An increasing amount of women are breaking into the games industry, but there are still obstacles that must be addressed. And the fact is, women entering the industry can clear many of those hurdles by being more self-promotional.

Simply put, women are not typically as forward as their male counterparts. Men have a tendency to be more willing to self-promote, while women or girls don’t feel as comfortable self-promoting. And it’s not just young up-and-comers that sell themselves short. Even much more established, professional women have that same problem.

When competing for that job, you must be able to assertively, or at least very clearly state your value proposition. If you can’t do that, you’re going to have a hard time establishing why you deserve that job, promotion or raise. Don’t be afraid to position your accomplishments. Through social conditioning that has nothing to do with our industry, but simply our society, women are less inclined to be assertive in such situations because they’re afraid of being judged or told "no." Meanwhile, there are men who quite easily put themselves out there and say, “Here’s what I’ve done, here’s what I can do and here’s why it’s valuable to you.”

You may say that women’s “problem” with self-promotion is because they’re intimidated by a male-dominated workplace. But if we’re being completely honest here, I never put the blame on men. If it is a male-dominated environment, then understand that the majority of the communication that’s happening is happening in their style, and in the way they have always done things. You’re either going to sink or swim, depending on how you adapt to that. Don’t think that going in and thumping the feminist book is going to help you because it won’t. You have to approach this knowing it is not about feminism or sexism, rather it’s about business success. Think about what you have to do to compete and be viable in this job market. Think about the manner in which you communicate with the people who are hiring you and the people that you are going to work with. Demonstrate that you’re equal to them and that you can do what they do.

If you want to be truly successful as a woman in the industry, it may also mean modifying your behaviors such as speech patterns, or other traits that are looked upon as being more feminine. Let’s be clear: this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be feminine. But you need to understand who your audience is and you must know how to communicate. If I go into a boardroom with 50 men and choose not to speak in a way that’s very professional and direct, they’re not going to take me seriously.

However, you may want to be a rebel and say “I want to stick out,” and “I don’t want to have to modify myself” and “I don’t want to have to do things differently than I always have done.” You can still do that. But you’re possibly making a commitment to a very limited career. You need to be able to walk into a company and know how to talk to them, drop the attitude and try to show that you are a team player that knows how to get the job done. My experience has been that once men see you as reliable, someone who delivers on what they say you can do, your gender is totally irrelevant.