Finnish Hearthstone Tournament Changes Policy on Women - Update

[roseofbattle]

Finnish Hearthstone Tournament Changes Policy on Women - Update

The International e-Sports Federation believes e-Sports will be a "legitimate" sport by segregating men and women.

Update: The International e-Sports Federation announced it has changed its former policy, which separated e-Sports tournaments into male-only and female-only tournaments, and has offered an apology. After the policy was called into question yesterday, IeSF called together an emergency board meeting. It has decided to replace male-only tournaments with tournaments that are open to all. IeSF made the following announcement on its Facebook page: [https://www.facebook.com/IeSFederation/posts/730656113657211]

Our reason for maintaining events for women only is that we acknowledge the importance of providing women with ample opportunities to compete in e-Sports,
a currently male-dominated industry. Without efforts to improve female representation in e-Sports events, we can't achieve true gender equality.

However, we realize that hosting a "male-only" competition is not the right way to go - as we stated, the industry is already male-dominated.
The fact that a female-only competition is being held for the reason stated above doesn't mean that there is need to define the main competitions as "male-only".

Therefore, we have decided to remove "male-only" competitions. This means the upcoming IeSF World Championship will host tournaments in 2 sections:
an "open-for-all" section which is open for all genders (replacing men-only competitions), and a female-only tournaments as stated previously.

Original story: On July 31, several Hearthstone players will compete in the Finnish qualifier tournament - but none of them will be women. The International e-Sports Federation has stipulated that the qualifier is open to Finnish male players only.

The rule is based on IeSF tournament regulations. "Since the IeSF World Championship Hearthstone tournament in Baku is male only, we can only accept male participants in the Finnish qualifier," a statement reads on the Hearthstone IeSF qualifier page. [http://tournaments.peliliiga.fi/summer14/tournaments/view/hearthstone-iesf-qualifier]

Markus "Olodyn" Koskivirta, head admin of the Assembly Summer 2014 Hearthstone IeSF Qualifier reiterated that the decision comes from IeSF tournament regulations. "In accordance with the International e-Sports Federation's tournament regulations, since the main tournament event is open to male players only," Koskivirta said. "This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

IeSF is a global organization based in South Korea with the aim to promote e-sports as a "true sport." By doing so, it divides tournaments into male and female competitions. This World Championship's titles include Dota 2, StarCraft 2, Hearthstone, and Ultra Street Fighter IV in the male competition. The female competitions include StarCraft 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament.

In a reply on its Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/IeSFederation/posts/718122031577286?reply_comment_id=730290913693731&total_comments=8], IeSF said further, "The decision to divide male and female competitions was made in accordance with international sports authorities, as part of our effort to promote e-Sports as a legitimate sports."

The Finnish eSports Federation does not agree with the IeSF's decision. They are currently lobbying for equal rights of male and female players in IeSF tournaments, Koskivirta said. "This is an ongoing process and we of course welcome any support in this matter."

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/29kvuv/a_friend_just_linked_me_this_and_you_must_be/]


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[TiberiusEsuriens]

Since when did eSports start feeling the need to limit itself to the rules and regulations of physical sports? This should be a distinction that we can excel at, not be held back by.

 

[synobal]

If being like real sports means we have to needlessly gender divide our tournaments then I see no need to be like real sports.

 

[JediMB]

This is so fragging backwards, I don't even...

In their effort to promote e-sports as "true sports" they slavishly follow a tradition without putting any thought into the purpose of said tradition. We really don't need this exclusionary bullshit.

 

[Andy Shandy]

But the reason that "legitimate sports" (which is just a fantastic way to promote your own sport by the way) split male and female competitors is due to physiological differences making the sport unfair or unsafe, something which does not affect eSports, or at least not to anywhere near the extent that it does those "legitimate sports".

In other words...

 

[Symbio Joe]

Because being born with more muscle mass and have your gonads produce testosterone makes you clearly better at moving around a mouse and press buttons. Get real the "y" mutants of the human race a superior to their default "x" setting. Always. That is why we slap the "The no girls allowed" sign from our tree house everywhere else. Not to be excluding just for the sake of fairness.

 

[Fappy]

This is hilarious. Wow. People are fucking morons.

Did they ever bother figuring out why we have male and female leagues in sports? You know actual sports. That thing that requires physical activity, something in which males and females generally have very different capabilities.

What the fuck differentiates a pro male Starcraft player and a pro female Starcraft player? Women are better at multitasking? That's not even proven.

 

[Gamer87]

Yes, this makes sense. Just as women are physically inferior to men, the fact that so much of their brain power is taken up with planning dinner, thinking about fashion and worrying about the kids puts them at a disdvantage against men in these kinds of competitions.

 

[Monoclebear]

I hope that as e-sports evolve someone will hopefully put some more thought into these rulings. These seperate tournaments were because of the actual physical differences between men and women, why aply this to a so non-physical sports. Racing does the same bullshit, why shouldn't trained women drive against equally trained men?
I get that there are maybe, just maybe, some notable differences in driving ability between genders, but if someone is actually trained in something like driving or playing a specific game then this differences are eliminated because these abilitys are not affected by gender differences by any amount that can not eliminated by a bit of training.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

An argument can be made for not having mixed competitions if women are so outnumbered in the larger community that it would almost push them out of the competitive scene entirely simply by force of numbers, by having separate competitions you make the competitive scene more visible/attractive to other women ... but that argument completely falls flat when you don't have women's competitions for some of the games in the first place, all the games which don't have competitions for both men and women should be mixed.

I don't usually buy into the whole patriarchy thing, but in sports it seems hard to ignore ... Olympics had a mixed individual event, until a woman won and they promptly cancelled it.

 

[joshuaayt]

Ah, lovely. You know, I've been worried about this for a while, with e-sports. Thank god they've done the sensible thing and reinforced a gender division in quite possibly the least appropriate place for it.

This is a fantastic trend; hopefully one day someone will continue the good fight, and create male only supermarkets- after all, men apparently have a natural aptitude for absolutely fucking everything, it would be a shame if the playing field weren't equal in this critical, high stakes shopping arena.

 

[tzimize]

Yes, this makes sense. Just as women are physically inferior to men, the fact that so much of their brain power is taken up with planning dinner, thinking about fashion and worrying about the kids puts them at a disdvantage against men in these kinds of competitions.

Hehehehehehehe. Its funny because its true.

On a more serious note, this is actually hilarious in the worst possible way. Its something that is so silly that its sadly funny. How does rules like this even exist? Who green-lighted this? The argumentation for the rules existence is mindbogglingly dumb.

On an off topic note, this got me thinking. Does rules like this exist in for example world championships in chess?

 

[GoodNewsOke]

And here I thought the fact that you don't have to split genders in eSports was one of its strong points.
Someone disagrees apparently...

 

[Uhura]

This is so much bullshit. "It divides tournaments into male and female competitions." So where's the women's Hearthstone competition?

And gender segregated competitions are necessary for e-sports? Sure. I totally buy that.

Bull.
Shit.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Wow...this one was a real kick to the gut to hear. They do know the reason why sports are divided into male and female wings is because of muscle strength and density? A male athlete of a worldwide calibre will always be significantly stronger than a female of the same calibre. That's just biology. But games are a mental sport...

Are they trying to imply that one gender is stronger than the other mentally?

 

[Pinky's Brain]

On an off topic note, this got me thinking. Does rules like this exist in for example world championships in chess?

Chess effectively does positive discrimination for women (and there is nothing inherently wrong with positive discrimination). You have a mixed circuit and a women only circuit.

 

[Guffe]

I know I am going to get a lot of stick for this comment but I can certainly see how thy're thinking.

Now don't get me wrong, I by no means support this, but people saying here "physical sports" and "danger or uneven" in some way.
Let's see, I am big fan of so called "pub sports", or in Finland that's what they are. I am talking Pool, Snooker and Darts and many more. Anyone I ask, everyone sais "that's not a real sport". Well the winner of the Snooker World Championships is 300 000?, and Darts has it fair share of money on top level too. Are these sports physical?
No, I don't think so, still it's gender divided, there are some mix competitions, but they're rare. In snooker they actually have a female who is a 7 or 8 time world champion and way better than anyone else. She is never seen in tournaments because she always loses in the qualifiers (not only her, but all other women who try to get to the pro circuit). And this is a sport were the main atribute you need is concentration and a good cuing technique!

So I am not supporting the fact to split the sport, and I am even more saddened they say it's because "of other sports do the same", but if they'd try to have everyone join, and all females would fall out of the tournament in the first or second round (highly unlikely) then that would certainly prove there might be a need for different competitions for the genders, but without even trying is pretty sad.