A fitting announcement for International Women’s Day. In an effort to counter the 20% pay gap between men and women’s salaries, Sound Librarian will be making a permanent change to their pricing structure, by allowing women wishing to enroll for any course or access training materials for a 20% discount on advertised prices.
Speaking from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Stephan Schutze of Sound Librarian has said, “to counter the pay gap disparity, this will apply to regular pricing AND to any sale pricing of our products. [It] is a small attempt to address an imbalance and support women in games.”
Those wishing to take advantage of the policy will have to confirm their identity and applications will be processed manually. For further information, contact Stephan Schutze at Sound Librarian.
This sounds like it’s well intentioned but shouldn’t we be focusing on actual equality and not giving out discounts to try and make up for it? No offense but this seems somewhat sexist and akin to “ladies night” in a professional setting.
People ARE focused on that idea, and looking for ways they can help affect change. Helping to level the playing field when it comes to costs associated with training is definitely one way that can be done. Lowering the barrier of entry for people who have a disadvantage aids diversification of the field. A diversified labor pool can help foster equality much more than a monochromatic one can.
I don’t agree here, Shaun.
I think that every person should always think about what he or she is doing and saying. Just saying random words out loud – it is a very bad habit of modern society.
For me, this offer looks like a bad and sexist marketing offer. I agree with previous commentator.
Maybe this idea indeed was planned like an attempt to help somehow. But again, at first you have to think what you are doing.
Don’t get me wrong. I personally agree that there is a problem with equality in our industry. But if we will be trying to solve it with thoughtless actions then we can only hurt.
For example, instead of writing a post with a couple of sentences, why not trying something more worthwhile? For example, there are a lot of good projects with integrated Fmod engines. And I bet that some of them had female composers or sound designers. If you really care and have some resources why not trying to contact one of them, make an interview, post it and make a great example for everybody? I mean really help?
I am not teaching anybody here but just want to give an example of my opinion.
And thank you and all DS team for bringing this important topic.
While I appreciate the effort – I would much rather see this discount offered to people that need financial assistance, if we are truly concerned with diversity in professional audio fields – then we need to include all marginalized groups and make sure that it is a level playing field from the start.
I appreciate that it’s well intended, but… ugh. If they’d said that they’re putting on a discount to get women interested in the industry, or even just in honour of International Women’s Day, I’d be saying “yeah, you rock Sound Librarian!”, but here they’re (probably unintentionally) implying the wage gap exists because women aren’t as well educated, and if they took a few courses it’d “counter the pay gap disparity”. It won’t. That’s the point. The wage gap exists DESPITE women being as equally qualified and experienced as men.
It’s a nice initiative by Sound Librarian, just badly worded.
Pay wage gap is a myth. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html
I find the idea that women must be coddled and gently shoved into any predominantly male field is sexist. No one is stopping women from entering any of these fields. It just so happens that women are generally not interested in STEM fields. If a woman or minority is interested in STEM fields there are many free education websites and paid college scholarships on offer.
Yes, people may face adversity upon entering these fields, but as in any field, newcomers are typically given crap by the gatekeepers and vets to weed out people who can’t cut it. From sports, to the military, to game development teams, thats how its done. If someone can’t hack it because they feel that its unfair, they perhaps weren’t that dedicated in the first place.
Stop treating women like little porcelain girls. We don’t need to hold their hands or cradle them. If they are indeed interested in STEM there are avenues they can pursue and with hard work and perseverance they can succeed.