hello i’m phoenix perry environmental, embodied play spaces

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REBEL ROUSIN’ @phoenixperry

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HKU Sr. Lecturer & Researcher Core Programming Instructor in Games and Interaction Design In the process of starting a PhD in CS at Utrecht University !I have a Masters of the Sciences with a focus on HCI and games from NYU School of Engineering where I am also a researcher & adjunct professor. !I have an BA in Literature. I dropped out of CS because I felt really uncomfortable working in the labs alone at night. !But that’s ok because now I am both a professional artist & a programmer! (Conveniently for me, I never stopped coding!)

I program to make & create

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Why games?

$78.5 billion in 2012was spent on digital games

Women don’t like to play games. Myth:

52% of gamers are women. 5% of game developers are women

Women don’t like to program. Myth:

Women have a long history of innovating in the field of computer science

We invented programming: the mirco processor the compiler cobalt the OS natural language processing the spanning tree protocol COBOL and on and on and on….

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Credits… Programming (Ada Lovelace) The first widely used computer language (Jean E. Sammet) First generative programming system (Betty Holberton) Helped develop Basic (Sister Mary Keller) First computerized telephone switching system that used a computer to monitor incoming calls. We still use it today. (Erna Schneider Hoover) Natural language processing for search engines still used today by Google (Karen Sparck Jones) The microcomputer / AKA ARM - the small chips in everything (Sophie Wilson) Spanning Tree Protocol (without this? No internet) Radia Perlman – mother of the internet The term bug and the COBOL language – Grace Hooper The operating system (Mary Allen Wilkes) Anita Borg – Pioneering advocate for women in the field !Programming, The Mircorprocessor, The Compiler, Cobalt, the OS, Natural Language Processing, The Spanning Tree Protocol, COBOL and on and on and on

Problem? In the last 20 years women have been discouraged from the field.

Between now and 2020 this job sector is growing on average 22% a year (double the norm)

Why did this happen? To quote The Notorious B.I.G.

Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems

As long as computing was seen as secretarial & had little financial benefit, society was fine with letting women invent, run and innovate in the field.

Because it became associated with typing and secretarial duties, programming was even considered

women’s work

April, 1967 issue of Cosmopolitan, "The Computer Girls“

If it doesn't sound like woman's work -- well, it just is.... "

Women majoring in computer science in us universities fell 79% between 2000 and 2011

So, why are women not choosing CSThe personal computer and all of the advertising that went right along with it

It was an expensive item so it was targeted at the family bread winner. The advertising took sexism to a new level. It created the impression that

computers were not for women.

This advertising tactic worked. Men started buying computers. It ramped up to an extreme in console gaming in the 90’s. Gaming was depicted as something only little boys or men did. The ads are either male dominated or disturbingly misogynistic.

However women make up over half of all gamers.

Yet game and technology companies have

not retargeted their advertising.

This tactic contributes to creating a culture of misogyny in games and tech.

We do not have a STEM problem. We have an image problem

How do we fix it? UNDO THE DAMAGE

WE WOMAN UP

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In almost every ad in Cosmo, every ditzy blonde movie, every TV show like The Big Bang Theory, every game like GTA, every account of online bullying, every image, every ad, every product from our mainstream media

Women are being told to embrace ideals that drive them apart

Games hold the power to tell a new kind of story – one that can knit us together.

If you want to create healthy developer communities that include women, you have to start with the cultural battle for hearts and minds.

Because computing is not just for men or women !

IT IS FOR EVERYONE!!!!

Encourage kindness. Tell women to share their story. Mentor. Treat others how you’d like to be treated verse how you are treated. Trust. Be open. Answer emails from young women. Talk publicly. Volunteer. Just don’t wait for someone to fix it for you or give you money to fix it.

educate people that they should consider a diverse organisation a requirement.

Most importantly,

Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than do homogenous groups, and the presence of women in a group is more likely to increase the collective intelligence. National Center for Women in Information Technology

Companies with the highest representation of women in their management teams have a 34% higher return on investment than do those with few or no women. National Center for Women in Information Technology

If you’ve taken nothing else away from this talk take this one fact.

Computing is too powerful of an economic reality to exclude women, queers, the trans community and people of color.

We have the power to respond with

education & empowerment

PROGRAMMING IS A POLITICAL ACT

YOU ARE THE CHANGE

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HELP ME START IT HERE !

@phoenixperry @codeliberation contact@phoenixperry.com