After noticing fewer women in the gaming industry than males, a researcher at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery’s Games + Learning + Society Center began conducting studies on this asymmetry, according to a Feb. 11 university news release.
Amanda Ochsner, a graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, said she was disappointed with the games marketed toward young girls when she first started reviewing as an editor for a gaming website in San Francisco.
“I found the games to be simplistic, formulaic, and saw lots of stereotypes about women,” Ochsner said. “The games explored hairdressing, wedding planning, fashion and makeup, and they tend to not be as engaging as a lot of games out there.”
At GLS, Ochsner began studying what motivates girls to join or leave the game industry. She found the field can be intimidating or feel unwelcoming to women.
“I know a woman who graduated from UW in computer science who took a calculus class and her TA told her the reason she was struggling with the class was because women are bad at math,” Ochsner said.
For female UW students looking at programming and computer science, Ochsner recommends student organizations on campus for women interested in games and technology, which can often provide a more welcoming environment than large lectures.
Aside from her Ph.D. work, Ochsner has worked for one and a half years at an after-school program in New Glarus that teaches programming and game design to middle schoolers. She says it has provoked thinking about how to recruit more girls into the program and ultimately the field overall.
Ochsner said other groups are also underrepresented in a gaming industry dominated by white males.
“There are increasingly more uses for games, and in order to have it grow we have to welcome everybody to the table in terms of design,” she said.
Ochsner said she hopes to encourage more women and other underrepresented demographics to join the game design and programming industry.
“The overarching goal of my research is to find avenues to create different learning pathways for games and technology, specifically for girls and all underrepresented populations,” Ochsner said.
