Excluding Women From E-Sports Does Not Legitimize It

[Voulan]

Are you happy now whiners? Now women get to compete with the men, meanwhile the men cannot compete in the women's events. Yay equality.

You mean the women's events that get created in response to events that are automatically made to be male-only because being a male-only competition is considered more legitimate because women are considered inferior in competitions for some unfathomable reason so they need to create their own just to get the chance to compete in the same competition that has no gendered difference whatsoever?

I'm just going to assume you're the only person upset by this.

That's quite the run-on sentence. It's kind of hard to parse.

One of many ways in which "e-sports" are different from the real thing is that there's little barrier between a "top-tier" player and someone just getting started. David Beckham isn't about to come out on the field and play soccer at a local playground or college, but there's relatively little in most games to prevent someone from playing with or against someone "tournament level" outside of an organized tournament on the Internet.

In short, there aren't the same barriers to achieving "tournament level" play- or receiving tournament-level guidance- that there are in "real" sports for not directly and immediately playing in tournaments, with professional-level colleagues and coaching immediately on hand. Watching Martina Navratilova play tennis isn't going to make one a significantly better tennis player, no matter how closely one scrutinizes her game; watching a top player play Starcraft just might.

All this is leading up to saying that I can feel some sympathy with those who feel allowing female-only tournaments but not male-only tournaments is a double standard- it is, and presuming it's justified because of sexism is rather a lame argument. If and when male-only tournaments are no longer acceptable, the same should be true of female-only ones. It's just not reasonable to assume that women "need a protected space" while men do not, or that because some men behave badly all should be punished be exclusion. You don't create equality by nurturing double-standards. When there's bad behavior- harassment, discrimination- by all means, root it out by enforcing fair and universal rules. But there isn't some sort of weight of debt that means anyone should be obliged to play "catch up" until some mythical impartial third party decides that the situation has achieved parity.

Declaring that women have to be protected because men will always behave badly is sexist- and neither men nor women should accept such a stance out of hand, whether it's a man or a woman who states it.

I made that a run-on comment because I wanted to illustrate how ridiculous I thought the criticism was.

You misunderstand what I was debating against. In this situation, the event was only ever designed to be male-only, so the response that this was a bad thing because women get their own events free of scrutiny wasn't the situation at all in this context. If it was the other way around it would be important to highlight. Basically they complained over nothing.

 

[verdant monkai]

Separating men and women is segregating men just as much as it is women. Get over yourselves.
Its not sexist. Women are still allowed to play they just need to play with other women.

Its stupid yes, but its not targeting women.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I hope they never exclude women from E-Sports. Just because you're born without a dick doesn't make you any lesser of a human being, regardless of societal and cultural norms.

And if they did that...

Spoiler: Then things like this will cease to exist

 

[MaximumTheHormone]

The chess solution seems like a pointless money sink honestly.
Those who are interested in the sport don't care about this side league and those women who take the sport seriously forgo it.
The league sticks out like a white elephant as no-one really takes it seriously and its sole purpose is as a 'safe place'.


This solution by the IeSF is also massively flawed.
permanent segregation is now cutting off the potential female games for matching against the current gold standard.
The overwhelming majority of the best players at the moment are males, and this will only get even more slanted under this model as the male up and comers match wits with the best, learning and developing in an elite environment while female up and comers will have, at best, mediocre or passable competition.

Maybe instead of permanent segregation have one single tournament dedicated to women in e-sports.
it dosen't need to even be female exclusive, just female focused and positive
Promote the hell out of female stars and talent and provide some decent role models and female stars.
It'd also help if the gaming press didn't harp on like a bunch of seals every time people try and act positively on the issue of womens representation.
The more exaggerated and inflammatory these pieces get the less interested gamers will take sites like the escapist seriously.
And they also hurt their main goal of getting more women in games by painting an image of a big scary monster at the door even before they come in, sometimes regardless of whether that scary monster actually existed or not.

 

[LoneWolf83]

I can't think of a nicer way to put this than, don't be naive. You put a few women on a rugby pitch with full grown men they are going to get hurt, badly. They are not as strong or as fast in general it is a biological fact.

That is demonstrably false. There are wemen physically as strong as men, there are wemen who are physically as strong as some top tear athletes. To say no woman can physically compete with a man (which is what your saying is false. The reason you never see these wemen is because they don't have the opportunities that men do they are kept out of sports thanks to stupid ides but in places they are not kept out (bouncing, movers, fire fighters, police, etc) there are wemen who proves them selves and are as strong asthe men.

Also it will fuck the pace of the game as men might be hesitant to go full contact with them, or the opposite target them on purpose because they are weaker.

Then they will loose and rightfuly so.

Even in olympic events men scores are way higher for events as they are bigger and stronger. You show me one female weightlifter who has a chance of placing in the top 10 with men?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/the-strongest-woman-in-america-lives-in-poverty

Like would you think it is a good idea to let a woman fight a man in MMA or boxing? She is at a huge disadvantage even if they are the same weight and then there are basically no women to fight heavy weights. Most men would want to fight a woman, I wouldnt.

There are women who are on par with MMA fighters and can fight them! The only reason you don't see them is because of stupid ideas that come from times when people thought crazy people were possessed by demons, that bleeding would cure diseases, and that storms and earthquakes were the will of God or the gods. And there's the thing; all I've advocated is equal opportunity. If they can do it, let them, if they are physically strong enough and want to do it, then let them, even if the vast majority of wemen can't, let the minority than that can, and want to do.

 

[Eri]

I can't think of a nicer way to put this than, don't be naive. You put a few women on a rugby pitch with full grown men they are going to get hurt, badly. They are not as strong or as fast in general it is a biological fact.

That is demonstrably false.

No. It is demonstrably true. In fact...

It was the 1998 Australian Open and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, had seen some of the male players practising. On the basis of what they saw, they were convinced that they could beat a man ranked around 200 in the world and wanted to set up a game. At the time I was ranked 203 so the men's tour manager mentioned the possibility of a challenge to me, thinking that I was the perfect candidate. I didn't take much persuading, it seemed like a fun thing to do.

...

Apparently, after the game, Serena and Venus immediately told the press they wanted to challenge a male player again. This time they revised the ranking of the man they wanted to face, to 350 in the world. I informed the journalist who told me this that in the next week I was set to lose a lot of ATP points and drop down to 350 in the rankings. I told him that if Venus and Serena waited just one week they could challenge me all over again!

http://observer.theguardian.com/osm/story/0,,543962,00.html

The best female tennis players in the world couldn't even beat a man not even in the top 200. This also applies to all sports. There's a reason that the matches are separate.

 

[Lieju]

Separating men and women is segregating men just as much as it is women. Get over yourselves.
Its not sexist. Women are still allowed to play they just need to play with other women.

Its stupid yes, but its not targeting women.

That is inherently an admission that these women who are attending the Finnish tournament don't want to compete in the actual tournament. only WOMEN can have their safe spaces. I have one thing to say to these kind of people, who want special rules when they enter a tournament like say...only wanting to compete with their own sex.

Leave the competition.
Go home.
And let someone else take your place, who is there to compete fairly.

Do men need their safe spaces, though? Are men taking part in these tournaments likely to be harassed for being male? Belittled? Assumed they're not competitors? That they only take part to impress boys? That they're trying to hijack the sport? That they're only succeeding because of their looks?

Ideally, there would be no need for 'safe spaces' for anyone. But is it fair then that women will have harder time simply for being women in the first place?

 

[Something Amyss]

The best female tennis players in the world couldn't even beat a man not even in the top 200. This also applies to all sports. There's a reason that the matches are separate.

I'm lost on how that proves women are going to get hurt, "badly." Were Venus and Serena injured?

 

[Artaneius]

I'm sorry but if woman want to be treated like "equals" in e-sports aka competitive gaming, then maybe they should tell their fellow woman to stop playing fb flash games and play real games. Your only making yourself look like a tool, whining about woman rights in gaming if the majority of woman are still playing the games that people are condemning them for in the first place.

You can't have it both ways. If you want respect in gaming especially in competitive gaming where winning is everything. actually have the majority of woman play the games that make you earn that respect. Not fb or mobile flash games that honestly are seen as an cancer to the gaming community in general. I'm sure I struck a nerve with this post, but honestly enough is enough. You don't deserve respect until you earn that respect. You don't get respect because your a human being, you get respect because you worked for it. Competitive gaming has always been a dog eat dog society and that's never going to change. Either you get good, or stfu and be casual and treated like dirt.

Lately escapist forums that used to be about gaming has now mostly become another Woman's Suffrage forum. Being treated like equals means being treated the exact same. Meaning you suffer the same consequences for your actions. Example, a woman hits a man, so the man hits the woman. I might as well as go to 4chan or reddit for gaming needs anymore.

Respect is earned in competitive gaming communities not given. Your dirt underneath everyone's feet until you prove yourself a capable player and that includes having a thick skin and dealing with bs.

 

[Lieju]

Separating men and women is segregating men just as much as it is women. Get over yourselves.
Its not sexist. Women are still allowed to play they just need to play with other women.

Its stupid yes, but its not targeting women.

That is inherently an admission that these women who are attending the Finnish tournament don't want to compete in the actual tournament. only WOMEN can have their safe spaces. I have one thing to say to these kind of people, who want special rules when they enter a tournament like say...only wanting to compete with their own sex.

Leave the competition.
Go home.
And let someone else take your place, who is there to compete fairly.

Do men need their safe spaces, though? Are men taking part in these tournaments likely to be harassed for being male? Belittled? Assumed they're not competitors? That they only take part to impress boys? That they're trying to hijack the sport? That they're only succeeding because of their looks?

Ideally, there would be no need for 'safe spaces' for anyone. But is it fair then that women will have harder time simply for being women in the first place?

If women desire equality AND safe places then they need to expect men can have "safe spaces" themselves. Anything else isn't equality.

The mixed-gender tournaments are already safe spaces for men. (Or are you claiming they aren't?)
Treating everyone the same if they don't start from the same place isn't just, and it's not equality.

I'll try to explain this with an example that doesn't include gender politics.
My best friend was born blind. So in order for him to do many things other kids in school took for granted, he needed extra equipment. Those special typewriters that you use to write in Braille are very expensive, for example. And he needed different schoolbooks, and assistance etc.
All of which I didn't need, for example.

So was it 'unfair' then, and 'not equality' that he was assisted and provided those kinds of things by the social security?

If I wanted a Braille typewriter, I had to buy one with my own money!

snip

#notallwomen