California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) says that renowned game publishing studio Blizzard Entertainment, and its owner Activision Blizzard, have created a culture of “constant sexual harassment” and gender-based discrimination, in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday that claims top executives were aware and/or involved. And in the hours since the suit was revealed, numerous women have already stepped forward to corroborate the allegations.
The details are so disturbing that we’re going to start with a trigger warning right now. The idea that male employees held “cube crawls” is one of the tamer allegations in the lawsuit.
This is by far the worst case of structural sexual abuse at a gaming company to date, and you really need to the read the full complaint to understand just how criminal the behaviour of male Activision Blizzard employees and managers has been, but some of these examples should give you a good idea. It even led to the suicide of one of the female employees at the company.
The abuse was so widespread, so pervasive, so depraved, and so institutionalised, that in my view, we’re dealing with a criminal organisation that ought to be shut down and banned, much like any other criminal organisation. The fact this is a company (or a religious institution, for that matter) should be of no consequence.
The complain itself is the result not of a single employee or one particular case, but of a two year investigation by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
It’s widely known that women are not well represented in tech in general. I’ve debated this before with people I know and they claim that anything less than 50:50 representation implies discrimination. While I’d like to have more women in tech, I believe it’s more complicated than that because women apply for tech jobs at a far lower rate in the first place, so it’s not as simple as saying “low women ratio implies discrimination”.
I think Blizzard is probably guilty of discriminatory practices, but I also feel that we ought to be objective in recognizing that the prosecutor’s role is not to be a balanced or unbiased source. Their facts and documents can be misleading by design because it’s their job to make the defense look bad. Blizzard’s side of the store isn’t represented here at all.
To play devil’s advocate if an employee is assigned to a lower level, well obviously that employee is going to get less pay and it’s going to take them longer to get promoted to a certain position. I bet this is also true of the prosecutor’s own staff themselves. The much bigger question to me is if and why females are assigned to lower levels in the first place. Are there men at the company who also feel they’re at a lower level than they belong? If so this negative experience could be happening equally to both males and females. Is there really systematic sex discrimination or have they merely cherry picked instances to build a case? Answering these types of questions would be key to proving sexual discrimination.
Reminds me of James Damore, the Google employee publicly disclosed the widespread discrimination and toxic culture at Google. Nothing happened in the end, he was fired and Google hasn’t changed one bit since.
> Reminds me of James Damore, the Google employee publicly disclosed the widespread discrimination and toxic culture at Google.
Quite the contrary: he was claiming that “male to female disparities can be partly explained by biological differences” and that Google should stop fighting against discrimination and toxic culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber
I used to work in computer science higher education in the UK. The lack of women applying for courses was shocking, and at times I used to wonder if there could be some inherent difference in aptitude between women and men. But the stats from other countries simply don’t bear this out.
The fact is, in the UK and other countries, there’s a cultural problem that turns women away from technology. I have no inside knowledge about what goes on at Blizzard, but you only have to look at what goes on elsewhere to see there’s a problem.
I see nothing good in this state of affairs. Women suffer from discrimination; the tech sector suffers from lack of women’s involvement; society suffers as a whole. The only positive is that there’s nothing intrinsic about it, so it’s within our collective power to change it for the better.
[1] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1162654.pdf
flypig,
Indeed. Accounting for population size, female enrollment in STEM would be 47.6%, just slightly less than males. I find this curious and wanted to understand the data better. The signals are mixed, but I believe most are negative. This is from your link:
This is also from the world bank:
https://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/ten-facts-about-women-arab-world
I don’t think Arab society is more progressive, so it makes me wonder what the reason is behind higher enrollment numbers for Arab women in STEM that you cited, It could be there’s some “affirmative action” going on, but I think the most likely explanation is gender-segregated colleges, resulting in colleges with very high (even 100%) female enrollment in STEM.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ852310.pdf
I’m no expert on foreign cultures though and I’m open to hearing other explanations. If things are actually better for Arab females, then we can and should learn from it here, but honestly I’m very skeptical of the notion that Arab women face less sexism.
That’s an open question. We need to fix discriminatory environments, but even so I still think there would be more males.
I don’t follow you here I’m afraid. Could you elaborate please?
I’m certainly not claiming there’s less sexism in Saudi Arabia than in the UK or US (as you correctly point out this is made clear in the rest of the paper). However I’ve often heard it claimed (and this relates to the James Damore memo mentioned in other comments) that the reason there are so few women enrolling in computer science at university is because women simply don’t like computer science; that there’s something intrinsic that makes men prefer (or be better at) computer science than women.
The stats for Saudi Arabia show this needn’t be the case. There’s a culture in the UK that makes men more likely to do computing degrees. There’s a culture in Saudi Arabia that makes women more likely to do computing degrees.
(People I know who completed computing degrees in Saudi Arabia have told me that computing simply isn’t seen as a “male” subject there. No doubt this is over-simplistic and is only anecdotal of course).
My conclusion is that there’s nothing intrinsic about it. Change the culture, change the ratio of women to men. As someone who’s passionate about computing, I’d much rather live in a world where there were equal numbers of women and men pursuing the subject.
I’m curious about this too. Why do you think that?
flypig,
“Accounting for population size, female enrollment in STEM would be 47.6%, just slightly less than males.”
No problem. I’ll use an exaggerated example to make it clear. Assume there was a school with 900 females and 100 males. Now assume 80% of males went into STEM, whereas only 20% of females go into STEM. At this school, the result would be 180 females and 80 males in STEM. The split would be 69% females to 31% males, or about twice the number of females to males. This naively suggests that females are significantly more likely to choose STEM than their male counterparts, however when we compensate for their relative population sizes, we find out that it is in fact the males who are more likely to go in STEM.
So using actual figures from your link, the STEM ratio for Arab females is 59% and the ratio for females at college is 62%. Accounting for the population difference, the female ratio in STEM if males and females were equally represented is 46.9%. This isn’t the exact number I came up with before, so I either made a mistake or was using different numbers. you can double check my math:
1/(1+(1/STEM_RATIO-1)*FEMALE_POPULATION_RATIO/(1-FEMALE_POPULATION_RATIO))
1/(1+(1/.59-1)*.62/(1-.62)) = 0.46864 = 46.9%
And for my fictitious example with 900 females and 100 males at the school with 69% females in STEM classes, the female STEM ratio if the populations were even would become 20%, which we know to be true given the numbers in that example.
1/(1+(1/0.69230-1)*.9/(1-.9)) = 0.19999 = 20%
Sorry for the verbosity, hopefully it makes more sense now.
I get what you are saying and I think you make perfectly valid points, although I still think there are elements of truth to both sides.
Well, my own theory is that CS disproportionately attracts people with high functioning autism, which is a condition that afflicts males much more than females, and that could explain some some of the enrollment discrepancies.
@Alfman
I’m sitting this disucssion out mostly because it requires too much thinking through topics I’ve discussed a dozen times over while banging my head against the wall.
Autism figures are bogus because autism diagnostics were based on sexist attitudes at the inception and later studies which formed the basis for most mdoern diagnostics were studies on almost exclusively make participants in part because the modelling was “simpler”.
Women tend to equivocate more than men and own group biases and a larger focus on social interaction plays a role so outwards signs of autism type symptoms are disguised.
A large part of the overall rise of autism may be due to reductions in stigma or more openess to diagnose or greater access to healthcare. There can also be developmental and social factors driving mental health issues. So the question of whether autism is going up or down or whether there is over or under representation in various fields is not wholly clear.
HollyB,
Understood. Your insight is appreciated nevertheless!
The published material I’ve read suggests that autism is 3-4 times more prevalent in males.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/
If you are aware of any studies showing that it’s higher than this in females then I’d certainly take a look.
I believe it could be underrepresented, especially for those with mild conditions who don’t get diagnosed and/or are overlooked using arbitrary thresholds.
@Alfman
I read a hug volume of material and don’t keep links for references too far off my areas of interest. I think I have a few kicking about in my files because they illustrate flaws with medical practice and perception and cognition issues relating to discrimination and dated practices.
The picture is unclear and things are being reviewed but we will have to wait on new studies.
I don’t know enough about autism to know how much is down to developmental or environmental factors but as a sidebar there are a disproportionate number of black men with schizophrenia. This is thought to be brought on by discrimination and the psychological and social tensions they live with. More generally There’s also suggestions other mental health issues may be brought on or amplified by poverty. At the same time many people in a situation like that may go undiagnosed and therefore not counted in official figures which makes funding and political attention miss them so the problem persists.
HollyB,
Yea, poverty opens up a whole new can of worms. Not only does poverty limit access to better education/child care/medical care/work opportunities/etc. living in a poor neighborhoods in the US can even elevate one’s exposure to toxins like asbestos in schools and lead in the water.
https://www.asbestos.com/asbestos/schools/
https://news.umich.edu/missing-lead-in-flint-water-pipes-confirms-cause-of-crisis/
Looking up the stats on autism and poverty… US data suggests that autism is is inversely proportional to poverty, but this is not reflected in European countries:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171011180552.htm
Our inability to provide universal health care in the US seems to be interfering with our ability to collect reliable data cross the entire population.
HollyB,
If you don’t mind my asking, how did you become interested in CS? Did you know when you were young or did you fall into it older? What was it that appealed to you?
I have a daughter and I’m not sure if I should be pushing her more towards technology or if it needs to be her own initiative. She’d rather just text her friends all day, which is probably normal but I know that when I was her age I was extremely interested in computers, I would get ahold of all the computer books that I could and read them cover to cover (it seems so antiquated now, but I really enjoyed it). Alas, none of the women I know are in tech, but it’s something I’m curious about.
Thanks for taking the time and courtesy to reply thoughtfully, and for the other interesting points you and others have been making in this thread.
@Alfman:
What you are describing is the Simpson’s paradox.
smashIt,
Thanks for pointing that out. We did some statistics in discrete math courses but Simpson’s paradox doesn’t ring a bell for me.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-simpson/
I usually work out the math when I need to though, haha.
@Alfman
I became interested in computing for a range of reasons some largely voluntary and some largely not. There’s a mix of factors which get into personal opportunities and circumstances I will skip for privacy. The main ones would be an intellectual outlet and fulfill natural curiosity which is something school did not provide. I also liked the practical aspects and opportunity for art.
Underperforming and having my head in the clouds was a factor growing up. I was curious about things and read everything about everything, and would also rather be playing with friends than school which taught to a rote learned average.
I cannot supply answers but if you get the basics right, provide a lead and surround yourself with opportunity like a shelf of books and craftwork and museums and changing car types and a mix of solitary and shared activity she may find what works for her. It’s a delicate subject but rationing television and sweets and mobile phones can help set boundaries and force free time for other things. I know a few women who put up with work and view their personal time as time for their own mental health and activities and socialising. What you see as activity to her may be critical so the main thing would be finding common ground and understanding the difference between action and relationship and how they work together both individually and as a group. It’s also ever about one big thing but lots of continuous small things. Less goals, more emotional buy-in. Girls and boys can be as lazy and stupid as each other and play up or play the victim and this doesn’t change as people get older.
As for computing you can use it to do things or change peoples lives. There may be a narrative in there you can explore to understand how she prioritises and perceives things, and you can build from there.
She could join military engineers or p[erhaps even aspire to special forces. Even the SAS are open to women now although none have passed selection to date. Perhaps be a chemist? All those unsung heroes in the back office have saved billions. A PhD opens doors for women. One is currently on Independent SAGE (the none governmental advisory committee on Covid). Perhaps physics? Some of the leading Youtubers on cosmology are women. I’m beginning to sound like my mum now but she has opportunity which didn’t exist for the generation before she was born. Hairdressing? Chefing? They are all recognised now as high art. Maybe she would like to make a movie about herself and her friends? Makeup and cinematography and writing and props use lots of artististry and people management skills.
HollyB,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think I’d like to find some kind of kid friendly project to work on with them. Servos are always fun, haha. Maybe come up with a “problem” and have them try to solve it using technology.
Nothing to do with affirmative action but everything to do with an escape from poverty.
Yes it’s cultural, but once you reach the workplace or even higher education it’s simply too late, you are trying to treat the symptom.
You need to look at upbringing, the parents, the early schooling, the peers in school. If you are brought up in an environment where technical fields are considered geeky in a negative way by your peers, parents and teachers then you are likely to avoid these subjects. By the time you reach higher education you will know nothing about these subjects nor have any interest in them, so given the choice you’re almost always going to choose to study a different subject.
If you grow up in an environment where your parents and teachers encourage you to learn about “girlie subjects” and you get mocked or bullied by your peers if you show any interest in “geeky boys subjects” then of course the vast majority are going to be steered by the peer pressure.
The same applies to other subjects, there are also subjects which male kids learn to perceive in a negative way too.
If you want women to take up these fields you have to ensure they are raised in an environment where these fields are not presented negatively, and any interest shown in the subjects is nurtured not shot down.
It’s not only the Blizzard management and C-level employees who are toxic towards women at the company. I remember back when I played WoW in the mid 2000s, the women working as CMs on the forums faced constant harassment and ridicule from the toxic, immature, male dominated player base. It’s one of the things that drove me away from the game back then, and when I play now it’s on a private server in part so Blizzard doesn’t see any money from me. Unfortunately the toxicity extends even to the private servers; I’ve hopped servers twice in the past several years because the general player base was full of racism and sexism, and the mods either wouldn’t do anything about it or were actually a part of it. Ditto for newer MMOs like Rust and CS:GO, the emotionally stunted “men” in those games ruined any enjoyment playing them would offer.
We won’t fix the bias against women and people of color plaguing gaming companies until we address the same (but amplified) bias present in the racist, incel-dominated “gamer community” from where said companies draw their leadership.
When I did computer studies there were a total of three other women at college while I was there. I understand the numbers have improved hugely since then. People forget only a generation or two before the only jobs for woemen were generally secretary or nurse or teacher and the like unless you were from a rich family then you may become a doctor or chemist or academic. At the same time lots of men were condemned to working down mines or similar gruelling jobs. This is partly why discussing sexism is so difficult and more so with a none professional none expert general audience if they have attitude problems.
I don’t personally recognise the type or extreme of cultures you mention but this is mostly an American thing from what I can tell. I wouldn’t confuse serious game developers with a gamign community which seems to have been hijacked by the worst of the worst especially since social media took off.
I know my games development and games well enough. I don’t play games now mostly because I don’t have friends who play games or have enough of an educated or artistic big picture view to make sharing the experience worthwhile. I did play Eve for a month the other year. The gameplay is tilted towards griefers and some of the content is overtly sexist. One too many with an attitude were on the chatrooms so I quit. I’ve played Rust mostly because I like the scenery and exploring and building theings. I’m just no good with twitch gameplay. I find Rust too toxic and the “bro” culture get too much so I stopped playing. There’s also too much to keep up with as they added new features and so many on there know the gameplay inside out and can go from the beach to fully loaded before I’ve got my first hut built. I like more thoughtful games and games where there’s an experience you can share in a meaningful way but those games don’t seem to exist anymore.
HollyB,
I enjoy Kerbal Space Program, I bought for my kids to play. The concept is awesome, and it’s the type of game I wish I could recommend. Rocket science is totally awesome! Unfortunately the implementation is pretty bad. For a commercial game that’s been receiving updates and support a decade it remains extremely buggy. slow, memory leaks galore (even though it’s written in .net), the simulations are highly unstable, save games are unreliable, etc. These problems are notorious and KSP even has game lore for the bugs “the kraken”.
KSP2 is supposed to come out next year, I hope they ditched the engine from the first game and started over with a more robust design.
/off topic
Well to be more precise I’m not calling out the individual developers necessarily, rather their managers and executives, who as the article indicated have a clear hatred and/or fear of women and PoC and actively fostered and promoted the harassment. And while the gaming community hasn’t always been as toxic as it is now, I disagree that the toxicity started with modern social media. It was around before Facebook, hell before Myspace. I remember back in the late 90s-early 2000s when there was a ton of racist, anti-LGBT, anti-female rhetoric going around the gaming forums. Yes, it has escalated with the combination of multiplayer gaming, modern social media, and game streaming, but the undercurrent was always there.
@Morgan
I never noticed it myself but then I stayed away from most hell holes. I have to think back and remember there were a few jerks around but sexism and other issues weren’t much of a discussion topic or I wasn’t hugely interested in these discussions if they did occur so I wouldn’t have noticed. If I did notice, again on reflection, I didn’t click what was going on.
I think social media provided a platform and amplified things with a few politicians and mostly right wing media throwing petrol on the flames.
The article was pretty tough reading. I’ve read of individuals or one off behaviours or situations but never so much all in one place all at the same time. It’s on par with some care home scandals I’ve read about it’s that bad.
I’d much rather have the incels vent their angst in video games than go shoot up a school or something. Those games might be the only thing they have. You don’t want to have social outcast young men.
“Women need to experience abuse in public spaces so men don’t commit mass murder” is an interesting take to have…
That’s not at all what I said. You are either misunderstanding on purpose or trolling.
Topic about female discrimination. And some guys mansplaining it without a hint of irony….
javiercero1,
I think everyone’s aware that there’s a lack of females in tech, even here on osnews, I’d like for that to change, but what do you suggest? Seriously if it’s something we’re doing wrong then we should talk about it. Clearly we need to be welcoming online, at work, at school, etc. We need to speak out against sexual harassment whenever it happens around us, but it’s still unclear that discrimination is the main cause of low female representation in tech fields.
Also, “manspaning” is a sexist term, even though it’s sexist in the other direction. It’s implicitly meant to be dismissive of opinions spoken by men on the basis of their sex rather than considering the merit of what they’re saying. Personally I don’t think “mansplaining” or “womansplaining” is productive language in any context.
Your lack of self awareness was amusing long ago. Now, frankly, it seems pathological.
Have you considered the strong possibility to just STFU about topics you know nothing about?
javiercero1,
Give me a break javiercero1, it’s one ad hominem attack after another with you. I don’t know if you notice but I always try to speak to you and others as peers. If you have actual suggestions for how to improve things, then great let’s hear them! But damn man just being rude and condescending is toxic for everyone. Take a breather and let it go.
We’re not peers. That’s your lack of self awareness.
What it is toxic is a bunch of dudes qualifying and thinking they have the solutions for a veru serious issue affecting women.
So yeah, it is time for us men to STFU about this matter, and listen to what women have to say.
javiercero1,
We’re all peers here, every one of us.
I for one don’t pretend to have the solutions. I’m more than willing to listen from females and males alike (the males in tech need to be part of this discussion too). If you have something to contribute, then go! But if all you’ve got is “STFU”, this kind of aggressive language detracts from the subject and makes it next to impossible to hold a civil discussion.
We’re random anonymous posters. We’re not even remotely close to being peers.
I personally see some of the stuff you’ve written in this thread to be far more aggressive. STFU is a more direct way to get to the point,
Men, in this thread, we need to STFU.
@javiercero1:
And yet you continue to speak. It couldn’t be more obvious that you’re trolling.
@ Morgan
Trolling? Why, because I keep restating the obvious?
Some of y’all aren’t letting your fragile masculinity get the basic hint.
javiercero1,
When you are anonymous you leave credentials at the door. It doesn’t matter if you’re you’re an industry veteran or just setting foot in the door, we all get to talk to each other as peers.
Whatever. I just ask that the ad hominem attacks stop.
Nah, You’re not even remotely close to be my peer. Anonymity still doesn’t make your ignorance in a specific matter just as good as another person’s knowledge on it.
We all want things, I’d like uninformed nonsense to stop. Alas, here we are once again; this time a bunch of dudes qualifying female discrimination, without a hint of irony.
javiercero1,
Give it a rest javiercero1, you’re no better than me or anyone else here.
Except that you’re making it up. No one is “qualifying female discrimination” right now. I’ll have you know that one can be both for prosecution of crimes AND due process for those alleged crimes. Arguing for due process does NOT mean one supports the crime as you seem to be suggesting. This would be a very simplistic misrepresentation of due process.
1. Ad hominem attacks against the commenters here in general, and Alfman specifically.
2. Insisting on your own moral and intellectual superiority over the rest of us.
3. Repeating the same bad-faith argument and ignoring any attempt to steer the discussion back to the actual topic.
4. Ignoring the fact that there are actual, valid conversations about the article topic going on up above, and rather than engage in those conversations, you continue with your one man flame war.
5. Telling us all that we are not allowed to speak because we don’t meet your impossible standards.
6. Claiming that you want “us” (all men including yourself) to stop talking yet you won’t shut up, i.e. “Rules for thee, not for me”
All of these are classic troll tactics going back to the age of Usenet. Now I’m going to do what you claim to want me to but secretly hope I don’t: I’m going to stop talking to you and ignore you from now on.
Morgan,
You hit the nail on the head.
Admittedly, one of my weaknesses is feeding the trolls, haha. I guess I need to learn to ignore the trolling even though it’s difficult to ignore the lies and ad hominem attacks. I can give it a try though. It’s just disappointing when you try to be nice/fair/reasonable with everyone and yet you still get attacked for god knows why. I think javiercero1 feels insulted that his opinions don’t carry as much weight as he’d like and that’s why he resorts to ad hominem attacks. I’d rather keep the debates on point, since personal attacks always go off the rails, but I don’t know what I can do to convince him to stop it with the personal attacks short of coddling his opinions. :-/