-ed profession has anything to do with feminism.
This is about maturity. Ok, perhaps then feminist movements and all social movements represent not just an underclass struggling for equality and respect, but a struggle for the society as a whole to become more mature in their views and attitudes and behaviors.
My bad, I meant second wave feminism. The late 60-70s version of feminism, fighting against objectification and etc. I updated the post.
"This is about maturity."
Exactly - YOU are alienated by the lack of maturity. Other people will feel uncomfortable by any number of things. I think that people should feel welcome to express their alienation and attempting to change culture into a more comfortable zone.
so happy to be... wait... dancing girls?
I guess joke's on me.
--
I imagine for the people who resigned or withdrew support, that more than anything, deep disappointment is felt when things like this occur particularly if they felt progress had been made and that their peers were "better than that." And some of the comments here are saying "no, we're not better than that!" with a little too much pride.
Brenda Brathwaite, anti-cencorship proponent, and Playboy - The Mansion designer, mysteriously resigns from the IGDA.
On top of that, agree with earlier comments about the lack of imagination. We're supposedly a creative industry. Couldn't they think of anything a little more fun? Jugglers? Fire eaters? Magicians? Anything?
You are missing the point.
Female dancers in sexy outfits - Not sexist.
Excluding the female audience from the entertainment - Sexist.
If sexy male dancers were hired, then I doubt this would be such an issue. It still may have been perceived as unprofessional. If kept in context with everything else women face in the industry, it's easy to understand why women are fed up and hurt by this.
This has made me reconsider renewing my membersh... Hahahaha. Just kidding.
Seriously, I've witnessed financial conferences for VCs with hookers and escorts invited for the guests. Our industry is actually much more mature on this than most of us think. What we need to really worry about is is our quality of life, not the parties at industry events.
They should probably just get rid of all industry parties and just hold lounge events that are more like eating appetizers and having drinks at a restaurant than trying to simulate some super party.