March 24th marks Ada Lovelace Day, a day on which bloggers are encouraged to highlight the achievements of women in science and technology. (If you’re not familiar with the name of Ada Lovelace, check out the Wikipedia entry, or this cute short movie.)
Augusta “Ada” King Lovelace was born in 1815, the daughter of the English poet Lord Byron, and worked with Charles Babbage documenting and analyzing his Analytical Engine. She had an impressive understanding of mathematics, causing Babbage to refer to her as “the enchantress of numbers”, and is considered by many to be the first computer programmer ever. She even predicted that computers might one day compose music and graphics – making her a real visionary, probably the first person to see the potential of computers beyond pure mathematical calculations. In 1852, she died very young of cancer at the age of 37. It’s sad to imagine what more she might have accomplished had she lived to a full old age, and how it might even have affected the path of other women in technology who would follow her.
Speaking of women in technology, I attended GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) in San Francisco last week for the first time. While there, I attended as many events as I could that were related to women in gaming. While the men still greatly outnumbered the women at GDC, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women I did see. Possibly the most striking example was in a Women In Gaming round table discussion hosted by the IGDA (International Game Developers Association). Concerned women (and men) from the game industry gathered in a conference room to discuss why there are fewer women playing and designing games, and how best to change this. This year, several of the attendees who had attended similar panels at GDCs in the past commented on how the numbers of panel attendees has increased; in fact, this year the group barely managed to fit in the room we had been assigned. While I had obviously been expecting to see a reasonable number of women attending this discussion, I was very pleasantly surprised to see just how many enthusiastic women were keen to get involved. As one of the organizers said at the end of the meeting, “next year we’re not even going to fit in this room.” And that’s the best possible problem to have!
Sometimes it can be discouraging to look at the straight numbers of women in game design compared to women in the general population, and there’s still a way to go. Talking with industry veterans helps me realize that even though the numbers are still low, we have made huge improvements in the past few years and that’s really something to be excited about. Change doesn’t (and can’t) happen instantly, but it is happening. Let’s be sure we keep it moving!
- Emily “Domino” Taylor
