They made me invisible, shrouded and non-being
A shadow, no existence, made silent and unseeing
Denied of freedom, confined to my cage
Tell me how to handle my anger and rage?
— Zieba Shorish-Shamley, of the Woman’s Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan
The world can be a surprisingly small place. I was recently watching the television covering events from Afghanistan while simultaneously looking at my laptop computer. On the television was a picture of the new Taliban leadership at the Afghan Presidential Palace, while on my laptop I was looking at an advertisement for the upcoming East Coast Gaming Congress.
The gaming conference advertisement included the pictures of 11 keynote speakers. They were all men. The Taliban picture I was looking at also included 11 people and they were all men. The main difference between the two groups was that the Taliban folks had better facial hair, whereas the casino dudes wore costlier outfits, albeit with less weaponry.
I would argue the Taliban is the more honest of the two groups. They have clearly articulated what they perceive to be the appropriate role for women in society. In short, they admit to and own the fact they are male chauvinistic pigs. The gaming group is still in denial about this reality hoping if they parrot the diversity commitment nonsense often enough, folks will believe it.
A few months back there was a company that held an gaming awards event in England and they assembled a panel of 52 people to act as judges for the event—and 51 of those judges were men. That amazed me and apparently many others for it became a hot topic on LinkedIn, Twitter and even generated major press coverage. I suspect that the ECGC concluded this other group demonstrated weakness by including that one woman and they would not make this same mistake. They would not list any women. If you are going to be a bear, be a Grizzly, I suspect was the conference organizers attitude for the East Coast show.
I was thinking it might be very cool if all of the 11 men invited to perform the keynote speeches would wear red codpieces as they swaggered up to the podium. That would put those ladies in their place. Since these men clearly have got what it takes, they should flaunt it.
I also wonder if these gentlemen will have a heart to heart with their daughters suggesting that if they follow in their father’s footsteps in the gaming business that they will have a markedly lesser chance of promotion and a strong probability of being paid less. Oh, and they would clearly be a prohibitive underdog at being invited to deliver a keynote speech at the East Coast Gaming Congress.
Everyone who understands the reality of the pandemic knows that it has had a disproportionally negative effect on women in the workforce. The organizers of the East Coast Gaming Show apparently wanted to punctuate that reality by reminding women that out of the 11 top keynote addresses advertised, they simply cannot find a woman who qualifies. My God, the pandemic seems to have taken us to a place where organizers don’t even feel the need to insult women with tokenism. Possibly the organizers would like the women attending to wear bikinis and serve the real keynote speakers coffee.
One of the things I have learned since I have noticed how tone-deaf men can be in this industry is that when a conference lists the pictures of speakers and they are all men, women seethe. The fact that conference organizers are not alive to this reality shows the depth of the systemic discrimination against women in the gaming space. It is one thing to be a pig, but it is a whole different story to be a pig and not know it.
My friend Jan Jones Blackhurst often makes the point that she has been preaching to the industry about its piggishness for 25 years. One thing that Jan needs to do is to update the 25 number to 30 years, or possibly more, for I have heard her give this speech for at least that long. I think the women in the industry really need to pay attention to Jan, so I will mention it again—Jan has been giving this speech for over 30 years—and the point of the speech is that things are not really changing.
If that is cool with the women of the industry, so be it. I suspect the men would suggest that you know your place. I am sure you will continue to get the side gig so you all might have a woman’s session. This has become something like the kids table at Thanksgiving for as the ECGC has clearly indicated, you are not ready for the main stage.
Until recently, I was stuck in the Deep South on a project and I spent a portion of my free time traveling the Civil Rights Trail. One of the inspirational experiences on the Trail was at the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama. In Rosa’s day (which is also my day), blacks had to sit in the back of the bus. They would enter the front door, pay their fare, step off of the bus and walk to the back door and get in. Sometimes the drivers, being the funny and clever people they were, would drive off as the black person was walking to the back door, effectively stealing their fare and leaving them to walk in the hot, wet, and muggy southern air after a full day at work.
One day Rosa was sitting in the bus and it was filling up, and so the driver told Rosa to give her seat to a white man. She ignored him. In her book she indicated she was just tired of being treated as inferior. The driver summoned the police and Rosa, who was afraid she may be beaten or lynched, was arrested. After the paperwork was handled for her arrest, she asked if she might have a drink of water. She was told no because all of the drinking fountains on that floor of the police station were for whites only. Did I mention that based on the advertisement I was sent, apparently all of the keynote microphones at the East Coast Gaming Congress are only for men?
Rosa, to her credit, had had enough, and because of her actions her name is associated with a movement that bought about positive social change. Maybe it is time that the women in gaming say enough is enough. It seems that women should consider not attending these sausage fests and tell the organizers why. They could also tell the sponsors why they no longer desire to attend. I believe that this action may prove to be an agent of change. Moreover, it might keep Jan from spending the next 25 years giving that same damn speech again and again – while nothing changes.
