The raging debate of women in esports
Lately, the gaming scene has been exploding with drama over the existence of a 500k ESL CS:GO tournament. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be willing to discuss this- it’s the same right wing, exclusionary dog whistle arguments that were brought up when people suggested that colleges offer people of color larger scholarships to incentivize proportional participation in higher education. Their arguments are based entirely on strawmans and invented misandry, and I just do not have the time to get treated for the number of blood vessels that would explode in my brain if I did read a single tweet by Thorin in the last week.
Instead, I want to focus on one of the most eloquent testimonies out of the female professional gaming scene, from @Leveretti on twitter. A former Overwatch Contenders player, her voice was among the loudest calling out the absurd ignorance required to criticize women only leagues in esports.
Her thread chronicles her experiences being shut out, harassed, and denied opportunities purely because her male colleagues couldn’t behave around her. She was denied entrance onto teams she was overqualified for because the presence of a woman threatened to ruin the team environment, as testosterone tripped over itself to kneel at her feet, or something. Prominent coaches and leaders in the scene (e.g. this tweet from @veteranEU) have confirmed that gender mixing in professional teams is avoided at all costs, rather than dealing with the toxic gamer culture that causes the discomfort.
She talks about how other amateur teams would talk about wanting to “fuck her together” while stalking her social media while casually being sexist in game. In fact, this kind of behavior has even been long called out by Thorin in the CS:GO scene, where near mandatory voice chat (like OW), and an aging, notoriously vile player base meant that sexual harassment basically came with the territory. Why would women try to push for pro play, or even stick with a game, when the boy’s culture across games constantly insults them?
Even if you ignore that the female player bases for video games are consistently degraded for entertainment, dissuaded from higher play toxic ranked environments, and denied opportunities for professional experience, it’s undeniable that less women play video games, and fixing that would bolster the competitive scene. There is no scientific proof that women are worse at games, just like there is no indication that women are worse at chess, just like it is insane to believe that women’s uteruses would fly out of their bodies in the earliest steam locomotives.
The chess example is actually currently relevant- the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships are taking place at the moment, featuring an Open section and a Women’s section. The Open rarely sees any highly rated female players, as they are more consistently able to earn by playing for the prize money in the gender locked section. The system is designed to make chess a livable career for top ranked women now, and to encourage young women to pursue the game professionally.
All I’ll say is, I saw almost no discourse on the VALORANT Game Changers tournaments held to promote female teams and help demonstrate the talents of individual players while adding legitimacy to the scene. Outside of the few Ben Shapiro enjoyers who did try to throw a fit over it, the overwhelming support from Rioters, top VALORANT pros, and community figureheads meant the event went off without a hitch.
Suddenly, with the ESL tournament, the narrative has shifted to the 500k prize pool of the tournament. Suddenly, it’s become all about the opportunities this is taking away from male players. Suddenly, when the female scene starts to get focus from the resources the incumbent players feel they deserve, it’s a very important issue that’s insulting to the true skill of men in gaming.
At the end of the day, more women playing games is better for everyone- it’s just straight up more players (for a more profitable game), and more pros (for a more competitive scene). The next Magnus Carlsen could be a young girl from rural India, where chess may be seen as a masculine, locked sport that a woman couldn’t pursue. The next Faker could be a girl from LA that tried to go pro after years of solo queue and was denied a spot on a team that didn’t want to ruin morale. There’s no reason we shouldn’t pursue opening up who games appeal to, because if esports is as big as it is with its most prominent games being 80% men, imagine how big it would be if that 20% started to grow in number.
