Excluding Women From E-Sports Does Not Legitimize It

[Majinash]

Why shoud I care about others feelings when those same people send me death threats for not playing how they want me to play?

I think this attitude is exactly the problem you seem to have with other people.

As for LoL, care to explain why I was being reported for feeding (read: dying) and unsportsmanlike conduct (read: going /muteall when i was getting threats).

The first thing to understand is: those reports mean nothing unless you are actually doing something worthy of the report. You don't get action taken against you for simply playing poorly, and you don't get chat banned for muting your team.

Another thing to keep in mind is your experience in a LoL pub game has nothing to do with esports. That is you playing LoL with some random other people for fun. It has as much to do with pro LoL as a pickup game of basketball in your driveway has to do with the NBA. If someone is mean or sexist in your pickup basketball game, you can't blame the NBA.

And I don't like the games because the people who played them are uncivil. I can't even try them because you need to play with others.

I know LoL and DOTA2 both have bot games, that can be played without any other human player. Smite has a practice mode, but the bots are horrible so it doesn't really offer much. Hearthstone has an AI mode, though there should be zero problem vs players because you are unable to allchat. I don't play Street Fighter or Tekken but I know for a fact you can play those games vs AI. If you really are having a problem with other players you could try the games out in the bot modes. Or you could simply not play the games at all. I don't play CoD or Battlefield, but I don't want them to just "go away" either.

 

[Lightknight]

Ah yes.. traditional asian mysoginy at its best... that happens when you let a organisation from a culture thats still to this day traditionaly sexist run the show on an international level.

Also:

Women only tournaments are okay because... reasons... but male only tournaments are BS (*hinthint* both are BS). Equality much? Either we have limited tournaments or we have free for alls. You cant rip into people for having male only tournaments while at the same time standing there proclaiming that women only tournaments are fine. Makes you look like a hypocrit.

Female only tournaments are totally okay, as they are typically under-represented. Every tournament already is a male only tournament. If we are ever able to level the playing field enough, then I will wholeheartedly agree with you

Not trying to start an argument, I'm just asking because I don't know if you know something I don't. But are you saying that females don't perform at the same levels as men or just that the gender ratio is so steep that the likelihood of a woman winning is almost null.

If we were talking sports that depend on physiology, then the very best male athletes outperform the very best female athletes (that is to say, the World's fastest woman is nowhere near as fast as the World's fasted man etc). But computer and board games are cerebral and there isn't much to say that a woman can't compete at an equal level to men.

That being said, women aren't normally encouraged to take part in these cerebral sports; this results in a lack of interest, and we end up with fewer women overall competing at the top levels. By increasing the profile of female tournaments in gaming, you are essentially offering encouragement to girls to take part - that is to say, if a girl sees more women taking part in publicised sport, they are more inclined to think the sport is "for them too", and won't feel discouraged in taking part. The more girls that feel they can take part, the more that will. The more that will, the more champions you will see to rival the male champions.

There's good evidence to indicate mental differences between men and women. Not overall superiority (like we see in physical sports), but more differences in skills where one gender is better than the other but then another area where the reverse is true. Things like spacial reasoning and multitasking where one gender has a clear statistical advantage over the other.

So it would be erroneous to assume that there is definitely not a trending difference in performance in gaming across genders either. I wonder if someone has tried to test that. It is worth considering that men could literally be better at certain types of competitive games and women may be better at other kinds of competitive games. On average, of course, since individuals of either gender can be on the high end of their gender's spectrum which may overlap with higher margins of the other.

Though, as you point out, until recently (and perhaps still) women have been discouraged from playing these kinds of games. Social elements can skew results so any such study would have to try and account for that (aka, guess their asses off).

While this wouldn't really make exclusion acceptable, it would legitimize the need for women-only competitions though (like with sports where a woman could hypothetically compete in male sports but a male is disallowed from competing in a female sport). What would be hilarious is if it turns out that women are more naturally gifted in one of these games. That would be a splendid turn. However, studies have indicated that men have better hand-eye coordination than women which would play heavily on response times. But honestly, I don't even know what game kicked this story off. Maybe it's an RTS for all I know? I would anticipate women to have the advantage in some RTS titles.

Maybe there will be no significant difference. But there is a difference in most areas of life and the more complex a task gets, the more likely there will be one gender that is more evolved to tackle it than the other gender.

 

[Deadcyde]

I suppose toting esports as a whole; a "culture" of mysogynism because of a couple of examples. Specifically painting "male is the default" as adversarial as if it's intentionally sexist that video games are marketed to the safest known quantity.

did you even read the article? or the parts i quoted?

Yes I did, and I didn't see where you were coming from. It's why I asked you. And even now, you haven't pointed out where she blames men for the marketing, or where she says all pro gamers are evil. I can't remember if she actually said there's a culture of misogynism or not, but personally I would argue there definitely is. Hell, just watch how many people fall over themselves to call Anita a **** at every opportunity they get - and for what? For critiquing games from a feminist perspective. And don't try and tell me these people are either a) few in number, or b) critiquing her content, because people made her the poster girl for online bullying well before she even put out her first video.

I suppose the title doesn't give away her thoughts on it as a culture. Or her generalization about the entirety of esports when she only means one example.

And let's not forget that Anita doesn't play these games nor do her own research. So it's not inconceivable that people feel she is a little disingenuous and take exception at her providing a negative commentary on something they hold dear from such an ignorant standpoint.

 

[NoeL]

I suppose the title doesn't give away her thoughts on it as a culture. Or her generalization about the entirety of esports when she only means one example.

Cool, at least you're willing to admit when you've made a mistake. Happens to the best of us.

And let's not forget that Anita doesn't play these games nor do her own research. So it's not inconceivable that people feel she is a little disingenuous and take exception at her providing a negative commentary on something they hold dear from such an ignorant standpoint.

But see, that would mean people are only complaining about the content, and given that the backlash against her began WAAAAY before she even put out her first video on the subject you can't pin it on that alone. I have no problem with people critiquing the content of her videos (IMO her first video was the only real stinker, and the others have been passable, if shallow), or questioning her ethics provided it's not used as an ad hominem to dismiss the content of her videos (using LP footage without permission, embellishing her interest in gaming, etc.) but the bulk of her "criticism" comes from the fact she's a feminist and a woman. There's no denying a large chunk of the gaming community can't stand the thought of someone critiquing their pastime from a feminist perspective, and that's not a good thing.