Hiring women for public facing roles in such a hostile environment

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Howdy everyone, wanted to share something I was mulling over today.  I run a small but growing dev house and as we've grown I've had to start thinking about filling a lot of positions that I never would have imagined myself hiring for, things 1 or 2 steps removed from actual creative or technical development.  Creating and HR department for example and having someone dedicated to just HR.  The department that we are also planning for is PR and hiring a Director of Communications to help shape our relationships with the public at large.   As you can deduce from the title of this post I have a couple women in mind for a few positions in this department, both who have incredible track records in other industries.  Both are enthusiastic gamers and are excited to work with us but neither are familiar with the games industry itself.  The director of communications also happens to be my wife which, combined with the fact that she is unfamiliar with the the industry at large and things like Gamer Gate, has made me hesitant about having her in a public facing role.  She is going to be incredible at directing our communications without a doubt but I realized today that the thought of her being our public face made me very nervous, again especially because this is a woman I love more than any other.  If she was already in the industry and was willingly putting herself on the front lines then it would be a different story as she would know what she was signing up for but the idea of bringing on an outsider who really doesn't know about the nasty sexist side of the gamer community really made me reconsider what her responsibilities should be and that made me incredibly sad for our industry as a whole.  To be clear I don't feel the need to 'shelter' my wife as she's the most independent lady I've met but I hate the fact that my first instinct in this situation is to infact shelter her from that shitstorm of insanity that woman have to deal with in this indsutry.

 

Anyways, my next step is to have a lot of long talks with her about the state of the industry and what might be in store before making any decisions but I was curious if any other studio heads have faced a similar dilema or if there are any women here who are in public positions and what advice you might have or women just entering the industry from the outside.

 

 

PS - Been listening to the show since episode one when I was doing a podcast of my own and 7 years later or so I've decided to get a bit more involved in this great community.  Thanks for all the pods you guys have cast on our faces over the years

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Thanks for answering the question thumbs, pretty much what I had in mind but a good point about getting worked up to limit myself to the only possible outcome of this being her having a horrible experience.  Although the fact that she can't even walk to her work now without getting harassed leaves me jaded some days  It is a tremendous gift that I can now play the end of this episode after I've chatted more about this with her(if she doesn't here it first listening to you guys on her way to work) and we can bring you all in on the conversation.  

 

Big ups!