It may come as a shock to some, but men and women are different.

There is a genetic element to this - a lot of the notable differences come about as a result of hormones throughout their lives (such as testosterone, oestrogen, progesterone), in the womb (where brain development can be affected), throughout their lives, puberty etc. You can get 'in between sexes' where the the chromosomes are XX or XY but the hormones for one reason or another are not in their normal ratios, for instance due to drugs the pregnant mother is exposed to.

There is also an environmental element to this - male and female children tend to be brought up differently.

The relative importance of the genetic and environmental effects in determining the phenotype (how the individual appears, behaves etc) is a topic of much debate.

The end result though, is that men and women, boys and girls, as well as looking different, also behave differently, tend (on average) to have different interests, and find some things more important than others. There are some scientifically well established differences in abilities / interests between the sexes (statistically on average .. there is overlap between the groups in different areas in various individuals).

To then ignore all this, and insinuate that the reason for more males / females in a particular career / interest must be due to 'employer bias' or equivalent, is perhaps a little shortsighted.

[quote name='ApochPiQ' timestamp='1354843466' post='5007954']What's more interesting is, what's being done to address the problem?

But, is this a problem?

If there were equal numbers of women to men that wanted to work in the field and had equal ability, then I agree, there would be an argument that discrimination was a problem. But are there equal numbers of both sexes that want to work in this field, and are the abilities equal? How can you be sure that the reason for lack of women is not primarily that they are (on average) 'not interested' in the particular jobs?
[/quote]

Social differences, like how children are raised may explain an observation such as the gender composition of the field, but hardly excuses it. Social pressures used to state that women were unfit for nearly all jobs, and as a result there was "less interest" because why think about a job that you can't have anyways? Such social pressures are even worse than employer bias, being more pervasive and implicitly extending that bias to employers anyhow.

If you want to suggest genetic differences, you'll have some heavy lifting to do. Not because genetic differences aren't real, but rather because that same argument has been tortured into legitimizing various forms of discrimination for centuries. If the argument is that there is a group which is inherently worse at or inherently uninterested in some activity, I want to see which genes and processes you think are responsible. Otherwise you're only trying to justify the observation you're describing rather than explaining it.

Statistically we should expect there to be a roughly equal distribution of genders in any given industry. Where that is not the case, there must be some explanation. If that explanation is anything other than specific genetic explanations, well studied and documented I wouldn't be so blase about asserting that there isn't a problem.

being groped at conferences/descriminated against at work is a totally separate issue to having primarily male protagonists in games. The former is imo much more serious.

I'd argue that in the long run, the latter is far more serious.

When you go to the doctor, would you rather he just treat the visible symptoms, or the underlying disease?

The argument that, "This guy grabbed my ass at a conference because we don't make more games for a small portion of our market,"

You are still dealing with symptoms, not underlying causes. Need to go deeper...

As you say, it is very unlikely that guys mistreat women because we don't make enough video games for women. But why aren't women a major demographic for video games?

caused by a broad near unfixable problem.

I don't get why you think the problem is unfixable.

Science fiction was a thoroughly male-dominated genre in the pre-war era, catering almost purely to male tastes, and published in male-oriented publications (for example, Playboy). But in the 60's and 70's that was all turned on its head, and a rising wave of female authors and readers transformed the genre, to the point that it's become quite rare to see modern science fiction that does not at least pay lip service to the genre's feminist influences.

Comic books have been undergoing a similar, if more gradual transition, over the the last few decades. Why should video games not follow suit, at some point in the future?