Where are Female Blender users?

Someone on Blenderartist forums asked: “Where are all the female Blender users?”

This is a good question and a tricky one to answer because it is not as obvious as it might seem, or I would say it is being made more complicated than it should be.

Female Blender users Statistics

Andrew Price had a survey some time ago, where he talked about some general statistics about the ratio between male and female Blender users, I think it was like a %90 male and about % 10 female. This is accurate to a certain extent, I would say when it comes to the ratio of employment between men and women in the industries that use 3D software.

Some statistics show a rise in the number of women working in the video games industry, for example, in 2012, only 8.7% of game developers were identified as female, with that amount almost doubling to 15% in 2016.

I visited Artstation, which is a website that artists, especially 3D artists, use to show their portfolio and their artwork.

I searched for artists that use Blender and among the first one hundred in the search result, only 12 of them are female, which is another indicator that shows the lack of Female Blender users or female 3D artists in general.

The statistics on my YouTube channel are even worse, it seems like about only 6% of the people watching this 3D software-related content are female, and to be honest, I did not expect it to be like this because I checked a few months ago and it was about %10 or %11.

There are a lot of female artists in many different fields and it seems like there is a balance between the numbers of male and female artists as a whole, but I would say that they are not equally distributed in those fields and industries.
For instance, there are a lot of female artists in traditional art, like painting, drawing, even digital painting, and digital illustration, but when it comes to 3D specifically, there is an imbalance and a significant lack of female artists in industries such as animation, game development, and VFX.

This is, generally speaking, due to the fact that the fields that are based on 3D work tend to be as technical as they are artistic, and studies show that men are more attracted and show better performance in technical fields. For example, the STEM subjects, (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), in education institutions are still male-dominated, as well as the careers associated with them.

It is kind of similar in universities and schools that teach 3D, studies show that there is a balance but somehow girls don’t show interest in the long term and some of them drop off. Also, a lot of them don’t join the workforce for some reason that we will talk about later.

But as we said before females are more attracted to less technical and more artistic stuff that can be done on a 2D canvas, like painting and drawing.

Because, generally speaking, women have a better perception of lightings and colors and would be better at coloring, lighting, and compositing, while men would have better perception of perspective and would be better in modeling and animation in the virtual 3D world. In addition to the fact that 3d, in general, is more complicated and technical than the other art disciplines.

This might explain why, in big studios, where artists are specialized, there are many women doing 2D drawing, storyboard, coloring, and texturing. While men are more hired for 3D modeling and animation jobs.

One of the Female Blender users shared her perspective on the topic on another forum saying:

“Well from personal experience, I found getting into 3D rather difficult. All tutorials and documentation are written with a male bias and on topics that appeal to men. It was a real struggle, learning how to use tools when at the time all tutorials were on how to make cars, spaceships, and naked women, which is not appealing to women generally speaking. There is also the “old boys club” mentality that assumes that anyone doing 3D is “MALE”. I had been a member of this community for a couple of years before I corrected the assumption that I was male. LOL, and in fact, there are still quite a few around here who still think I am male.”

Actually what this female artist is saying reflects what a lot of other girls and women experience when they try to start learning 3D software.
I find it to be kind of true when she said that she found it rather difficult to learn 3D. To be honest, the concepts of how 3D software works are hard to grasp for those who come from a traditional art background or those who don’t have a lot of experience with computers and software in general.

I might be wrong, but I think that boys spend far more time using computers, compared to girls, also since men and boys spend a lot of time playing 3D video games which of course are made using 3D software.

I think that a lot of males today who are using 3D software have played hundreds of hours of 3D video games and I am sure some of them wonder how these games were made, which can be their introduction to 3D world.

Even though a lot of them find it to be hard, but a good percentage of them become artists, especially with the availability of free software such as Blender.

Don’t get me wrong here, girls also use computers and play 3D video games, but generally, they are not drawn to using 3D software as boys are.

Also since the 3D world is dominated by males, a lot of the content that can be found online appeals to boys, which can be a turn-off for girls who want to learn 3D software.

Most of the tutorials are on how to make cars, spaceships, weapons, and so on. And I personally believe that artists will create what they feel inspired to create because artists don’t create art because they have to, although sometimes they do if they are working for somebody else. But, generally speaking, artists create what entertains their imagination since art is a transition of thoughts and moments of inspiration Into a visual thing that others can see, and sometimes it inspires them too.

The majority of male artists can’t be inspired by flowers, pink rabbits, or princesses. But some of them do, I guess because there are some male 3d artists who are obsessed with drawing and modeling girls and girly stuff.

Also, I want to touch on one point, which is that most people think that all 3D artists are males. This can actually push back females who want to learn 3D software because they feel alone or something, especially in forums, they are extremely male-dominated, which leads us to the weird point, which is the fact that some Female Blender users pretend to be males.

This girl that we just shared her perspective on the matter said in her comment that she was pretending to be male for two years before she told everyone that she is a female. Also, I came across several Female Blender users that were using their husband’s names or their accounts in forums.

I don’t completely understand the reasoning behind this, but I think that they believe that if they were pretending to be a male, they were going to be taken more seriously or they wanted to feel a sense of belonging or something like that.

I personally think that gender does not matter, especially online. On the contrary to what they might have thought, people will help them and engage with them even more if they knew they are females.

I came across a few articles related to why females are a minority in the industries that use 3D software, like game development, animation, and VFX. And I am going, to be honest, I did not expect to see this pattern among those articles which basically ignore why people are hired in the first place which is competency and the ability to do a good job. They ignore this and start ranting about why women in those fields are victims

One of those articles i came across was written by Brooke Maggs. She currently works in the Australian games industry as a writer, narrative designer, and producer.

[“I have been asked by young women if I have experienced harassment or sexism working in the games industry. Underneath this question is another: will I be safe? I haven’t experienced harassment, but I have felt the effects of unconscious biases in the workplace. This has taken the form of being spoken over in meetings and sometimes feeling isolated. I am fortunate that I worked with people with whom I felt comfortable enough to voice my concerns and be heard.

In more extreme accounts, prominent women working in the industry overseas have spoken of being paid dramatically less than male peers and blocked from opportunities to grow. well-meaning professionals could still perpetuate a sexist culture where women were continuously put through trials to prove their worth …”]

Regardless of what is being said by this woman which is true to a certain extent. I personally think that studios or company owners or the people responsible for the hiring process want to make sure that they bring the best artists to join their team especially if it is an AAA video game studio or a VFX studio that works on big-budget Movies. It does not matter to them if you are a man or a woman because what matters is whether you can do the job or not.

I am going, to be honest, it is going to be a little bit harder for female artists to work with a ton of males around them because it can be uncomfortable sometimes but it is a male-dominated industry and they have to deal with it.

Also, Some Female Blender users feel like they are less respected and less trusted just because of their gender. I would say it is a natural thing since the majority of the amazing 3D artists are men, and i think it is not completely true that people don’t believe that a woman can be trusted to do an outstanding job just because she is a woman.
male artists are tested too and they have to go through trials to prove their worth even if they are senior artists.

Producers and studio owners are not going to bet on you and put everything at risk just because you are a senior artist especially with the rising cost of film and AAA video games production that sometimes surpasses $200 million.

I have nothing against Female Blender users and female artists, in fact, I would love to see more girls and women using 3d software but until there will be a balance in the male and female ratio in those industries I think those female artists, also Female Blender users, have to prove that they can do as good of a job as men do or even better.

I would love to hear the female perspective on this matter because I think it is important to know why this is happening from your own direct experience which I think a lot of others can benefit from.