Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, All the Best. I'd like to start today's episode by asking you to imagine a person who plays video games.

If the person you're imagining in your mind is anything like the popular representation of gamers, they're probably young, a teenager maybe, pale, geeky, maybe hiding in a basement.

And of course, you probably imagined them male. Yet, this lingering stereotype is quickly becoming outdated as gaming today is far from

niche or nerdy with over 3 billion gamers worldwide and a rapidly closing gender gap. As of just last year, 46% of video game players

worldwide were women, and that percentage is only increasing. In fact, if we look at mobile and

tablet gaming, the majority of players are already women. And yet, despite these shifting demographics, video games continue to be

largely made by men for men. According to Women in Games, a nonprofit dedicated to women

in gaming and e-sports, among the top 15 games companies, their executive teams are, on average average 84% male. Again, in this industry

where nearly 50% of players are women, women occupy only 16% of executive roles. And if this weren't

enough, research also indicates that female characters are overly sexualized and often shunted into secondary roles within the games themselves.

And these sexist tendencies unfortunately reflect in the gaming communities as well, with the 2023 study finding that nearly 75% of women report harassment when playing games online.

And tragically, 59 percent say that

they hide their gender altogether while playing games for fear of how they'll be treated.

As this industry and pastime continues to grow and grow affecting more than a billion girls

and women across the globe, it's clear that this form of play can have serious influence on

our culture. And that is why I'm so excited to be discussing video games today with narrative

director and gaming professional Ashley Ruhl. Welcome, Ashley. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Ashley Ruhl is a narrative director, narrative designer, cinematic designer, and writer exclusively in games.

Over the past 13 years, she has focused on a multi-prong approach of character-driven narratives, eye-catching cinematics, and intuitive game design.

She was the first woman at TellTale to hold the titles of episodic director and assistant episodic

director, created for episode three and episode one of Tales from the Borderlands, respectively,

and was selected for Forbes' 30 under 30 list in video games in 2016. Rule focuses on cinematic

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