It’s not really surprising, is it, that the proportion of men increases with seniority? The number of women in senior jobs now depends on how things were thirty or so years ago.

I’m sure there are still barriers to women progressing, and I have no idea how much is explained by things that still need to change – but you can’t just pretend that pipeline effect doesn’t exist.

Jason, Roy Greenslade asked that on his Guardian blog. He has seen more female than male grads from City Journalism for last 7 yrs. Some of those people would now be at least thirty, and therefore junior eds of one kind or another…

I’m asking why I’m the only one NOW, in 2011.

Look, this is one of those anomalies that’s going to be fixed over time. It’s not really something you can do much about. Back when most senior political journalists started out, it was pretty much all men who did it. The number of women going into it is increasing, but it’s going to take years for that to ultimately be reflected across all levels.

I don’t think anyone needs to alter their behaviour or anything. If a man was to give a woman an easy ride simply because she’s a woman, that’s just being patronising. Women are more capable of doing things on merit, and they’ll make it if they work hard enough. You’re testament to that surely, Jennifer?

Grim: I’m sure I will be told that I have taken on “male” characteristics, and that’s why I don’t feel weird in all male environments, but some women feel genuinely uncomfortable with aggressive questioning and debate, and it puts them off. I’m not sure I know what the solution is to that, which is why I’m asking…

“I’m asking why I’m the only one NOW, in 2011.”

I think it is to do with the recruitment practices of the industry, whereby a great deal of jobs get filled through non-formal means. So people with the time available to network, or do the unpaid internships, advance, whereas those who don’t have the time can’t. Whether that specifically discriminates by gender is more difficult to measure.

It was recently pointed out to me that about three quarters of English teachers are female, a figure which seems quite high considering the gender gap for English graduates is hardly huge (there is about a 10% imbalance to females from memory).

Maybe this explains it – a lot of female journalism graduates go into English teaching, whilst male English teachers go into journalism…

Seriously, it is hard to say there is a stuctural problem here without evidence of what causes it. Also, I have to ask would having 50% female journalists make the blindest bit of difference, since the key determinent in the phrase female journalist is presumably journalist (if it is not, you’ve found the problem).

“some women feel genuinely uncomfortable with aggressive questioning and debate” – true but not *necessarily* a problem. Some women aren’t cut out for being a building site labourer, either.

(I liked your article, incidentally, and I’m not trying to attack you or it – I just think these are interesting parts of the debate)

Good article and well-written. I tend to go with Watchman here: there could be loads of factors, including what men and women are interested in. I’ve certainly noticed that people who comment on political blogs on forums (i.e. us lot), which obviously tend to have no restrictions on participation, tend to be disproportionately male.

Don’t know if anyone else can see this but ironically I have a ‘Filipino cupid.com’ ad with lots of extremely young looking, half naked women above the part of the article that reads ‘Blog, feminism, Media, Sex, Equality’ …

Chaise,

There is the computer gaming point to bear in mind however – that non-identifying aliases on computer game sites are in the vast majority female, male’s going for aliases that identify them as men (damn – guilty again, although I suppose there was a female watchman…) presumably out of some deep masculine impulse or whatever. So Planeshift and the Grim Reaper may well be female…

Which may link to the original post in a way. Journalism, like online commentary, lets you set yourself up to be knocked down, but generally requires a byline. Hence there is no anonymity. Is this a greater problem for females – perhaps because of some sort of gender assumption (the same sort of thing that requires wearing pink and not liking football for example (i.e. a pattern, not a universal)). Would be interesting to know what the composition of the journalists of wire services is like, since they generally do not attach their byline that I’ve seen?

This is really interesting. It’s kind of the opposite in personal finance journalism, where a good proportion of the journalists (reporters and editors) are female. However, in my experience, female journalists are made to be feel very aware of their gender – sexist comments from contacts, “harmless” flirting plus the odd “babe/darling/sweetheart” comment. A (male) editor once said to me that the reason there are so many female journalists cover PF is because of the number of men working in the industry – and “they’d rather take a pretty girl out to lunch and spill the beans than a goon in a suit”. So it was nice to feel my talents were appreciated!

I tend to go with Watchman here: there could be loads of factors, including what men and women are interested in. I’ve certainly noticed that people who comment on political blogs on forums (i.e. us lot), which obviously tend to have no restrictions on participation, tend to be disproportionately male.

But surely the wider question is: why are there these differences between what men and women are interested in, is it good that these differences exist, and if not, is there anything we can do about it?

I don’t for an instant believe that people’s interests are genetically pre-determined. Do you?

Ive been thinking about this recently, after one too many articles about ‘boys who don’t write’. Apparently boys are so uninterested in writing (and reading) that we need projects in schools all over the country specifically directed at getting them into it. Girls, on the other hand, are said not to need this sort of special treatment, because they enjoy writing (and reading), express themselves well, etc.

This raises several questions for me, but the first and most obvious is this – if boys ‘dont write’, how come every single career that involves writing appears to be overwhelmingly full of men? Whether they are journalists, columnists, novelists, poets, lyricists, culture critics, comic writers, stand up comedians, working on paper, film, radio, etc etc etc, most of the work and nearly all of the review space and awards goes to writing by men.

So there are several possible explanations for what is going on here, here are three that I think all play a part:

1/ girls are better and more interested in writing than boys, but sexism means that by the time they’re adults, the less experienced male writers still get all the work and the attention.

2/ boys ARE interested in writing and ARE writing, but schools and teachers and report writers are too stupid to realise it. Because if it isnt done in a lesson as a result of a teacher set project/paper, then it just doesnt exist.

3/ a lot of boys writing might not be written down – lyrics are remembered, stories are improvised in real time and dont get recorded.

So I think we waste time and money on dumbass projects in schools to ‘get boys to write’, patronising shit like encouraging them to ‘write in text speak’, when there is really no problem here (for young boys) to be solved. They have active imaginations and find many ways to express themselves, its just that the school system doesnt recognise any of it.

If there is no problem to be solved – because boys are ‘writing’, and men are still getting the majority of writing work, awards, etc – then writing projects aimed at boys are not only misconceived, but they are likely to make the problem of getting employed, for women writers who are already being discriminated against in all of these male dominated writing industries, even harder – because the boys are getting extra support and training and experience at a young age.

Sorry for the long comment, its been on my mind that things are likely to only get worse for women writers, not better. Nobody is really encouraging or supporting girls to get into writing, or to consider it as a serious career option. And there are still areas within writing (lyricists, screenwriting, comedy) where women and girls are still treated like weird aliens who can only ‘ruin’ whatever subculture theyre trying to participate in.

anonyperson; the performance of a small handful of high fliers tells you nothing about the rest. There’s no inconsistency between boys having a problem writing and the number of high profile male writers.

@ 10 Watchman

Interesting point, although I’d caution that any effect on the screen names people choose for themselves is likely to be severely curtailed when it comes to choosing whether or not to take a job. You may pick an online name that’s ambiguous because you like anonymity, but you probably wouldn’t refuse your dream job for the same reason!

Am I to take it that “Watchman” is a reference to the excellent graphic novel of almost the same name, then? Always wondered.

And you can change my previous post to be about most sports or making music and it still stands true. Boys are being given extra support, encouragement, and opportunities to gain experience in all sorts of areas which, as adult careers, are heavily dominated by men to the extent that women trying to break into them are treated like complete aliens.

This is partly because the authorities are scared of boys making their own fun (they might break things!). But it doesnt address the main problem most boys will have at attempting a career in any of these areas – which is that its still more about who you know than what you know or what you are capable of.

And it means that girls are still being denied access to the same opportunities as boys, and the problem of institutional sexism in various creative industries is therefore unlikely to stop anytime in the next couple of decades.

@ 12 Dunc

“But surely the wider question is: why are there these differences between what men and women are interested in, is it good that these differences exist, and if not, is there anything we can do about it?”

Absolutely. I don’t think I’d ever think of the differences as “good” exactly, I’d be more inclined to divide them into “bad” and “not a problem”.

So, if women feel overtly or subtley pressured into not seeking journalistic jobs, or recuiters for these jobs discriminate against them, that’s obviously bad. On the other hand, if women (once social pressure and similar factors are accounted for) are just generally less likely to be interested in these jobs or good at doing them, that’s fine, and any attempt to address it is likely to do more harm than good.

As always with this sort of thing, I reckon it’s a combination of two or more of the above factors.

“I don’t for an instant believe that people’s interests are genetically pre-determined. Do you?”

No, that would be too simplistic. Nature and nurture both come into play here. And it’s in the latter, obviously, that we’re likely to find bias.

Interesting LC carries this article on the same day that it’s reported that exactly half of the Civil Service’s Permanent Secretaries are women. Oh, and three-quarters of them are mothers.

Mike – are civil servants journos or politicians? If I said the majority of teachers in primary schools are women, does that mean we’ve succeeded across the board? Obviously not…

Are men better at the practice of journalism and politics than women? Evidently not.

What evidence?

@ 20

I must admit wondering about that “evidently” as well.

@ 19 Jennifer

“Mike – are civil servants journos or politicians? If I said the majority of teachers in primary schools are women, does that mean we’ve succeeded across the board? Obviously not”

I suspect (and apologies to Mike here if I’m wrong) that he’s not addressing your story directly, but engaging in whataboutery. You know, accusing LC of bias because it’s run this story but not one about women getting more jobs than men in another sector.

However, this raises a good point – if more men get jobs as journos but more women get jobs as primary school teachers, is there even a problem? Or, if there is, does that mean that we need to address bias against women in one field and bias against men in another?

Yes, we do! Boys and girls need strong, sympathetic role models from a young age. The gov’t is trying to encourage men into primary teaching.

@ Anonymous, post 13.

Interesting post. Another point I’d add to your list is that boys may just take a little longer in “getting into the swing of things” with regard to reading. There may be a lag around age 7, say, but by the time they’re in their twenties that’ll be irrelevant.

@ 23

“Yes, we do! Boys and girls need strong, sympathetic role models from a young age. The gov’t is trying to encourage men into primary teaching.”

I agree, because I feel that people are likely to fit into the slots that society makes for them. And it can be circular: literally all of the teachers in my state primary school were women, so odds are there’s a part of my brain that tells me that being a primary school teacher is a “woman’s job”.

I think we should encourage people to pursue whatever job they think they’d be good at and enjoy. However, I suspect that even in a world totally devoid of social conditioning, you’d find more men in some jobs and more women in others. So I’m cautious of sounding the alarm bells just because certain industries employ more of one gender than the other.

@Jennifer

Simple question. Why does it matter? Especially given that “I must also say that I am not made to feel like “the only woman.” In these situations, I have yet to feel deliberately marginalised or patronised, and the lack of sexism I have encountered only reinforces my view that this is a strangely invisible problem that both men and women have to deal with.”

If there isn’t sexism, and your presence proves that women are as capable as men of entering the industry, then what’s the problem?

I think one of the biggest differences between boys and girls, men and women, when it comes to writing is the ability to collaborate. Writers in most fields develop their skill and make connections via collaborating on projects, and there are more opportunities for men to do this, partly because a sizeable number of men are still resistant or outright hostile to working with women.

OP, Jennifer O’Mahony: “There must also be an element of ingrained sexism that sees an average of one woman a week invited onto programmes like Question Time…”

As others have said, that was a good post and the following argument has followed that pattern.

The question about Question Time is why you would wish to appear.

Question Time is a political bull fight in which all of the protagonists are gored to a degree. The environment is a bull fight — swirling cloaks to distract the opponent, followed by a swift sword stroke. Arguments must be deft and swift to dodge the challenging horns. Novices (ie non-professional politicians) are given some lee way and the furious bulls are tamed. But it remains a rough arena.

The Question Time panel is thus defined as individuals who might try their luck in a bull ring.

“…and there are obvious structural problems relating to childcare and flexible working hours that prevent women continuing on a trajectory they begin in their early twenties.”

Yep, but those problems also apply to men who look after children.

In all trades, being off the job for a few years makes it difficult to re-enter. I’ll argue that if you knew the job originally, you’ll pick up the differences very quickly.

[22] Your suspicion is justified, CG. In fairness to Sunny, he’s gone with the story that will, I suspect, attract the most visitors, links and comments. I’d do the same in his shoes.

If I’m right, does that make this site part of the problem or part of the solution? FWIW I suspect both cases can be made…

@ 29

“In fairness to Sunny, he’s gone with the story that will, I suspect, attract the most visitors, links and comments. I’d do the same in his shoes.”

Well, given the calibre of headlines around here it’s kinda hard to deny that one.

@ Jennifer O’Mahony

Could it be that the preponderance of men in sub-editor jobs in journalism now relates to the preponderance of male over female graduates c. 20 years ago? But times have changed.

“The government is concerned about a growing gender gap in higher education, after 22,500 more young women than men won places at university last year. “[2006]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6314055.stm

“Women now out number and out perform men at all universities, study finds”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5417475/Women-now-out-number-and-out-perform-men-at-all-universities-study-finds.html

“For the first time ever, more women than men graduated from medical schools.” [2002]
http://cdnedge.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/health/2002/bma_conference/2091015.stm

“Men are more likely than women to be unemployed six months after graduating from first degree, Masters and PhD courses, according to research.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4929958.stm

As for the men at that visit to the video games lab:

“In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204140115.htm

Women in the UK make up just over a quarter of the total number of gamers. This compares to 39% in the US and 69% in South Korea.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3615278.stm

Curiously:

“Bucking the trend seen in almost every other profession worldwide, women working in the gaming industry in the United Kingdom pull down a higher average salary than their male counterparts, MCV claims.”
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/01/report-women-in/

That could be because the male market for video games is regarded as verging on saturated and that the biggest opportunities for expanding the market are by producing games with greater appeal for prospective women gamers.

Btw the video games market has become big business:

“Last year [2008] will go down in history as the point at which the UK videogames industry pulled decisively away from cinema, recorded music and DVD sales to become the country’s most valuable purchased entertainment market, with combined software and hardware sales topping the £4bn mark for the first time: more than DVD and music sales combined, and more than four times cinema box office takings.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/videogames-hollywood

I thought this was an interesting article, although I disagree that QT is sexist – there are fewer women in high office/public life and also women, if only for cultural reasons, are perhaps a bit more conflict-averse, so may be a little less likely to accept such an invitation.

I think there is still an expectation (created by both women and men, sometimes unconsciously?) that women will have more responsibility for childcare. I don’t know much about journalism but I expect the hours are long and irregular sometimes. For that reason women may prefer more regular jobs – such as English teachers – which fit childcare more predictably. I think there is another reason why women are attracted to that kind of well structured, public sector career. ‘The mechanisms for hiring and promoting are generally pretty fair and transparent. On the other hand, in a system where things happen through networking and word of mouth – and where employers (maybe themselves women in some cases) are able not to employ youngish women who might have children without getting picked up for sexism – then I think men are more likely to succeed. Certainly as someone with young children and a f/t job I don’t have a huge amount of time for networking – going to lots of conferences or even going to the pub.

Watchman – I suspect you must be an Oxbridge graduate as in most universities there are far more women than men studying English.

I fear in many respects you will be waiting for Godot. Politics and political jounrlaism is largely a men’s social club and they aren’t going to give up control easily. Sure there is equality legislation – but that doesn’t stop the glass ceiling.

God Almighty I’ve had about eighty interviews and guess what nobody was disabled .

Ah yes but disablity is different. yes it is seems only I’m disabled looking for a job then.

Human Resources departments and employment agency staff seem to be disproportionately women. In my local cafe/resturant, which is part of a chain, all the people in positions of power seem to be women, and all the guys preform the lowly tasks.
It’s just something I’ve noticed from spending time in there. Although the overall boss of the chain is a man. He probably thinks his cafes run better that way.

Here are two kinds of reasons why women may be short of interest in video gaming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_-fZk9M3S4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s92Ons_xn1o&feature=related

@ 37 Bob

…because violent video games exist and someone made a silly video? I’m not sure I follow you.

@Sarah AB

Slightly o/t, but I saw you wrote this on Harry’s Place:

“I’m slightly ambivalent about some of the campaigns against cuts, partly because I voted for a party which would also have made cuts, partly because the campaigns against them have become a focus for far-left posturing”

Could you please expand upon this view for a LibCon article?

Jennifer

….. Political journalism is male dominated, and I am completely used to rooms filled with men.

That’s really hard to believe given the fact that any major event or press conerence at Westminster is likely to have some or all of the following at it:

Laura Kuenssberg, Chief Political Correspondent BBC News; Isabel Oakeshott, Political Editor, Sunday Times; Cathy Newman, C4 News; Jackie Ashley, Guardian; Allegra Stratton, Guardian; Rachel Sylvester, Times; Jean Eaglesham, FT; Carolyn Quinn ( Chairman of the Parliamentary Press Gallery) BBC; Rosa Prince, Telegraph; Anne McElvoy; Evening Standard; Julia Hartley-Brewer, Sunday Express; Alison Little, Express; Julia Langdon; Emily Ashton, PA; Libby Wiener, ITN; Anuska Asthana, Observer; Ruth Barnett, SKY News; Daisy McAndrew, ITN; Emily Beament, PA; Sophy Ridge, News of the World; Reeta Chakrabarti, BBC; Kirsty Buchanan, Express; Joanne Coburn, BBC; Pippa Crerar, Evening Standard; Polly Curtis, Guardian; Catherine Devlin, Herald; Catherine Donaldson, Bloomberg; Amber Elliott, Total Politics; Naomi Grimley, BBC World Service; Katherine Haddon, AFP; Clodagh Hartley, Sun; Catherine Mayer, Time Magazine; Elizabeth Rigby, FT; Estelle Shirbon, Reuters; Alice Thomson, Times; Carole Walker, BBC; Eleanor Goodman (freelance)……..

just off the top of my head….. there must be loads more.

Roger – thanks – can I think about that …

@Jennifer – following on from Roger’s comment, I’ll note that I also blogged about your post over on HP.

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/03/05/the-second-shift/

I love the way that, right under the article tag Filed under Feminism ,Media ,Sex equality there is that advert for filipinocupid.com.

Says it all,really.

@38: “…because violent video games exist and someone made a silly video? I’m not sure I follow you.”

An awful lot of video games are shooting and warfare games with lots of killing so it’s not really surprising that women in the UK opt out and “make up [only] just over a quarter of the total number of gamers.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3615278.stm

If typical video games had a broad appeal, we should expect women to make up about half of the total number of gamers.

There’s also this curious observation to account for: “Bucking the trend seen in almost every other profession worldwide, women working in the gaming industry in the United Kingdom pull down a higher average salary than their male counterparts, MCV claims.”
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/01/report-women-in/

How come?

Perhaps because women who work in that industry are going considerably against the grain of gender expectations, so probably have a special compensating enthusiasm/aptitude.

My husband works in a male dominated industry (software/IT related) and I remember some colleagues of his working out that although they had far fewer paper proposals from women for a conference they organised, they had accepted a higher proportion of those from women.

[44] Sarah, I trust you congratulated your hubby and his colleagues for discriminating against both men and women all at once

Sarah @44: “My husband works in a male dominated industry (software/IT related) and I remember some colleagues of his working out that although they had far fewer paper proposals from women for a conference they organised, they had accepted a higher proportion of those from women.”

Few have yet absorbed the fact that the majority of new graduates coming out of universities are now women and that, on average, they have achieved better classes of degrees than men. Try a google search and you’ll come across online debates in the medical profession in which some are expressing concerns about the prospect of most GPs being women in just a few years down the line.

We have come a long way since Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, wrote this in 1719:

“I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.”
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1719defoe-women.html

I mention this not because I’m complaining but because I can’t believe that most social commentators and blog posters appreciate the extent of the social changes underway. Kinder, Küche, Kirche went out of fashion quite a long way back:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder,_K%C3%BCche,_Kirche

“It revealed that 40 per cent of the graduate women were childless at age 35.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/22/ncareer22.xml

“More women will be working than men within four years after the number of males with jobs slumped to an all-time low, say researchers. They believe the recession has created a ‘Full Monty generation’, who have lost traditional male jobs and moved on to benefits.

“An analysis of official figures reveals that the number of men of working age with jobs has slumped from 92 per cent in 1971 to 75 per cent today. Meanwhile, the number of women who are employed has risen from 56 to 69 per cent as the service sector has flourished.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239783/More-women-men-work-4-years.html

46
Although it is forcast that more women than men will be working in four years and also mentions that this is due to the increase in the service industry. However, most of those jobs are poorly paid, part-time contract work which is OK for a woman with other members of the family working or who have children and can top-up those earnings with tax credits.
Because female graduates are taking more of the well-paid professional jobs (which is a positive for those women) the experiences of the vast majority of women is not positive.
Any analysis of wage and job differentials needs to be viewed in terms of class as well as gender.
It might also be relevant that the suicide figures for working-age males is increasing and those for working age females is decreasing. What price economic and social change?

34. Tacitus – “I fear in many respects you will be waiting for Godot. Politics and political jounrlaism is largely a men’s social club and they aren’t going to give up control easily. Sure there is equality legislation – but that doesn’t stop the glass ceiling.”

Another conspiracy theory. First you would have to prove that politics and political journalism are actually like a social club. That men in those professions act in a co-ordinated manner to exclude women. And that the glass ceiling exists. Then we can discuss whether women are actually victims of the same.

As it is you have nothing except that it appears women do not want to do these jobs

@47: “Because female graduates are taking more of the well-paid professional jobs (which is a positive for those women) the experiences of the vast majority of women is not positive.”

I doubt that is true for the “vast majority” of women although it’s perhaps true for many. These ONS time series graphs show what has happened to income distribution since the early 1980s:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=332

Graduates attract an earnings premium worth on average about £100,000 over a lifetime in employment as compared with someone who left school with A-levels and didn’t go into higher education:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/graduate-earnings-premium-drops-to-pound100k-1835911.html

Employment prospects in the current job market are likely to be especially bleak for the half of 16 year-olds who leave school without attaining the benchmark of 5 GCSE’s A*-C grades, including maths and English. In December, “youth unemployment rose to a fresh record high in the three months to the end of December, with more than one in five 16 to 24-year-olds out of work after a rise of 66,000 to 965,000, the ONS has announced previously. The UK unemployment rate is now 7.9%, with youth unemployment running at 20.5%.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12619799

The conclusions of the recent report by Professor Alison Wolf on provisons for vocational education are rather stark:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12622061

@ 42 Roj

“I love the way that, right under the article tag Filed under Feminism ,Media ,Sex equality there is that advert for filipinocupid.com.

Says it all,really.”

You’re the second person to mention that. What do you mean? Is dating anti-feminist?

@ 43 Bob B

“An awful lot of video games are shooting and warfare games with lots of killing so it’s not really surprising that women in the UK opt out and “make up [only] just over a quarter of the total number of gamers.”

If typical video games had a broad appeal, we should expect women to make up about half of the total number of gamers. ”

I’m going to accept the assumption that women are less likely to be drawn to violent entertainment, because it’s probably true. However, although lots of games are violent (I’d guess that more than half involve something that could be described as violence, although relatively few are particularly visceral), that still leaves thousands and thousands of non-violent games. The existence of, say, Grand Theft Auto, should not rationally put someone off from playing Tetris.

“There’s also this curious observation to account for: “Bucking the trend seen in almost every other profession worldwide, women working in the gaming industry in the United Kingdom pull down a higher average salary than their male counterparts, MCV claims.””

If that’s bucking international trends as well, I’d guess that it’s a fluke, although there could be other reasons. Given that video games are more popular among men and therefore they’re more likely to seek out a job in the industry, it could mean that the women who work in video games are more likely to have been headhunted as especially talented individuals. Or they could just be more likely to have applicable skills.

@ Chaise Guevara

Several research studies in recent years claim to establish links between the frequent playing of violent video games and subsequent violent behaviour through some sort of learning mechanism or desensitisation to the consequences of violent behaviour:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4594376.stm
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1723
http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/fa09/dis/02/extra/update_violence.pdf

Given that men are more likely to perpetrate violent crimes or engage in violent behaviour like that of football hooligans, it’s probably not surprising that women manifest an aversion to playing these games and to their production. Perhaps that could be reversed with regular testosterone tablets for women on the NHS – although that could have other unwelcome side-effects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone

@ 52 Bob B

“Several research studies in recent years claim to establish links between the frequent playing of violent video games and subsequent violent behaviour through some sort of learning mechanism or desensitisation to the consequences of violent behaviour”

I’ve yet to see anything convincing in this direction. Take your sources, for example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4594376.stm

- This only shows that people who play violent games are less sensitive to violent images. Too reasons not to get excited about that: firstly, it doesn’t establish cause and effect. All it tells you is that people who voluntarily use violent media are less shocked by violence that those who don’t – who knew? Secondly, I don’t really see why we should worry about how people react to pictures. In any case, the story doesn’t say anything about a control group – if it didn’t have one, it’s meaningless.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1723

- This deals with short-term effects, so it’s not really an issue for society to worry about. It doesn’t go much further than saying that games like this leaved you psyched up for awhile.

http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/fa09/dis/02/extra/update_violence.pdf

- This is bit too technical for me to delve into properly on a Sunday afternoon, but it has an obvious agenda. It starts talking about the “problems” with video games straight from the off, and later makes a snide comment comparing games firms’ criticism to the (often genuinely rubbish) studies used to criticise games to the tobacco industry trying to claim that fags don’t cause lung cancer.

The thing about violent games is there’s a certain Moral Guardian type of person whose sensibilities are offended by these games’ very existence, and therefore WANTS it to be the case that they cause real-life violence. They therefore tend to jump on weak data to use as “proof”, fail to study the potential for carthasis, and often seem incapable of dealing with the other side of the issue – i.e. that your dislike for a game is not, in itself, a reason that everyone should be banned from playing them.

There we go: Chaise’s Defense of Video Games Vol. 1!

“Given that men are more likely to perpetrate violent crimes or engage in violent behaviour like that of football hooligans, it’s probably not surprising that women manifest an aversion to playing these games and to their production.”

You’ve sorta ignored my point: a lot of games aren’t violent at all, and most of those that ARE violent are very cartoony and probably not particularly controversial. For example, the video game character Mario battles walking mushrooms and turtles by jumping on their heads to kill them. That’s violent, if you like, but I doubt it’s going to have much of a psychological effect on anyone. Therefore not wanting to play violent games makes no sense as a reason not to play games at all: it’s like saying you refuse to watch any film because you don’t like Westerns.

Interesting piece, Jennifer.

Bit of anecdote-not-data: a good friend of mine is a section editor (not politics/news) at a national paper, and has been doing that job on a part-time basis for four years since her daughter was born. The paper in question recently reorganised its sections, abolishing my friend’s editor role and folding it into a new super-editor role. Three men were invited, informally, to apply for the job; my friend was not, but did anyway after complaining to a senior manager. She was interviewed, and she asked whether it would be possible to do the job on a part-time or job-share basis; the response was a blank ‘no’. My friend’s a single mother with significant childcare responsibilities, and so that was the end of the interview. So a woman with 20 years of journalistic/subbing experience is now in a less senior role than the one she had previously, and a man is now doing her job.

I think childcare/maternity is a huge part of the answer to the questions you pose.

Rowan (#54) – that’s not really that unreasonable of the employer though, is it? Some jobs do need the full-time attention of a single person.

@55 – I don’t know, do they really? I think lots of employers *think* they do, but actually job-shares tend to be immensely effective in my experience. And whatever short-term disadvantages/overlaps there may be are IMO outweighed by the benefits of NOT excluding experienced, qualified women from senior roles just because they’re parents (doesn’t happen to men, does it?)

@10 Last time I checked, I was a man.