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In my experiences being friends with girl gamers it's not that they lack competitive drive, or simply don't like video games as much as guys do. It's more that the male community of gamers feature a vast amount (or extremely vocal minority) of players who are sexist assholes. Female gamers have to put up with so much more bullshit than guys do, and its bad enough that many never mention their gender in game because they know they'll get harassed.
I'm been sitting by my friends while they get a PM or in-game whisper and the disgusting shit that people say to them for no reason is appalling. They shrug it off because they're used it to it. Not every girl is willing to put up with that abuse just to play games. I would have never been an online gamer if I had to put up with the same.
Then I watch streamers like Megumixbear and they get the same treatment. Whether its disgusting sexual comments, kitchen trolls, or persistent lonely guys it's a constant wave of harassment, and I understand why protecting your gender identity becomes important to some. If you want an idea of how amazingly kind Megumi is she made CombatEX manner on her stream last night. Yet, someone like that still has to put up with harassment.
To me it seems that competitive gaming is a male dominated, because female players get chased away before they're able to fall in love with a game and push their skill to that level.
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On July 15 2011 11:00 SonicTitan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Well, I've had this little rant stored up for a while. Ever since the KellyMilkies thing, to be honest.
Let's get your main point out of the way right now: though not stated as articulately as I would like, the first few posters have it right; the main reason you do not see women at the top of the e-sports competitive scene, or any other highly specialized competitive game involving a large amount of skill, is because women are genetically predisposed to be disinterested in competition. Yeah, I said it. Some elements of gender are genetically hardwired.
This isn't to say by any means that we (as men OR women) can't overcome these genetic predispositions; after all, we're rational, self-aware beings, right? If it were impossible to overcome genetic wiring, then I would have to agree with certain radical feminists who say men should pay higher taxes because a disproportionate amount of violent crime is committed by men. Bust THAT one out at your next dinner party and see how well it goes over. The point of this is that we can't really blame sexism in the scene for keeping women out of it. The more we try to tell ourselves as a society that men and women are exactly the same, the more evidence to the contrary we seem to find. Women generally have less interest in competition than men. Simple as that.
That being said, is the scene sexist? God yes. I've never met a bigger group of pigs than a bunch of highly competitive men gathered together specifically for the benefit of whatever they're competing in. In some ways, it's natural. To be competitive at anything that requires the amount of skill that Starcraft (or rugby, or chess) does, one usually has to possess certain traits that make him a dominant force in social situations. The problem is that these traits, especially in YOUNG men, often manifest as borderline sociopathy. Frankly, the way men my age treat women is often pretty appalling. If women are deemed nominally attractive (I believe "hot" is the colloquial here) then they're allowed to do pretty much whatever they want (this is not a good thing, as I'll explain in a moment) as long as they do it with the understanding that they're not ACTUALLY one of the guys, they're just there for eye-candy and hopefully a fuck later. If they're not deemed attractive, they often fight an uphill battle altogether; the link between the anonymity of the internet and rampant douchebaggery is well-documented, and nowhere is it more evident than when men get together to judge a woman's physical appearance instead of her contribution to the community.
That brings me to my next point, which is that women have JUST AS MUCH responsibility as men for changing the perception of the scene. Take the KellyMilkies fiasco:
For those that don't know, KellyMilkies is a middling Starcraft player that did some casting for GSL a few seasons back. And that just about sums up her entire SC career. From there, she did a photo shoot in her underwear for a men's magazine and proceeded to plaster it all over the internet.
When the shit hit the fan, the thread her shoot was posted in was immediately bogged down with two kinds of posts: those saying she had no business doing a photo shoot at all and those saying that those that didn't like her photo shoot were sexist - and probably gay.
I'll say it right now: I was disgusted by the shoot. I never posted in that thread, because the whole thing was a cluster-fuck, but I was absolutely appalled. The problem is that 99% of her detractors were posting ad hominem insults about her physical appearance, instead of the deeper underlying issue with the shoot: this woman, who has barely if at all done ANYTHING for our scene, is now trying to buy her way into it using her sexuality. THAT, friends, is the definition of sexism, and we had every right and reason to run her out of town.
The problem with this is that if Kelly had been percieved as more physically attractive, I'm almost certain that a lot of those negative posts wouldn't exist. And holy SHIT if that doesn't smack of patriarchy (a word I'm really, REALLY loathe to use, by the way) I don't know what does. So women that do jack shit for the community get a free pass, as long as they're deemed by a group of oversexed 20-somethings as "hot" enough to fuck? (Sporrer, I'm looking at you.)
Women need to stop using their sexuality as an "easy-in" to what's percieved as a boys-only club. This goes for any male dominated scene (heavy metal music particularly comes to mind). Women have just as much of a responsibility to contribute to the community they want to be a part of, and if the only way they can think of to gain acceptance is to show their tits, then they shouldn't be surprised when they get treated like sex objects.
I realize this ran kind of long, so let me sum it up:
Sexism isn't the main reason women don't compete at high levels. Women just don't like to compete. That said, sexism does exist, and it goes BOTH ways, and BOTH sexes have a responsibility to stop it.
This post really sums up everything I could have said. I am a psychology/Counseling major and yeah women generally are not as interested in competition, why, because that is what society taught them as well as the genetic predisposition to more nurturing. The societal teaching may be changing somewhat but the genetic predisposition is still there. Also, I briefly forgot what Lindsey Sporrer looked liked so I googled her, and yeah this guy is right on the money with his comment as well.
Another thing to bring up is that Video games and Esports still very much cater to guys more than women. All competitive games involve killing or at least grinding your opponent into the ground, which frankly probably does not appeal to a lot of women.
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On July 15 2011 12:47 Herculix wrote:
but somebody like Lindsey Sporrer is doing good for our community by being connected to a different culture in our world but embracing esports and not being shy to tell people about it. ok, she's hot, so what? she's basically a professional hot girl, she's a model/actress.
She's eye candy which is one of the core issues of sexism. Esports does not need eye candy.
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On August 14 2011 11:52 NEOtheONE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2011 12:47 Herculix wrote:
but somebody like Lindsey Sporrer is doing good for our community by being connected to a different culture in our world but embracing esports and not being shy to tell people about it. ok, she's hot, so what? she's basically a professional hot girl, she's a model/actress. She's eye candy which is one of the core issues of sexism. Esports does not need eye candy.
Thank you, agreed completely. That the community collectively resists women who perpetuate negative stereotypes like this really goes to show how committed the majority of the men here are to including women in esports. All you have to do to be widely accepted here is just be genuine, and not some contrived stereotype.
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On August 14 2011 11:52 NEOtheONE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2011 12:47 Herculix wrote:
but somebody like Lindsey Sporrer is doing good for our community by being connected to a different culture in our world but embracing esports and not being shy to tell people about it. ok, she's hot, so what? she's basically a professional hot girl, she's a model/actress. She's eye candy which is one of the core issues of sexism. Esports does not need eye candy.
Speak for yourself!
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True that sexism is a sad fact of life.Why try and play professional video games when looks do so much more for you as a female.
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Seems we've actually got some logical and reasonable posters now :O rather than the insult EVERYONE white-knight brigade.
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Alot of opinions been shared in this thread, I only read the first couple pages and last because it began to hurt my brain. Anyways, yes there is alot of sexism in the starcraft 2 community but nobody has done much to fix these problems... the most that has been done about the sexism is addressing it in the form of a reddit topic or a TL thread. In my opinion we should stop focusing on the differences in the two sex's from a physical/mental standpoint and start looking at it through a cultural standpoint such as this - Do girls play as much as guys do? I don't many female friends and i can already tell you that none of them, though they all play videogames of some sort, don't play anywhere near as much as any guy i know nor do they play the same types of games. The girls i know like fun games like Katamari Damaci or pokemon. Now I'm definately not saying this applies to all girls and i know there are girls who play as much as any guy, I used to be in a guild with 3 very skilled female WoW pve/pvp'ers that played just as much as I did and i was no where near as good as them, I was even scolded in vent about standing in fire or not healing well enough. I remember Catz saying that its a good thing that there are separate girls only divisions and I agree with that. My reasons for liking these divisions are not because it keeps girls away from the "big boys" or anything but that it gives girls a place where they can start off. Its kind of like the kiddie pool at a public pool, you don't throw your kids into the deep end right away you let them get their dog paddle on first. Of course if they felt as if they were ready they could go swim with the sharks, nobody's stopping them.
The best thing for integrating, I guess you can call it, women into the e-sports/sc2 scene is to get women INTO the scene by letting them do it. I'm pretty sure there's no official sign posted everywhere saying "No girls allowed". It's all about time, the more time they play/practice the more they improve just like anyone else regardless of sex/gender/race
With the Sporrer thing i didn't really follow it much but i did know about the kellymelkies thing and that circlejerk was just dumb, there's nothing wrong with good looking people in the esports scene and anyone who says otherwise needs to get their heads out of their asses. Why is it bad for women to look good and know it and show it off when you have Tasteless and Artosis talking about how cute leenock is or how handsome X player is, all of which are male and I'm pretty sure people would be thrilled to see a tasteless or day9 photo shoot. -.-"
In the end there is always gonna be some sort of hate towards some player for some reason the true problem is addressing it and not doing anything about it. If Megumixbear wants to go to MLG she goes and she plays and thats what she did. If we had more females actually going and doing what they want to do in the starcraft2 community it can only lead to progress(unless of course someone does something completely backwards retarded or w/e).
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Rant deleted I have mixed views.
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As a female just starting to get into SC2, I would love to see more women in the scene, and it was really cool seeing a fair number of women compete in MLG Anaheim.
My only question is, does every girl who will get attention need to be hot? The three most well-known female players would probably be Eve, Megumixbear and KellyMilkes, who are pretty damn hot, or at the very least, are not unattractive. I would like to think there are more females who can play with the big boys, but it would suck if they weren't getting any attention because they were 'plain-looking' or some shit.
It's quite disheartening, as a girl who is not the shiniest rim on the car.
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On August 14 2011 13:10 IronSlayer wrote:
As a female just starting to get into SC2, I would love to see more women in the scene, and it was really cool seeing a fair number of women compete in MLG Anaheim.
My only question is, does every girl who will get attention need to be hot? The three most well-known female players would probably be Eve, Megumixbear and KellyMilkes, who are pretty damn hot, or at the very least, are not unattractive. I would like to think there are more females who can play with the big boys, but it would suck if they weren't getting any attention because they were 'plain-looking' or some shit.
It's quite disheartening, as a girl who is not the shiniest rim on the car.
Is it possible for you to play the game to enjoy it and get better, not just get positive attention because you are a female? If you are "hanging with the big boys" you will get closer to the top of the ladder, says the system of winning and losing.
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On August 14 2011 13:10 IronSlayer wrote:
As a female just starting to get into SC2, I would love to see more women in the scene, and it was really cool seeing a fair number of women compete in MLG Anaheim.
My only question is, does every girl who will get attention need to be hot? The three most well-known female players would probably be Eve, Megumixbear and KellyMilkes, who are pretty damn hot, or at the very least, are not unattractive. I would like to think there are more females who can play with the big boys, but it would suck if they weren't getting any attention because they were 'plain-looking' or some shit.
It's quite disheartening, as a girl who is not the shiniest rim on the car.
Would not happen. If there was a girl who was could 'play with the big boys' she would get a ton of attention regardless of her attractiveness, simply because it'd be so out of the ordinary for a girl to be playing at the highest level.
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As a female who plays Starcraft, I'll state my feelings pretty bluntly. "If you can't stand the heat get out of my kitchen."
Anyone who sits here and tries to list one arbitrary reason as fact as to why women do not play SC2 or any other video game as much as men is an idiot. There are a lot of reasons, but just as how women in sports have become more and more common (and gotten closer to being able to keep up with the guys) women in gaming are an up and coming population. They can get there however they want whether it's pretending to be male on the ladder or going on women only teams and tournaments. Anyone with the drive to compete (which some women have in spades just like some men do) will find the means to do it that best suit them. As for the ones who are succeeding based on looks? Well guess what, skill increases over time. Looks degrade. See who's still playing in the SC/esports scene in 10 years and who has moved on to try attention whoring elsewhere.
Now I will be the first to admit that being female in the gaming world will get you a different sort of behavior. My major online gaming experience was WoW (yeah yeah I know, give me a lil credit, I dumped it for Starcraft) and I was one of the best players on the server in my class and a raid leader of one of the most successful runs. I didn't get there by having tits, I got there by working at it and being very good at it. I earned a reputation for being tough, fair, honest, and fun. I also got a lot of crap from it. I got the immature, sexist "show us your tits, girls don't play wow, gamer chicks are all fat, etc." I got people who would hit on me either just because I was a woman or because they thought I would carry them for a little attention.
By the same token my very first attempt at a 1v1 in Starcraft even followed the old familiar pattern. I was brand new, the BF was trying to help me learn, I'd done some vs AI matches and was going to play my first game about him and I hit the wrong button. Ended up in a random match and said "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that" and left the game. I am immediately whispered with a barrage of nasty comments from the guy and when I explained "I hit the wrong button, I was trying to start a game against my boyfriend" suddenly the insults turn into "You're a girl and you play starcraft? that's hot. wanna chat?" upon being rejected he tells me "starcraft is a mens game anyway, women all suck at it and you're probably a fatty anyway."
Now, if you were a woman and this was your very first experience with the starcraft community, would you really have a positive image of it? Would you want to keep going? Many won't, but some (like me) will. As I said in the beginning, some people (regardless of gender) can take the heat and some can't and gender is irrelevant in that regard. Hell, this thread alone and some of the utter idiocy and misogyny being played off as "fact" would be enough to encourage most women to stay out of SC and sadly the type of women who would be scared off by this are mostly the intelligent ones!
So let me make this very simple for all of you. you want to see the SC2 community expand? You want to see more women playing for skill and not because they know they can get a bunch of men to drool over them? Start treating them as people, not just women. Don't like it if Kelly uses sex appeal to sell herself? Don't comment on her pages or support events she's casting. As for Lindsey Sporrer? My opinion is my own of course, but don't blame her for being hired out by her agency to an event and not being given the preparation/education she was promised. Give her a little credit for wanting to be more than a pretty face and trying to educate herself. If you encounter a woman on the ladder, the forums, or anywhere else? Treat her the way you would like to be treated, because nothing gives a better view of your character than how you treat other people.
And don't be surprised if you act like a jerk when she can dish it out and wipe the floor with you. Karma's fun that way.
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Well it all has to start some where some how :/
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The reason why there are few girls in the esports scene is not because of what we do as community but because professional gaming doesn't appeal to women as much. Regarding the fanclubs I agree that they were a bit premature but guys like cute girls, and they will always give them attention.
And since there aren't many (if any?) girls playing this game really seriously there's obviously not going to be any top players that are female and therefore I have no problem with them competing against each other in female only tournaments. These tourneys just prove that you can have fun competing in this game regardless of gender.
I do think that many people are immature about and not exactly supportive of female gamers and should treat them more equally.
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if lindsey sporrer, or slayers_eve placed well in big tourneys, no one would give um nearly as much shit, or do something as equivalent in the esports community. So far not a lot of females have, so until they can, they won't be treated as fairly as big shot sc2 players.
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On August 15 2011 03:09 Kevan wrote:
The reason why there are few girls in the esports scene is not because of what we do as community but because professional gaming doesn't appeal to women as much. Regarding the fanclubs I agree that they were a bit premature but guys like cute girls, and they will always give them attention.
And since there aren't many (if any?) girls playing this game really seriously there's obviously not going to be any top players that are female and therefore I have no problem with them competing against each other in female only tournaments. These tourneys just prove that you can have fun competing in this game regardless of gender.
I do think that many people are immature about and not exactly supportive of female gamers and should treat them more equally.
Honestly, I have to disagree in regards to the female tournaments thing, it's not really equal treatment. While I'm against any prize based tournament in that regard, if it's small and community run, I don't really care. We have all kinds of community tournaments for random groups, with league restrictions etc...
I am however against the idea of tournament segregation and would absolutely be against a larger prize based tournament for women. Even the ones that get above $100-150 dollars is sort of pushing it in terms of just for fun tournaments.
There is really no reason to believe that they're less capable at competing with males in Starcraft, I see no reason to segregate because of this. Being in the minority doesn't really affect your ability to play the game, you can sit behind your keyboard and play your game and improve, teams would be more than willing to pick up a woman who can match their male counterparts in terms of skill, they've shown interest even in those can't at this time. I simply see no reason to segregate.
Also, as for their treatment in the community, certainly you have your fair share of trolls and imbeciles but there aren't that many of them and there are just as many people ready to sing praises for someone simply because they're a woman in Starcraft, it goes both ways and generally balances out. You can avoid it by laying low and trying not to attention whore, and if you want to get your name out there and have no qualms about using your gender to your advantage, that's fine too, but you will get both positive and negative attention because of it. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people playing the victim at this point, particularly when any criticism is labelled as sexist hate.
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On August 15 2011 02:39 Petra37 wrote:
Now, if you were a woman and this was your very first experience with the starcraft community, would you really have a positive image of it? Would you want to keep going? Many won't, but some (like me) will. As I said in the beginning, some people (regardless of gender) can take the heat and some can't and gender is irrelevant in that regard.
Well I hate to pick that specific part of your post, as the rest of it was mostly reasonable, but it doesn't seem to me like you gave much thought to what you said there.
You can't go around calling people idiots when you make the assertion that everyone can take the heat regardless of their gender. I'm not a psychologist so I don't know, but maybe men can "take the heat" more easily than women, in general.
I don't know why one would assume that we're exactly the same in that regard even though it does seem like we're not.
On August 15 2011 03:27 Mordiford wrote:
There is really no reason to believe that they're less capable at competing with males in Starcraft, I see no reason to segregate because of this.
Well you have to admit that women currently don't play at the same level as men, whether or not they're capable of it (and I think they are).
Part of it is probably that they don't practice as much since, like it has been said, they don't have the same desire for excellence in that field (whatever the reason for that may be). Since they can't compete with men, they want their own leagues. We see the same thing happen for US/Euro/etc. people who feel like they can't play at the same level as Koreans so they want MLG and Dreamhack to exclude Koreans.
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Hot chicks get bonuses in life.
It's simple and pretty universal in all aspects of life.
^
That is really all the arguement you need.
But my thought is this: Hot girls are like rare pokemon, exciting to see even more exciting to catch. The starcraft community is viridian forest.
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true some people joined their fanclubs for their looks, but also joining female fanclubs promotes the female esport scene, if you don't like it get off, inb4 warning inb4 ban inb4 full retard etc.
User was temp banned for this post.
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EPT
