Excluding Women From E-Sports Does Not Legitimize It

roseofbattle

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Apr 18, 2011
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Excluding Women From E-Sports Does Not Legitimize It

Forcing women out of e-sports tournaments puts us back into the blue/pink entertainment segregation, and it does not legitimize e-sports as a true sport.

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Erttheking

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Really? I just mean...really? This feels like segregation, pure and simple.
 

RaikuFA

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I'm hoping stuff like this makes it so "e-sports" can finally be policed more so shit like the cross assault incident never happens again.

If it were up to me, I'd have it all of "e-sports" removed. But that's wishful thinking.
 

Andy Shandy

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Jun 7, 2010
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How I imagine the author of this is at the moment =P



Couldn't agree more with pretty much everything that's been said here.
 

Steve the Pocket

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Jeezus. And I think it's bad enough that real sports are gender-segregated, but at least those have the excuse of not wanting men and women together in the locker rooms. What the fuck is these people's excuse, seriously? No. I don't want to hear it. They're fucking assholes. Every last one of them, without qualification. If any of them object to me calling them a fucking asshole, they have two options: Demand this be changed, or quit. Period. I'm just... I want to hit people with something hard and loud right now.
 

SurfKansas

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However, IeSF set up the rules for the World Championship. IeSF controls the requirements, and in its hands, it has decided to exclude half of its potential players.
It's easy to point the finger at IeSF here, but there is another silent party just as culpable. The game publishers could very easily adjust their terms of use to prevent this from happening by inserting a clause that prohibits use of IP in for-profit tournaments that segregate based on gender.

Is this going to happen? Nope. Too much money on the line to risk by doing the right thing.
 

RatRace123

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Dec 1, 2009
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They wanted to make it more "legitimate," presumably because the MLB was tired of being known as the sport with the fattest players.

Honestly several aspects of the pro gamer world have always irked me, or maybe it's just the mindset that it seems to foster, which is of the uber competitive, absolutely no fun, (Fox only) variety.
And now they're just fostering more of the exclusionary, closed off, boys only attitude that we should be phasing out of in gaming too. It's like a horrible chimera of smugness and bile.

And they're kinda missing the point of gender exclusion in other sports, those ones actually involve physical activity and hard, brute force collisions. It makes sense that you don't see too many women linebackers in the NFL, but there's absolutely no physical qualifications outside of functioning hands and fingers to play video games, and even then we've seen plenty of one handed players kick ass with the right setups.

So I agree with Carly. You're not legitimizing your sport. You're only telling more and more girls that they're not welcome among us gamers, and you're making your whole organization just look worse in the process.

I mean, I already think the concept of calling pro gaming a "sport" is dubious. Sure, I had some irks with pro gaming, but I at least respected it for what it was. Calling it "e-sports" just sounds kinda sad. And while the organization behind these "e-sports" desperately tries to prove that sitting in a chair and pressing buttons is totally a sport you guys! It's probably not the wisest move to do something as blatantly stupid and sexist like this. Not when the games industry as a whole is currently having all of its undesirable actions towards women currently being thrown under a super powered microscope.

So, sorry IeSF. You're probably not gettin' that Gatorade sponsorship anytime soon. Looks like your "pro-athletes" will still be stuck with Cheetos and MTN Dew.
 

mjharper

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Apr 28, 2013
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SurfKansas said:
However, IeSF set up the rules for the World Championship. IeSF controls the requirements, and in its hands, it has decided to exclude half of its potential players.
It's easy to point the finger at IeSF here, but there is another silent party just as culpable. The game publishers could very easily adjust their terms of use to prevent this from happening by inserting a clause that prohibits use of IP in for-profit tournaments that segregate based on gender.

Is this going to happen? Nope. Too much money on the line to risk by doing the right thing.
I see what you're saying, but this is kind of unrealistic. For all their pandering to a white male audience, most game publishers would not explicitly prevent women from playing their games, and would most likely not anticipate that others would do so.

Insisting that games can only be used in tournaments which do not segregate men and women might still be a good solution. I just disagree that publishers are "just as culpable", in the same way that I don't think any producer of hot beverages could have anticipated the need for a 'Warning: Hot Liquid' label. There are some things that are just too stupid to foresee.
 

Goliath100

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I'm confused: There is a "female chess league"? Championship, some extra titles, sure, but league...? I thought there was only one international ranking in chess. Also, IeSF do know that there is no age restriction either? Ranking (aka skill) is the only limiting factor.
 

Karadalis

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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.
 

Hiramas

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Karadalis said:
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.
Since women are often actively hindered in participating in things by misogynist words-i-am-not-allowed-to-say-here, a womens only league is perfectly allright. Of course it sounds strange and illogical to rage about the one thing but not the other, but our reality makes such things a necessity. Maybe one day we won't need them anymore.

OT
If I were Blizzard I would at least state the company position on this, who would have more influence on an e-sports league than the company who made the most popular esports games? And IF they would make that statement, they could only gain. Nobody would say "I wont buy their games because they support women" but a lot of people in the gaming world would remember that positively!
 

StriderShinryu

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As if we needed more reasons for gaming to be considered sexist and/or misogynist. Good show.

The funny part about this is for all of the flak that gets thrown in the direction of the fighting game community (some of it deserved), they are a competitive scene that has no issue with females actually competing right alongside the males. Evo, the biggest fighting game tournament of the year (and with probably the biggest pots overall ever in the fgc), is right around the corner and it's open to anyone and everyone.
 

seditary

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The IeSF? I've been involved in e-sports for many many years and this is the first time I've ever heard of them.
 

Toastngravy

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tl;dr

It's, (from my understanding) a private thing; Meaning they can do whatever they damn well please. That said, if you're going to complain about this complain about the, for example purposes only, Boyscouts. That's stuff a girl could do, but they can't. Why? Because it's a private organization that along with women bans homosexuals.

You can believe what you want about it, but they don't need to change for you. You can make your own tournament if you want to put your own rules or lack there of on it.



Tl:dr: All I hear is "wah". They can do what they want. Make your own to set your own rules/regulations.
 

Pogilrup

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Apr 1, 2013
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Toastngravy said:
tl;dr

It's, (from my understanding) a private thing; Meaning they can do whatever they damn well please. That said, if you're going to complain about this complain about the, for example purposes only, Boyscouts. That's stuff a girl could do, but they can't. Why? Because it's a private organization that along with women bans homosexuals.

You can believe what you want about it, but they don't need to change for you. You can make your own tournament if you want to put your own rules or lack there of on it.



Tl:dr: All I hear is "wah". They can do what they want. Make your own to set your own rules/regulations.
Someone else has pointed out this tournament policy on women participants conflicts with Blizzard's EULA agreement.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/eula.html

Game and Service Features.
ii.Game Features:
2. Community Tournaments: In order to support local e-sports tournament activities, Blizzard hereby grants you a limited, revocable license and right to organize and host small, community tournaments, or a series of tournaments utilizing certain Games ("Community Tournaments") subject to your compliance with the following conditions:
f.The rules of the Community Tournament must promote fairness such that skill in playing the Game is what determines who will win or lose a match in the Community Tournament.
 

HardkorSB

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Steve the Pocket said:
Jeezus. And I think it's bad enough that real sports are gender-segregated, but at least those have the excuse of not wanting men and women together in the locker rooms.
Actually it's because male and female bodies are different. For example, men are typically stronger while women are typically more flexible.
The gender segregation has it's reasons in physical sports but doing the same thing with video games is silly. Sure, someone might say that there are different chemical reactions in the brains of men and women but I'm pretty sure that the people at the International e-Sports Federation weren't basing their decisions on such things.
 

Pogilrup

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HardkorSB said:
Steve the Pocket said:
Jeezus. And I think it's bad enough that real sports are gender-segregated, but at least those have the excuse of not wanting men and women together in the locker rooms.
Actually it's because male and female bodies are different. For example, men are typically stronger while women are typically more flexible.
The gender segregation has it's reasons in physical sports but doing the same thing with video games is silly. Sure, someone might say that there are different chemical reactions in the brains of men and women but I'm pretty sure that the people at the International e-Sports Federation weren't basing their decisions on such things.
And if they were it is just as bad, because the end result is the same.
 

HardkorSB

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Pogilrup said:
And if they were it is just as bad, because the end result is the same.
If it was studied and confirmed that the differences between genders are indeed too big to put them against each other then no, it wouldn't be just as bad because it wouldn't be sexism but adjusting the tournament to human biology.
 

Grimh

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*EDIT*

Well it seems they have reversed this policy so that's good. I'm removing my frankly somewhat insulting analogy as it no longer applies, and throw my apologies into the nebulous ether of the internet.
They still messed up in the first place but all's well that ends well I guess.