Gender Asymmetries in the Digital Games Sector in Portugal

This study, presented at DiGRA 2020, examines gender asymmetries in Portugal's digital games sector and argues that women's underrepresentation is a structural issue deserving systematic attention. Its central finding is that female enrollment in tertiary digital games programs remains persistently low, at roughly 14 percent in both 2016/17 and 2017/18, even as the number of such degrees grew from a single program in 2009 to ten by 2017/18. This expansion was driven by Bologna-era reforms and demand for skilled labor in a growing national industry, which makes the stagnant gender ratio all the more notable.

The authors approach the question through a mixed-methods design combining three lenses: higher education enrollment data, a content analysis of seventeen Portuguese games released between 2014 and 2018, and focus group discussions with twenty students. The character analysis found that most lead characters are male and that female characters are frequently hypersexualized, although a few notable exceptions challenge these conventions. Focus group participants attributed women's lower participation to gendered sensitivities of interest and described feeling excluded or offended in male-dominated multiplayer environments, pointing to a broader gaming culture that discourages women's involvement.

The student perspectives also revealed contradictory attitudes toward gender stereotyping, with participants weighing character attractiveness against concerns about political correctness. Many regarded gender inequality in the sector as non-urgent and viewed gendered career choices as shaped early by social pressure.

The study's scope is national, centered on Portugal, and covers roughly 2009 through 2019. The authors position their exploratory work as an empirical and methodological contribution, noting that the 2016 national industry mapping did not collect data on employee gender, a gap that limits understanding of workforce composition.