MTV continues to impress this week with their week long series about women involved in the gaming industry. These aren't just little short blurb interviews, but very lengthy and in-depth. Kudos to MTV for this week's content. This time it's Game Girl Advances' Jane Pinckard talking about herself and several industry issues as well.

From the article:

Multiplayer: Throughout your work, do you think that being a woman has posed any challenges to you that you don’t think men would have faced?

Pinckard: Yeah, I have to say it’s challenges and opportunities, to be frank. Because — and I’ve written a little bit about this before — if you’re a woman in a male-dominated field, you’re naturally going to stand out. And that’s good and bad. It’s good, because people remember you, and you’re noticeable. And when you go to a conference of 3,000 people, and there’s only 50 women, you’re one of them. And they’re like “Oh, you’re the girl.” And it’s bad, because they say “Oh, you’re the girl,” and they tend to not know anything else about you except that you are the girl. And that can be challenging to overcome, because there’s this perception that if you are “the girl” then you must speak for all women. And so they’re going to ask you like, “Well, I want to design a game for women. So we’re asking you, one woman, what should we do?” [Laughs] And that’s ridiculous.

There’s also sometimes a perception that you got to where you are because you are a woman. And that can be a bit tough, too. And then there’s just the challenge of working in a male-dominated field, where you’re just working with a bunch of boys. And I’m sure you’ve maybe experienced this too, where there’s a huge gender imbalance in the workplace. And there are some serious things about sexual harassment and stuff like that that do happen. I personally have not experienced that, but there’s just moments where you’re like, “God, you guys are just a bunch of boys. Grow up!”

I think my favorite type of workplace is the gender-balanced workplace. I don’t know exactly, but I think there have been studies that show that those tend to be more productive and more progressive and all that good stuff. So I think one of either gender’s too much. And then there’s some more serious things too, like I’ve been called lots of names. When I write about controversial things on my blog I’ve been accused of setting feminism back ten years. I’m like “Wha?” [Laughs] Just things like that. I think that’s also just the nature of the Internet. The Internet is full of people who like to proclaim these kinds of things about other people without knowing you at all.

Read the full article over at MTV