|
On July 20 2012 15:16 Tewks44 wrote:
I think a problem with introducing women into esports is that the most qualified women receive the most criticism. Here's my example.
Anna Prosser - dating a professional gamer, and not only supports what he does, but tries her best to contribute to esports in any way possible. In live report threads there are countless comments how she is just there for eye candy and doesn't deliver anything substantial
Rachel - dating a professional gamer, and a former professional gamer herself. She contributes to the community and she gets the same criticisms as Anna
Soe - I (admittedly) don't know much about Soe's background, but I do know that she has supported SC2 from launch, and the LR thread for the most recent event she was involved in (NASL) she was slammed for the exact same reasons as Anna and Rachel (she's eye candy, she is not a good personality, etc.)
On the flip side we have people like...
Lindsey Sporrer - Obviously knows nothing about Starcraft 2 and only got the gig with NASL because she was attractive. Although there were insults directed towards her no doubt, a semi cult following emerged that supported her being in more esports events.
and recently...
Lauren Elise - Has absolutely no credentials in SC2 and for the most part I've seen people shrug it off and say "well it's okay becuase she's just there because she's attractive"
It's interesting because all of these women I've listed would be at least an 8.5 (and that's being conservative) yet the most qualified individuals seem to get the most flak from the community.
The problem is there isn't any one woman who is qualified to do the job. Sorry not one and that's why you get the pretty face.
That's as blunt as I can put it. Even a girl who competes with the boys non-stop like Flo. The community has incredibly high standards when it comes to shit like this and the focus should be on the bookies. Not the women.
You have a problem? Take it up with the bookies.
What they're doing is nothing new. Sex and violence sells. It's a cheap fix.
|
On July 20 2012 15:20 Yorbon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2012 23:32 NeverGG wrote:
Just to share a few of my experiences as a female journalist working in the Korean eSports scene - I generally found working with the domestic teams/managers and other journalists to be a rewarding experience despite the language issues. There was never any trouble from either the staff, managers, fans or players. I was also actively included in post-game/finals events, given access to plenty of additional resources, and I never encountered any negative language or behavior. (Aside from a few of the FPS players who were rather arrogant and un-cooperative at times.)
I've generally found that the only issues came when posting on TL.net (mainly comments about my appearance being ugly from a minority of immature posters. Which are nicely balanced out by those who praise my voice and work), and dealing with non-Korean esports journalists/players during international events. TBH, most of the people I worked with during those events (such as Estars in Seoul and Intel Extreme Masters) were polite, kind and hard-working. I did however, encounter a rather egocentric type who did the following;
~ Patronize my work.
~ Constantly go on about the gorgeous/easiness of the 'booth girls' and other promotional staff. (I actually love shooting these ladies, but I think it's unprofessional to keep mentioning how much you want to bang them whilst people are supposed to be working.)
~ Ignore or otherwise act impolitely around me to impress the attractive ladies.
This can be said of pretty much anywhere though. I highly doubt that if I'd involved myself in other aspects of sporting journalism I *wouldn't* have encountered the same type of person.
I genuinely think that being attractive might have opened more doors for me during my time working in eSports. However, I don't believe it is better to be known for how pretty you are than to be appreciated for your dedication, hard-work and skills. I actually feel equally as sorry for any women who receive negative remarks about their looks in an eSports related environment *and* those who are considered attractive, but are not also lauded for their work.
In relation to hosting I think finding a balance is the key to introducing female hosts. Susie, is imo a good example of this - an intelligent lady who did her best to bring developing knowledge (and personality) to her co-caster role, but who also fulfils the need for an attractive female presence to lure in the mainly male demographic of eSports fans (Haha, Susie if you find this I'm bigging you up here.)
Things do seem to be changing gradually, and it's interesting to see all the various opinions floating around out there. I'm not actively involved in eSports any longer, but I'd like to think that other women won't see it as a daunting male-centric fandom into which they won't be welcomed. That's definitely a misconception. Despite my run-ins with certain members of TL.net in the past, the majority of posters and fans whom I've met in person were lovely :D I feel this is the best post so far in the thread.
Maybe the only post worth reading.
--
I think it would be best if we stopped making assumptions, and just deal with actual issues as they arise - and Lauren Elise has caused no issues, and several Starcraft fans have stated that she was great at the NASL.
It's completely okay to discuss gender roles and their relation to Starcraft, but I feel like the OP makes this thread more fitting for a blog than for the general discussion. And I think the insults are getting out of hand
|
On July 20 2012 14:17 ZeaLL wrote:
I was at NASL, spoke to Lauren and observed her over the weekend at the event. You honestly can't help but stare at her she was gorgeous.
She plays Starcraft, she would regularly come sit by us and watch the game, talk to the fans, and ask questions. Her and clutch were mega approachable and honestly if you saw the atmosphere around her, people were lining up to take pictures with her.
How awesome is it that a playboy model was at a starcraft event?! I was totally revved and not the only one. And to boot she was cool and liked the game. She really got into the games.
Anything else in this thread is just stupidity. Are we gonna ban people's girlfriends as well? Because they dont know enough about the game. I saw several women over the weekend complaining about how boring this was and their bfs dragged them. Hell the NASL security guard thot this was the stupidest thing he'd ever seen.
Lauren actually appreciated the games and the fans, she was awesome about the whole thing and not a stuck up bitch. This article is embarassing to the community and OP is brainless for essentially calling Lauren "vapid and eye candy" when you are being a hypocrite you don't know two things about her. She was awesome I'd pay extra to see her at future events.
Well, that may all be true.
I was not there and only watched the stream. And if I combine this with this threads title, the "presentation" of Lauren was really just "eye candy"! She was standing besides the other host and handed out USB-Sticks and whatever. Maybe I missed it, but did she say anything at all besides maybe "Who wants this <advertisement product>"?
I don't have a problem with a beautiful woman as host; I even don't care if she knows the game or not. But please let the girl do something useful!
i.e. I remember visiting a trade fair. There was a company that were selling shutter gates. They had a "performance" where a fork truck was crushing into one of their gates (and it didn't break and so on). It was presented by a really gorgeous woman, that explained how good the gates are and so on. Yes, she probably got more photos of herself then the actual gate they were selling. I don't care if she did this because she "felt" something about the product or just because she was paid for it. But she was doing something besides standing around and showing her body: She was actually more then just "eye candy".
And like I said: Maybe I missed it, but all I saw from Lauren was standing around smiling and walking with swiveling hips! THIS is NOT what I want a woman to be presented! And this is me talking, that always tells his (female) dancing partners, that in dancing the man leads and the woman has to look good 
|
On July 20 2012 04:33 Cirqueenflex wrote:
seriously, i'm getting sick of how "ESPORTS" is more and more turning into a religion. Not only with witch hunts, blind and unreasonable behaviour "to not hurt ESPORTS", "to help ESPORTS" and other ridiculous stuff (as if you could hurt ESPORTS, when SC2 is only a really small part of a much richer scene than you could imagine), but also with bashing people. Be it because they are not clearly as fanatic (no pun intended) or involved as you wish them to be, be it because you don't like their opinion, be it because they are only in diamond league and dare to say anything on the strategy forums. Every day people get mistreated because of those reasons, and speaking long term they "hurt ESPORTS" way more than someone not turning off their Ad-Block on TL.
Sure tournament hosts are somewhat representive of the sport when someone really watches SC2 for the first time on that event, but even so, i do honestly believe the girl did a pretty good job considering she had no clue whatsoever beforehand. She did deliver overall hosting, and she did well, and she never needed to give you pseudo-insight or wrong analysis, as many casters jump the gun trying to bring you the full truth when they can't even fully see the picture themselves.
And by bitching not only about her being only there to host, but also on the representation of females in SC2, you alienate not-SC2-involved-people even more. Good job on that.
This discussion isn't even closely related to this. Please think and read over your words before hitting that post button again please. No one forces you to act right, or forces you to watch events "to not hurt ESPORTS". You can do what you want, you don't even have to like eSports, that's fine with me. In all honesty you sound like a mad kid trying to justify using Adblock.
(as if you could hurt ESPORTS, when SC2 is only a really small part of a much richer scene than you could imagine)
No. You are simply ignorant or uninformed if you think SC2 is a really small part of eSports. Check the prize money and the number of professional players in the Starcraft scene, and then compare it to any other game. I'm not saying that Starcraft is the only eSport game or even a dominate game, but it definitely has a leg up over the others in terms of infrastructure and money, this is just plain fact.
|
Question to OP: if you care about starcraft, how come your first post on TL is not about starcraft, but some sort of non-existant gender drama? Use your own logic by example, if you want some credibility.
|
I have to be honest, this thread seems like a waste of breath. This pretty much should have been put in any number of similarly done threads previously (as i know ive seen multiple threads on things like this - scarlette for example had alot of conversations popping up about stuff like this)
|
On July 20 2012 18:21 NightOfTheDead wrote:
Question to OP: if you care about starcraft, how come your first post on TL is not about starcraft, but some sort of non-existant gender drama? Use your own logic by example, if you want some credibility.
I welcome this discussion. While this might not be about something IN the game, it's still very much about the community surrounding starcraft. The gender issue being non-existant depends entirely on what viewpoint you have about it; you're either fine by this and so it's not an issue, or you find it to be a problem, and it becomes an issue.
|
On the one hand, no this isn't the biggest deal in the world, and it's ok boys, liking starcraft is ok, settle down. On the other hand, we are building an industry and community here, and we have the choice about how we want that community to treat half of the population. The message that is being sent right now is that women only exist as sexual objects to ogle between games. Meanwhile, men are not held to a high standard of knowledge or expertise, but are also not required to be particularly attractive. For men, personality matters, for women, it's only appearance. Yes, the world of gaming is dominated by men right now, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make an effort to make the scene more amenable to those who don't fit into certain narrow stereotypes of the gamer: white (or asian) male heterosexual middle class, etc.
|
What's the problem with having eye-candy?
we are boys and we(most of us) like girls..
we also like to watch starcraft, what if starcraft would have girls? hmm pretty good right?
Nasl had casters, players and personalities all of them boys.. besides scarlet, Lauren Elise and Soe..
So that makes 3 girls for 100 boys(more or less)?
Isn't it good enought? :D
|
I think the problem is not how we present girls, but much more how we see them. Once we'll accept the fact that they are a person like anyone else, they won't perhaps need special attention to the specificity of their sex. They need to present themselves differently, because they are treated differently. Of course, some of them abuse this mechanic in the sense that they take advantage of the attention that such a male-dominated (in population numbers) environment represents. But it's in our behavior that we can prevent that.
If we can look past the gender in our relation to the person, they won't need to consider the gender in any of their interactions with the scene. I know it's easier said than done, but we've gotta try.
|
thanks for this post. I feel the same.
|
I see no harm here, because I don't think that her job as the host requires her to have a significant amount of knowledge going into it. A woman, either hot or not, doing interviews for sports channels is one of the most common things there are, and It's a business tactic to get more viewers. That's something I like VERY much. If she was up in the casting booth however, and was directly interfering with how I enjoy the game, then I'd be up in arms protesting NASL. So I really think that you're making a bigger deal about this than it really is. If you don't believe me, watch a commercial, and see how few regular, unattractive people, male or female, there are.
TLDR; Not a big deal, it's not like she's casting, everyone hires a pair of boobs to push their product/show/thingy
|
On July 21 2012 03:30 BaconofWar wrote:
I see no harm here, because I don't think that her job as the host requires her to have a significant amount of knowledge going into it. A woman, either hot or not, doing interviews for sports channels is one of the most common things there are, and It's a business tactic to get more viewers. That's something I like VERY much. If she was up in the casting booth however, and was directly interfering with how I enjoy the game, then I'd be up in arms protesting NASL. So I really think that you're making a bigger deal about this than it really is. If you don't believe me, watch a commercial, and see how few regular, unattractive people, male or female, there are.
TLDR; Not a big deal, it's not like she's casting, everyone hires a pair of boobs to push their product/show/thingy
I like how you take something that is a bad thing, namely the objectification of women and say it is no big deal.
It is debatable wether SC2 can be expected to be ahead of the curve in that regard, but refering to women as "a pair of boobs" shows rather nicely the actual problem. Hint: It is you!
|
ive been curious about Scarlett, will she be able to compete in these female only events when shes already good enough to beat Koreans and beating Huk like he was nothing?
Really curious to where she stands from community point of view
|
wow i cant believe theres a thread like this, but this is the first time ive seen it and havent read through any of the posts so sorry if this is pointless or already been said.
I still think the whole females into the sc2 community is a tough point - even with scarlets recent success. I remember when that woman was hired for the first NASL event. And putting it nicely, she was awful. She literally knew nothing about the game. The likes of anna prosser or rachel might not actually be pro gamers like scarlet but at least they know the races and what goes on in the game. And yet because she was attractive people on this forum were getting really really excited about how much she was gonna do for the community. And the nonsense she spewed out about what race she was gonna pick and she couldnt wait to start playing - and yet where is she now? I got like 3 warnings and a temp ban when that kicked off as people were acting as if she was gonna change the scene or something. Someone people correct me if im wrong - i play too much D3 and xbox i dont keep up with the scene anymore - has she been involved in the last 6 months? infact has she done anything since she did that first NASL?
What im saying is that its too hard to introduce females into the SC2 scene atm. They either get FAR too much attention if they're good looking - like to NASL woman (i genuinely have forgotten her name, wanna say lisa?) - or if they're not that good looking - which the stereotype is for female gamers i think - they wont feel confident enough to do anything public like stream or go to a tournament as there are too many immature people in the community which would just have to have a dig or say something not at all needed.
Having female gamers is absolutely fine - but there are too many people that wouldnt be able to stop them self from being a dick to them
As far as casting goes, it shouldnt matter weather they're male/female/animal/alien or anything else, as long as they know what they're talking about
plus i think females would generally have more composure and wouldnt just be mindlessley screaming like wolf/khlador do
|
On July 21 2012 03:45 Haustka wrote:
ive been curious about Scarlett, will she be able to compete in these female only events when shes already good enough to beat Koreans and beating Huk like he was nothing?
Really curious to where she stands from community point of view
I hope that Scarlett has better things to do with her time than compete in female only tournaments, although it would force the organizers to reconsider their legitimacy...
|
Those females only tournament are a joke anyway. If they were serious about it, they would ask participants their driver's licence or any identity card with your gender on it to avoid any weird thing from happening (exactly like they do in female only poker tournaments or any other sports). And so Scarlet would not be eligible for these tournaments.
|
As long as the audience is 99% men (a number I consider accurate and not exaggerated) this will always be an "issue". That is if you consider it an issue really. Having a beautiful hostess is nothing bad or demeaning to women, even if she happens to be a playboy model. The issue comes from choosing someone who doesn't know anything about the event she's hosting, which I assume NASL did. I can't imagine Lauren Elise had any knowledge of Starcraft or its community before being contacted by NASL, which is pretty bad considering they did have Soe there who is a woman, a pretty one at that who KNOWS what the hell she's talking about. If they really needed a female host, which they didn't, why didn't Soe cover that?
I'm not tuning in to NASL (or any other esports event for that matter) to see a playboy bunny and the fact NASL thinks they need that offends me. She wasn't a competent host as far as I could see, we all know she was there because she is a pretty girl us nerds can drool over. I'd rather have Incontrol, Day9, or any other funny community figure as a host over a random pretty girl any day. When a genuinely charismatic female personality arises in the community, have her do it if you think you need it.
|
I only encountered one girl gamer on ladder once but I would welcome the idea of having more female gamers in SC2 community.
One of the better things is that female gamers rage allot less than male gamers do and they also should be much better multitaskers than men are so there is no reason they shouldnt own.
Its just that when I look at some of the female SC2 gamers on TL streamlist I just notice they arent as "passionate" about the game as there male counterparts. They just play for fun and lack the agressiveness of male players which is probably a reason why we dont see allot of women playing SC2.
So I guess this game needs more pink colors lol
|
On July 18 2012 08:14 Vildhjerta wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2012 08:11 MetalPanda wrote:
I honestly see nothing wrong with eye candy for a job as minimal as she had to do. They think they help their product by hiring her, and maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but in the end no one is hurt and there's no reason to complain about it. The way I see it, and also the perspective I wrote from, is that everyone actually is hurt by this. So I feel like there IS reasons to complain. What I mentioned was among other things that it makes it more difficult to take other women seriously.
why do you not take those women seriously though?
i think it's a kind of sexism to think of the "eye candy" as someone else put it as anything other than a thinking individual completely deserving of respect. just cause a girl is pretty doesn't mean that she can't be taken seriously... or that your perception of her specifically should have anything to do with your perception of other girls. that would be like me saying that since one girl is an airhead, i can't take women seriously... which is wrong cause one girl is not another girl. its like, just cause some dude is a jerk doesn't mean random girl from another state is also a jerk, so why if one girl is pretty or "eye candy" then why does she reflect on other girls in your opinion? what does she have to do with other girls?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
