@Thanatos2k: "Then your opinion is weak, unsubstantiated, and is to be ignored by intelligent individuals, especially since it advocates illegal activities."

Then so is yours. In any case, the justification that you requested is that this sort of policy helps make up for past injustice. While I do not think it is ideal, the ideal is not possible (changing the best), so this seems like a reasonable compromise. As long as women are underrepresented in industries, it seems fair to give them preference in a tie, because the under-representation is likely due to the years of past discrimination against them.

There, you have my justification. Do I get yours now?

"That was not a hiring decision. That was a decision for a promotion. You do know there's a really big difference, right? Also that employer was explicitly not an equal opportunity employer, as most are.

So again, take your illegal discrimination right on out of here."

I have seen no evidence that that case solely applies to promoting, and not hiring. Can you provide a case which proves it is illegal? In they case I provided, they say:

"As construed in Weber and in Firefighters, the statute does not absolutely prohibit preferential hiring in favor of minorities; it was merely intended to protect historically disadvantaged groups against discrimination and not to hamper managerial efforts to benefit members of disadvantaged groups that are consistent with that paramount purpose. The preference granted by respondent in this case does not violate the statute as so construed; the record amply supports the conclusion that the challenged employment decision served the legitimate purpose of creating diversity in a category of employment that had been almost an exclusive province of males in the past. Respondent's voluntary decision is surely not prohibited by Title VII as construed in Weber."

This says that having a small preference for minorities specifically balance out a lack of diversity is not illegal. Do you have any cases to the contrary?

EDIT: Also, maybe you didn't look very closely, but in this case a promotion was very similar to hiring. They weren't simply increasing the title of someone who had been there for a certain amount of time; they had a specific opening for which they were looking for candidates. In cases like that, it is the same process as hiring, and may even include people looking for promotions as well as outside candidates looking for jobs. Also, when I said "then so is yours", there is the caveat that your viewpoint isn't illegal; sorry if there was confusion. Of course, mine isn't either, but I want to make it clear that I wasn't suggesting that yours is.

@HalcyonScarlet: I'll give that a shot, if I bother trying it again.

@HalcyonScarlet: I upgraded to Windows 10 and couldn't control the sound on my laptop, so I downgraded to Windows 7 again. It asked me to upgrade to Windows 10 again, I clicked the "later" button, and it downloaded Windows 10 anyway. Since then, my quick launch files on Notepad haven't shown up, which is annoying. I'll try it again at some point, but I have plenty of reason to pass on it, as it has so far proven itself inferior to Windows 7 for my basic needs.

@maneljoao: 1) My point was that Gallagher was not implying there was overt sexism. What, exactly, he thinks are the primary causes is unknown, but it could be something like what I said. I made no claim as to what they necessarily are, or if what he believes is accurate, I just gave a possible example of something that he might consider a problem that is not overt sexism.

2) I'm not sure "has female characters" is really contrary to what I said anyway. That is not specific enough to say they are equally represented, and says nothing about how they are represented. Furthermore, if it is the case that recent games represent women fairly in terms of both quality and quantity, it is also true that women have been getting into the industry more. If what you're saying is true, then there is a correlation between women being represented in games and women working in the game industry. Of course, correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but it is possible that this is evidence that the representation of women in games is a root cause of the lack of women in the industry.

Thus, if your comment was an attempt to counter my point, then you have both failed to understand what I said as well as failed to counter what you think I said. I did not claim that games are still sexist, I only claimed that he did not imply overt sexism. Your point also substantiates his claim that the low number of women in the industry is related to implicit sexism in the industry.

@swantn5: "well i dont think its a male "dominated" industry"

It definitely is, that's what 78% to 22% means.

@Thanatos2k: "Except this is something that is actually provable with study. Unlike a flying spaghetti monster. This is not religion and this is not "faith." This is sociology."

Great, then show me the studies that prove it.

@Thanatos2k: "Sorry, that's not an answer. YOU are the one that posited a minority person should be chosen, YOU have to back up that assertion with an actual reason that is not "because!""

No I don't. They have the authority to make hiring decisions, and can do it however they want. You have to convince them to change (well, convince me that they should change, technically). At the end of the day, you can scream "abhorrent logic" all you want, but without anything to back that up they aren't going to change. You can't change someone's behavior by saying, "there's no more reason to do that than to do it my way".

"Discrimination for job employment is illegal, especially on the basis of gender. You do know that?"

Unfortunately, you have mistakenly over-simplified the issue. The Supreme Court has upheld discrimination in just the sort of case we're talking about. As long as the discrimination doesn't automatically reject/accept on the basis of sex, but only helps choose when two candidates are equal, it is legal. See Johnson v. Transportation Agency, for example.

@Ishiban: "The implication is that the male to female ratio in the industry is the direct result of overt sexism"

Actually, there is no such implication. The implication is that there are some social issues keeping women away, such as the fact that women are poorly- and under-represented in games, not necessarily overt sexism.

@Thanatos2k: "What kind of abhorrent logic is that? What about the person in the "majority"? What justification do they have for being screwed?"

I asked "why not?", which you did not answer, so I maintain that there is no reason not to pick the minority person in the event of a tie.

"You do realize that you're advocating sexism?"

I do realize that it is discrimination (not sexism). I also realize that the reverse discrimination has gone on far longer and been significantly more discriminatory. In this case, we are talking about a tie between two equally qualified people, and discrimination in favor of women can help make up for past, stronger discrimination against women. If a man wants to earn a job, then he should be better, instead of whining about losing a tie.