Finnish Hearthstone Tournament Changes Policy on Women - Update

[Alpha Maeko]

This "women who are not currently located in the kitchen" thing baffles me. Where's my Sandvich©?

 

[DrOswald]

What. The. Hell. Who is responsible for this? I don't mean the company or the organization, I mean the person responsible. Someone had to sit in a board room somewhere are say "you know what would make this a real sport? Segregation!" I want to know who that guy was. I want to know who were the other guys who all said "you know, that sounds like a great idea!" And I want everyone to know who they are so they can all be publicly shamed for the rest of their lives.

 

[Micalas]

Koskivirta said. "This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

uwotm8?

What conflict is there that a female player eliminated a male player during the RO8?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I understand their reasoning of "look legit sports sponsors we are just like the real thing", but they completely ignored the fact physical sports have that segregation due to physical limits and gaming hasn't got that at all (unless we are talking severe disabilities).

So yeah this is all bullshit and they need to get hammered into the ground by the public for it. And on that note several IRL sports should re-examine their policies since we are at it, many do not depend on brute force and could easily mix up the challengers.

 

[walrusaurus]

It made sense once I read the "we want it to be just like real sports" part.

Look at soccer, football, basketball, baseball, or even the Olympics. They're all segregated into male and female "leagues".

Of course, there are actual legitimate reasons for why those sports are "segregated", but whether or not these reasons are legitimate when applied to e-sports is up for debate

Not really. In what conceivable way do men have an unfair/unsafe advantage at clicking a mouse. It's the equivalent of having gender segregated Chess. And if that doesn't sound profoundly stupid to you, then i've got a bridge to sell ya.

 

[walrusaurus]

Koskivirta said. "This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

uwotm8?

What conflict is there that a female player eliminated a male player during the RO8?

Because that female player wouldn't actually be able to play in the tournament that the qualifying tourney is for. Basically its the guy organizing the qualifier pointing his finger at the bigger event.

 

[Azure Knight-Zeo]

Koskivirta said. "This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

uwotm8?

What conflict is there that a female player eliminated a male player during the RO8?

Because they can't have a woman win the tournament, that would just be ridicules. (I hope I'm just being sarcastic).

 

[Micalas]

Koskivirta said. "This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

uwotm8?

What conflict is there that a female player eliminated a male player during the RO8?

Because that female player wouldn't actually be able to play in the tournament that the qualifying tourney is for. Basically its the guy organizing the qualifier pointing his finger at the bigger event.

OH! I get it now. The RO8 is the qualifier series. That makes more sense. Though it doesn't change the fact that it's stupid that a female player can't play in the tournament.

 

[elvor0]

It made sense once I read the "we want it to be just like real sports" part.

Look at soccer, football, basketball, baseball, or even the Olympics. They're all segregated into male and female "leagues".

Of course, there are actual legitimate reasons for why those sports are "segregated", but whether or not these reasons are legitimate when applied to e-sports is up for debate

It's not up for debate at all. Physical strength and stamina isn't an issue in E-sports. It doesn't even enter into it. Especially in card games like Hearthstone where a disabled person who can only control the game with their eyes would be just as capable as anyone else.

Dota2, Starcraft 2 etc, yeah you need reaction time, but that has nothing to do with gender or physical strength. It's the same reason Chess, Snooker, Darts, and other games like that shouldn't be gender segregated. Granted, you don't /see/ many women in those games, but gaming has almost a 50/50 split for gender participation.

All the sports you mentioned have perfectly good reasons for being segregated, Football, Rugby and American Football especially, but a video game, does not.


Furtermore, here is the tourney list:

Male Competition: Dota 2, Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, Ultra Street Fighter IV
Female Competition: Starcraft 2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2

That is not a gender division, that's segregation and exclusion.

 

[Under_your_bed]

Jesus, when the hell did satire become reality? REALITY HAS OFFICIALLY GONE FULL POE'S LAW!

http://www.neckbeard-news.com/2014/04/new-e-burqa-law-will-prevent-girl.html#.U7RDYfldXiM

 

[The Lunatic]

I'll wait this out until it's confirmed there's no female tournament.

They say this is a men's tournament, thus, if there's a female one down the line, I'm really not seeing the immediate problem.

Sure, it seperates men and women in the short term, but, in the long term it opens the door to fill an entire tournament just with women.

And just because it's seperate one year doesn't mean it's going to be the next. Only allowing men into this tournament could just be so that women have a tournament that won't be completely dominated by the status quo.

And, yeah, it's very interesting to see the good old "Men's only is sexist! Women's only is a safe place for women from the horrible men!".

That's just sexist, nothing else to call it.

 

[PCPLX]

This makes me wish I could actually be bothered to watch other people play competitive video games in the first place, just so that I could boycott them. Alas.

 

[INeedAName]

Heh. I'm just waiting for them to divide the people with physical disabilities from the rest too, just like 'real sports'.

"Sir, we're sorry to say you can't compete in the regular leagues."

"Why? What's wrong."

"Well, you're in a wheel-chair. Obviously, you can't compete with the people with fully functional legs."

"B-but... we're playing on computers! Everyone's going to sit down anyway. No use of legs is required!"

"That's inconsequential, sir. This is a REAL sport, so I'm afraid those with physical disabilities are not allowed to play in the regular leagues."

 

[Carnagath]

That's BS really. All you need to be competitive in Hearthstone is a mostly functioning brain and a bit of luck. I can understand it for other esports in order to create a level playing field, because I suppose men have better reflexes and hand/eye coordination (can't explain why no women have been truly exceptional at them otherwise), but you need none of that in Hearthstone.

 

[RoonMian]

This pisses me off in two different ways. First of course, as many others have pointed out, it's complete bullshit to segregate in esports.

But second: The problem might be only half as bad if there were the mentioned female-only tournaments. But then you fucking had to go and hold the main event in a Islam-tinged dictatorship!!!

 

[johnsarif]

I find it very strange that some of you think it's OK to segregate men and women in physical competition but at the same time argue that there shouldn't be any segregation in eSports. More disturbing is the fact that you accept the fact that men and women are different physically but you don't accept the fact that there are also differences between the brains of men and women.
http://www.livescience.com/2855-brains-wired-differently-men-women.html
http://www.livescience.com/3808-men-women-differently.html
These are some articles I found in a cursory search. There's probably more you can find. This one is also very good but it's more on the psychological side (which can affect performance).
http://bsb-lab.org/site/wp-content/uploads/DelGiudice_etal_2012_global-sex-differences_personality_pone.pdf

Of course, we need more specialized studies to see if differences in brain wiring truly warrant segregation in eSports but to dismiss the idea of segregation out of hand is a bit lazy.

 

[Ferisar]

That's BS really. All you need to be competitive in Hearthstone is a mostly functioning brain and a bit of luck. I can understand it for other esports in order to create a level playing field, because I suppose men have better reflexes and hand/eye coordination (can't explain why no women have been truly exceptional at them otherwise), but you need none of that in Hearthstone.

You need at least 300APM at Hearthstone, alongside a 360NoStreamSnipeRagnaros420ByFireBeBlazed to even consider competing. What are you, some casul?

OT:
Yeah, well fuck you Finnish Hearthstone Tournament. How idiotic do you have to be to actually make this ruling for AN ONLINE GAME. Why do you EVEN HAVE TO. How many women even play at the pro level? Why limit the ONE OR TWO POTENTIAL CANDIDATES WHO MAY MAKE YOU LOOK GOOD IN THE PROCESS.

I don't even underfuckingstand. Way to look like a hillbilly for no reason at all.

I find it very strange that some of you think it's OK to segregate men and women in physical competition but at the same time argue that there shouldn't be any segregation in eSports. More disturbing is the fact that you accept the fact that men and women are different physically but you don't accept the fact that there are also differences between the brains of men and women.
http://www.livescience.com/2855-brains-wired-differently-men-women.html
http://www.livescience.com/3808-men-women-differently.html
These are some articles I found in a cursory search. There's probably more you can find. This one is also very good but it's more on the psychological side (which can affect performance).
http://bsb-lab.org/site/wp-content/uploads/DelGiudice_etal_2012_global-sex-differences_personality_pone.pdf

Of course, we need more specialized studies to see if differences in brain wiring truly warrant segregation in eSports but to dismiss the idea of segregation out of hand is a bit lazy.

I didn't know that logic-processing was so bloody different that you have to consider the "different wirings within the male/female brain" to separate competition. God forbid the girl might use a card differently than a dude. Puh-fucking-lease. This isn't Starcraft (and then I'd have an actual pro-player example thanks to Scarlett), it's a turn-based card game.

 

[johnsarif]

I didn't know that logic-processing was so bloody different that you have to consider the "different wirings within the male/female brain" to separate competition. God forbid the girl might use a card differently than a dude. Puh-fucking-lease. This isn't Starcraft (and then I'd have an actual pro-player example thanks to Scarlett), it's a turn-based card game.

I don't mean to burst your bubble but Scarlett is MtF transgender. Probably the best non-Korean Starcraft 2 player is a girl who was a guy. So she's not the best example because we need to take into account the effects of the hormone replacement theray. There are at least 2 other girls which play Starcraft 2 professionally which you can use as examples but I can't remember their names.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-grid/starcraft-2-sasha-scarlett-hostyn-transgender-gamer-champion
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/326957-interview-2012-ipl4-scarlett