There’s an interesting MSNBC article about the low numbers of women in gaming. It begins thusly:

Last month’s E3 did little to dissuade the stereotype that the only women working in video gaming do so in camouflage bikinis.

“We were looking at these posters of women in outfits,” Chu recalled. “And one turned to me and said, ‘This is why women aren’t in games.'”

And here I thought the main reason many women don’t play games is because they’re just not interested in gaming.

I doubt I could get my 68-year-old father interested in playing PC or console games but that’s hardly a reason for hand-wringing and industry-wide soul-searching about why few senior citizens play games.

Slashdot reader TheLink made an astute point about the so-called gender divide issue:

How about getting more men as kindergarten teachers or nurses?

Most aren’t interested? Wow what a concept eh?

Hey it’s not like men wouldn’t be useful in those fields. It’s probably easier for male nurses to develop upper body strength – which helps when you need to move/shift bedridden incapacitated patients – to avoid bedsores, etc.

So where’s the push to even out the gender imbalances in those areas?

Right. This isn’t about gender imbalance and this isn’t about providing oppressed women gamers with more choices. This is simply about inflating and exploiting a market for more, more, more filthy lucre and the article should have highlighted that more.

Personally, I’m left wondering why developers aren’t creating games that I like. (Help! Help! I’m being oppressed!) Where the hell are the X-COM-style strategy games with turn-based tactical combat?

(Link obtained from Slashdot.)