The Three Least Powerful Women in Gaming

Meet the New Era, Same as the Old Era

While the videogame industry is still dominated by men, the number of women in power at videogame companies is growing, providing the opportunity for websites to publish listicles galore.

But don't worry, folks! Things haven't changed that much. The status quo is still very much in effect. Fun fact: for every woman who's broken through the glass ceiling, there are dozens or even hundreds of women who are subjugated on a day-to-day basis making sure that we can enjoy the videogames we love. Heck, they've probably never even seen the glass ceiling!

Once again, we here at Terrible Magazine are happy to bring you our yearly list of The Three Least Powerful Women in Gaming.

Written by: Darius Kazemi. Research by: Nina Huntemann.

Li Bao - Factory Girl

At just 17 years old and a newcomer to the industry, Li is the latest hire at a Chinese manufacturing and assembly facility in the Guangzhou province. Without this modern-day Rosie the Riveter, you wouldn't have your favorite videogame console!

Her entry-level salary of $50/month, combined with 11-hour work days (not including overtime!) made her a can't-miss for this list! She lives in a company dorm (that she pays for!) with a dozen of her coworkers, which means she and her dorm mates can bring that extra oomph of synergy to the workplace.

Do you think she'd come assemble furniture at my house this weekend? I'm overdue for an IKEA trip!

Akua Aidoo - E-Waste Scavenger

You've probably seen Akua on this list before! She's 10 years old and recycles the metal from your discarded hardware. She crawls over and into large piles of "e-waste" to find valuable parts that have small amounts of copper, aluminum and steel. This lil' entrepreneur brings back her high-tech haul to an older woman who maintains a fire; the tech-trash is then burned in the open air (causing infertility and birth defects out the wazoo) to separate the metal from the plastic, which is smelted into a sellable form! She'll make $0.22 to $9.50 a day doing this.

Provided she doesn't die of lung damage due to toxic fumes, burns, tetanus, or cancer due to concentrated exposure to dioxin emissions, we expect her to be on this list for years to come!

Alice Brown - Promotional Model

More commonly known as a "booth babe," promotional models like Alice are hired to wear logo-festooned clothing and hand out trinkets. Of course, as a white woman in a rich country, she's the highest earner on this list, typically $10-$50/hour: closer to $10 if she's wearing a T-shirt, closer to $50 if she's role-playing a lithe half-elf soldier with a mysterious cleavage-window in her armor. If that seems like a decent gig, remember that her job is essentially temporary day labor, and she's required to stand in place for hours at a time, often subjected to harassment by strange men who take her picture and post it on the internet in "hot or not" type galleries. Alice's image and body are public property!

If that doesn't sound bad enough, her very existence is shorthand for the ills of the industry. Why get angry at the system that perpetuates misogyny when you can get mad at the women who are trying to make a living in that system, amirite? Alice won't be on this list again next year (she's pushing 25!), but another young woman is sure to take her place.

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