Excluding Women From E-Sports Does Not Legitimize It

[RaikuFA]

For your first point, I'll stop when one: I stop being labeled for my likes or being called a "tryhard" "scrub" or "newfag" whenever I lose and 2: people stop kicking others or reporting them for not playing how they want them to play.

So your solution to name calling is "I'm going to call them names until they stop calling me names"? I think that isn't very productive.

For your second point, I don't watch that crap. It's all based off of my experiences from trying out these games. The closest thing I've ever seen that didn't directly involve me was LoL pros getting banned and the Cross Assault incident and people agreeing with Aris when it came to making sure newcomers weren't welcome at his arcade.

Of the 2 examples you gave. 1 is riot banning LoL pros for "toxic behavior" which is their attempt at fixing your problem 1. I don't see how that is a problem, it is a very powerful force in esports trying to make the culture less toxic and more accepting, exactly what people see to want in this thread.

Your second example seems to be a twitch TV reality TV show in which 1 guy makes a complete ass of himself. This is a good example of sexism, the guy seems to be completely out of touch with what should be acceptable behavior. So that is 1 guy, and of course any of the faceless nameless masses on the internet who seem to agree. This kind of behavior is unfortunately not unique to esports, and from what I could find on the internet (here on escapist and elsewhere) it seems the majority of the community didn't agree with the Aris guy.

I still don't understand why you would want esports to go away. Unless you are saying you want it all to go away because you don't like the games?

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

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).

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.

 

[Therumancer]

My initial reflex was to think this is a very silly thing, if I can understand gender segregation in contact sports and areas where biological differences apply then I can accept it.
But in gaming where there no such barriers? It seemed silly.

But then I read other article about how the end result is few girls want to become progamers due to it being male dominated and the competitive scene+community being hostile to female gamers and now am not so sure, it seems segregation is needed to allow for female gamers to play without hassle and in turn get people used to the idea of a pro girl gamer without flipping out over it.

It reflects poorly on the progaming scene that this measure is even needed though :/ In a sane world this shouldn't need to happen anymore then gender segregated trains in japan.

snip

That's a really bad example to use there along with your choice of wording "born without a dick" since as far as I understand it Scarlett was born with one...

Alright, for starters, I will say that this discussion is kind of over because they decided to make the league in question co-ed.

I'll also point out again, that I think a lot of people are missing a big part of the point here. I went through all the physical reasons for sports segregation, but there are mental and psychological ones as well, which as I mentioned are probably more important.

For decades there has been a lot of analysis of male and female thought processes, and the genders instinctively gravitate towards specific things and ways of doing them without any prompting or cultural reinforcement. It's pretty much the whole "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" thing. People argue about it frequently, but it always comes down to the basic truth that men and women are wired differently. In an absolute sense our different tendencies tend to compliment each other and have served to preserve the species.

In the arena of gaming the thing to understand is that while there are exceptions, women tend to not be very aggressive or competitive in the same way, as most games are simulated battles or competitions, with violence of one sort or another being involved, even if just implied, women tend to find themselves at a disadvantage. Not to mention that for all "blue aisle/pink aisle" discussions one of the big issues in gaming is ironically a call for the end of segregation existing right alongside the call for more female developers because games are such a "testosterone fest" and how women want games with more relational responses as opposed to purely rational cause-effect solutions (ie... bad guys so I might fight them off). Barring the development of puzzle games or whatever that become popular without the battle/ inherent competition and domination elements yet can still be played competitively to some extent, I think women will tend to find themselves at a signifigent disadvantage.

Now do not get me wrong, SOME women do thrive in this environment, and will continue to do so, but at the same time you need a comparatively uncommon combination of the drive for that kind of conflict, combined with the ability to actually succeed against the best people out there. What this means is that rather than creating a co-ed environment where your going to see both men and women present at all levels of play in fairly equal numbers, your likely to still see very few women, and what's more it's going to lead to even worse sexism issues, because you'll hear people claiming conspiracies to keep women down, while at the same time any female player, especially if she's attractive and marketable is likely to be unusual enough to garner a bit of suspicion as well as to whether she got there under her own merits.

Now I could be wrong here, but understand I've been following this for a while, and I look at things like Ubisoft's "Frag Dolls" who have acted as a team representing Ubisoft with mixed results, as well as how the really infamous all-girl teams like "Team Siren" typically wind up actually being fairly low ranked. This is to say nothing of how you can even go back as far as multi-game MMO alliances like "Da Valkyries" (not sure if they are still around) who were an all-girl answer to hardcore male gamer guilds as far back as things like "Ultima Online", "Everquest", etc... and while they spawned a number of MMO chapters not once did I ever see a "Da Valkyries" affiliate wind up competing for serious domination of a server in either PVP or PVE. I also look at XBL and how they have organized groups like "Gamer Chix" specifically for women to play against other women without having to worry about dudes being involved, something which apparently has run it's own internal rankings and such.

While many people will of course call me sexist, I think the most practical thing here, and probably will make the most people happy, is simply to have men and women in separate leagues. Given that the differences are not atheletics, I'd probably also say that competitions should be arranged in the finals pitting the best from the mens and womens leagues against each other. This would mean that you wouldn't have to worry about girls getting "frozen out" by aggressive guys, and wind up with all the garbage that will probably go with a male dominated co-ed (on paper) league. Our lady E-athletes would get to play regularly, and at the end of the day the best would get to compete in a general sense.

Of course the problems I see might never transpire, but we'll see what happens. I don't imagine what I think is going to be very popular here of all places. I personally think people like the idea of a co-ed league more than they would like the results or the reality. Of course we'll see what happens, online CCGs aren't that big a deal, and while a simulated battle, it's actually something that has a chance of making one work without controversy.

Oh and let's be honest about something else here as well. Part of this is all the QQing about the sexist comments and such. To be brutally honest with you, half of the point of competition is being able to intimidate the other guy and get into their head. If your not confident in your gender and/or sexuality to just throw off people making comments about them (whatever it is) then you don't belong there. Just by whining about sexist comments and such during competition sort of makes the point about why women on average aren't really suited for this kind of environment. If you need someone to protect you from the other guy being intimidating and rude, you don't belong competing with him. This is something that applies to all kinds of seruous sports, in Football for example a scrimmage line is not a friendly place. If some huge guy can tell another guy that he's going to rape him or stick his fist up his arse in a scrum and get a reaction sufficient to distract/intimidate him he's going to do it. Conversely if it really "gets" a girl if someone on the other side talks about raping women (or them personally) and hampers their performance, people are going to do it... and again if you need to cry to left wingers, the media, and officials to protect you, you aren't secure enough to be there. Sure rape is horrible, but let's be honest, all jokes about homosexuality aside, guys have been threatening to rape each other in events like this since time immemorial, which is how "raping" someone has become synonymous with "domination" in competiton, with of course women being the ones who get all upset about the term because they aren't able to mentally throw it off and stay "in the game" the way a guy can. In fact it's become so casual in places much to the annoyance of many that it becomes almost a joke.

At the same time though, understand that when your not seriously involved in competition this kind of behavior is despicable. As a result during casual PVE raids and such when people talk like that it's stupid, the same for low ranked or relatively irrelevant RTS or MOBA matches or whatever. On the other hand if someone does it while competing for a serious ranking against someone else who is really good (where it will probably be back and forth and get really personal) it's sort of expected. It's sort of like telling a guy in football on the scrimmage line that your going to break both his legs in the next play so you can rape his kid and he won't be able to stop you. It's a ridiculous threat overall, but if it gets the guy thinking about that or pissed off at you to the point where he does stupid things so your team can score... well then it worked. It might seem "sick" to people that don't get it, but that's
all part of the game. It goes along with the *ahem* "Eye Of The Tiger" and the attitude it represents, in reality the guys who have that tend to be all about the intimidation of the people they compete with when they can pull it off.

But then again I do see the world a little differently from those who have been sheltered (even if they don't see it that way) and very little gets to me as people have tried to intimidate and threaten me and my family every way you can think of and some you probably can't (oh and the insults, the many insults). Part of being a pro when you confront other people in any context (I was casino security) is not letting anything, or anyone, really get to you. For a lot of people it's not that easy, but the bottom line unless you can develop a really thick hide to the most extreme things, you really don't belong putting yourself into adversarial situations professionally (and that's what we're talking about, pro gaming competitions are by definition adversarial, with very predatory people competing to see who can ultimately take a prize and/or high ranking).

 

[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.