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Draft:Women in Esports

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  • Comment: You've put in a lot of work into this article and it's a great start! Make sure you write in an encyclopedic tone and have references to support all the claims you've made. For example you mentioned that "Women players who encounter gender stereotypes would experience stereotype threat when participating in competitive Esports." but didn't provide a source for it. Dr vulpes (Talk) 22:31, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Women have participated competitively in Esports since the establishment of professional leagues.[1][2] While there are no rules preventing the formation of mixed gender teams,[3] the representation of women and marginalised gender remain small in mainstream competitive leagues.[4] It is estimated that out of the 35% women playing professionally in competitive Esports, only 6% are players in major leagues.[5][6][7] This is in contrast to the high viewership that women contribute to competitive Esports.[7][8] In recent years, Esports companies have begun creating competitive leagues for women and marginalised genders only, like Valorant Game Changers, but these leagues remain separated from the main competitive leagues.[9]

Gaming has long been seen as a male-dominated hobby.[10][11] However, research from the Pew Research Center found that 48% of American gamers are female.[3] There are now a number of professional esports leagues and tournaments that feature female gamers.[12][5]

Challenges faced by women competitive players

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Hostility in competitive environment

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The hostility within the competitive Esports community can be described as an act of 'gender-zoning', which is the creation of games or communities that are toxic and unwelcoming to women.[4][13] In competitive Esports, gender-zoning occurs when some teams prevent women teams from receiving proper practice by refusing scrimmages with them.[14] This limits participation for women in competitive Esports due to lack of training, and further isolates them from the industry.[4][5]

Unlike sports where physical attributes between men and women are directly linked to skills disparity, men and women in Esports are not affected by physical differences.[3][8][15] However, the skills of women competitive players continue to come under question.[16] Women in the competitive Esports scene are often given the 'support' role, which are deemed easier in terms of mechanical skills.[7][17][18] Across various games, the 'support' characters are primarily tasked to heal their teammates or provide assistance with their abilities.[19][20] There has been an association with support roles as a women-only position,[20][21] which hinges on the idea of women having lower skills than men in Esports.[7][18] In League of Legends Continental League (LCL), Vaevictis Esports filled the first women-only team in a competitive league.[22][23] During the ban phase of a match, their opponent team, RoX, banned 5 'support' champions, which was not the usual strategy used by RoX against other opponents.[22][24] The team received a punishment from the organiser, citing poor sportsmanship and disrespectful behaviour towards Vaevictis Esports.[22][24]

Some competitive players hold perceptions that women are less skilled and have inferior techniques or skills compared to men.[25][26] Consequently, women competitive players face more scrutiny if they are playing at the most competitive level.[27][28] Kim "Geguri" Se-yeon is a South Korean professional Overwatch player who has represented an established organisation, Shanghai Dragons, in competitive Overwatch League.[29][30] She is currently the only woman who has played at the highest level of competitive Overwatch.[18] Many had doubted her mechanical talent in the game, claiming that she was using game cheats to win.[31] The allegations were proven to be false after she hosted a livestream with a camera positioned at her hands to show that she was winning with pure mechanical skills.[31][32]

Limited competitions and organisational support

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Representation of women in esports has always been low despite the large number of women who play video games.[33] Some women players state that such competitions provide a platform for women to display their skills in games and draw interests from potential Esports organisations to contract them for salaried work.[14] While women expressed greater comfortability in competing through women's league, the number of women-only competitions are fewer in comparison to major league competitions.[14] In some cases, invitational-only competitions restrict women competitors by not allowing mixed gender teams and do not extend their invites to women competitive players. At the Finnish qualifiers for Hearthstone International Esports Federation World Championship 2014, the organisers did not allow women to sign up for the qualifiers, as they intended to separate women from men's league to create inclusivity.[34]

Currently, women-only competitions across different Esports games have been successful in promoting a space for women Esports players.[10] Various competitions like Valkyrie Challenge for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Zowie Divina Female Esports tournament in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds encourage more participation in Esports.[35] The establishment of the Women's Esports League in Europe for League of Legends provided a neutral environment for women to compete in.[35] Nonetheless, these competitions are only short-term, and the industry expectation for Esports remains to be for women to compete along with men in the same competitions.[35]

Gender stereotypes and expectations

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Gender stereotypes are reinforced on women in Esports with gaming and having an Esports career with being more masculine.[4][36] These stereotypes are exemplified in Esports, as women players are harassed in games for playing and competing.[5][7][37] Women face more gender-based discrimination in games,[38][39] receiving unrelated remarks on their looks or sexual appeal.[18][40][41] On average, women players are subjected to sexual remarks 1.82 times more than men.[15] Women competitive players are often relegated to their gender, and play under stereotypical judgement. Saxo, a women World of Warcraft player, was the only woman in a team called "Exalant".[36] At an event, while other team members were introduced as their positions in the game, Saxo was introduced to be the 'girl' on the team.[36] The constant gender stereotypes negatively affect women's experience in Esports.[39]

References

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  1. ^ Paaßen, Benjamin; Morgenroth, Thekla; Stratemeyer, Michelle (2017). "What is a True Gamer? The Male Gamer Stereotype and the Marginalization of Women in Video Game Culture". Sex Roles. 76 (7–8): 421–435. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0678-y. ISSN 0360-0025.
  2. ^ Salamat, Neda (2016-06-30). "Women in esports compete alongside men in SKYLLA". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  3. ^ a b c Kane, Daniel (2017). "Recognizing Esports as a Sport". The Sport Journal. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  4. ^ a b c d Darvin, Lindsey; Holden, John; Wells, Janelle; Baker, Thomas (2021-05-27). "Breaking the glass monitor: examining the underrepresentation of women in esports environments". Sport Management Review. 24 (3): 475–499. doi:10.1080/14413523.2021.1891746. ISSN 1441-3523.
  5. ^ a b c d Holden, John; Edelman, Marc; Baker, Thomas (2020-04-05). "A Short Treatise on ESports and the Law". Illinois Law Review. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  6. ^ Tang, Tang; Cooper, Roger; Kucek, Jake (2021-05-27). "Gendered Esports: Predicting Why Men and Women Play and Watch Esports Games". Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 65 (3): 336–356. doi:10.1080/08838151.2021.1958815. ISSN 0883-8151.
  7. ^ a b c d e Le-Anh, Vo (2022). Women in Esport: Exploring the overt and subtle barriers of women in Esports (Masters thesis) (in French). Retrieved 2024-09-29.
  8. ^ a b Nolla, Kyle; Beeman, Mark; Reber, Paul; Eagly, Alice (2023-05-11). "Novice Women Players Have Better Outcomes in Women-Only Versus Mixed-Gender Esports Tournaments". Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports. 1 (1). doi:10.1123/jege.2022-0032.
  9. ^ Jenny, Seth E.; Besombes, Nicolas; Brock, Tom; Cote, Amanda C.; Scholz, Tobias M. (2024-08-12). Routledge Handbook of Esports (1 ed.). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003410591. ISBN 978-1-003-41059-1.
  10. ^ a b Schmidt, Gregory (2016-12-26). "E-sports trying to get better at attracting women to "the team"". The Buffalo News. Buffalo, New York, United States of America. New York Times. p. 25. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  11. ^ Chess, Shira (2017-10-01). Ready Player Two. University of Minnesota Press. doi:10.5749/minnesota/9781517900694.001.0001. ISBN 978-1-5179-0069-4.
  12. ^ "Gaming and Gender: A Look at the Past, Present, and Future". Adrelien Gaming. 2023-05-16. Archived from the original on 2023-05-16. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  13. ^ Cai, Jenny; Bennett, Lachlan (2024-08-03). "'Oh my God, you can't lose to her': What's stopping women from making it to the top ranks in esports?". ABC News. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  14. ^ a b c Crothers, Heather; Scott-Brown, Kenneth C.; Cunningham, Sheila J. (2024-08-23). "'It's Just Not Safe': Gender-Based Harassment and Toxicity Experiences of Women in Esports". Games and Culture. doi:10.1177/15554120241273358. ISSN 1555-4120.
  15. ^ a b Rogstad, Egil Trasti (2022-07-03). "Gender in eSports research: a literature review". European Journal for Sport and Society. 19 (3): 195–213. doi:10.1080/16138171.2021.1930941. ISSN 1613-8171.
  16. ^ Lopez-Fernandez, Olatz; Williams, A. Jess; Griffiths, Mark D.; Kuss, Daria J. (2019-07-10). "Female Gaming, Gaming Addiction, and the Role of Women Within Gaming Culture: A Narrative Literature Review". Frontiers in Psychiatry. 10: 454. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00454. ISSN 1664-0640. PMC 6635696. PMID 31354536.
  17. ^ Kordyaka, Bastian; Pumplun, Luisa; Brunnhofer, Marlies; Kruse, Bjoern; Laato, Samuli (2023-12-01). "Gender disparities in esports – An explanatory mixed-methods approach". Computers in Human Behavior. 149: 107956. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107956. ISSN 0747-5632.
  18. ^ a b c d Maria, Ruotsalainen; Usva, Friman (2018). ""There Are No Women and They All Play Mercy": Understanding and Explaining (the Lack of) Women's Presence in Esports and Competitive Gaming". Proceedings of Nordic DiGRA 2018. S2CID 208990192.
  19. ^ Hodges, Duncan; Buckley, Oliver (2018). "Deconstructing who you play: Character choice in online gaming". Entertainment Computing. 27: 170–178. doi:10.1016/j.entcom.2018.06.002.
  20. ^ a b Smith, Jennifer (2021-04-01). "Voices, Combat, and Music". Journal of Sound and Music in Games. 2 (2): 42–62. doi:10.1525/jsmg.2021.2.2.42. ISSN 2578-3432.
  21. ^ Austin, Jessica (2022). ""I suppose I'll be patching you up, as usual": Women's roles and normative femininity in a team-based video game". New Media & Society. 24 (5): 1116–1132. doi:10.1177/1461444820972396. ISSN 1461-4448.
  22. ^ a b c Peng, Yun (2021). The role of gender in Chinese esports culture: an empirical research of women's participation in esports in China (PhD thesis). doi:10.5525/GLA.THESIS.82072.
  23. ^ Hung, Justin (2022). "USeSPA? Exploring the Idea of a U.S. Esports Regulatory Authority". Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship and the Law. 15: 283.
  24. ^ a b Sacco, Dom (2019-02-21). "Warnings issued to LCL teams RoX and Vega Squadron for discrimination and unsportsmanlike behaviour towards all-female side Vaevictis - Esports News UK". eSports News. Retrieved 2024-10-01.
  25. ^ Wolf, C, & Krämer, F (2022). Women in Esports : A Qualitative Study on Shared Experiences of Women in the Esports Industry (Thesis). Malmö University. Retrieved 2024-09-29.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ Yusoff, Nur Hafizah; Mohd Yunus, Yuza Haiqal (2021-06-30). "Male Dominant Sport: The Challenges of Esports Female Athletes". Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. 29 (2). doi:10.47836/pjssh.29.2.35. ISSN 2231-8534.
  27. ^ Brown, Bri. "Women in Gaming – The triumphs and struggles women face in the world of gaming". The Daily Iowan. Retrieved 2024-10-01.
  28. ^ Tseng, Yen-Shyang (2019–2020). "The Principles of Esports Engagement: A Universal Code of Conduct?". Journal of Intellectual Property Law. 27: 209.
  29. ^ Ruotsalainen, Maria; Törhönen, Maria; Karhulahti, Veli-Matti, eds. (2022). Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0. ISBN 978-3-030-82766-3.
  30. ^ Castello, Jay (2019-10-22). "Women-only e-sports events are building toward a future where they're unnecessary". The Verge. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  31. ^ a b Cullen, Amanda L. L. (2018-09-03). ""I play to win!": Geguri as a (post)feminist icon in esports". Feminist Media Studies. 18 (5): 948–952. doi:10.1080/14680777.2018.1498112. ISSN 1468-0777.
  32. ^ Alexander, Julia (2016-06-22). "Blizzard clears high-ranking teenage Overwatch player in cheating scandal". Polygon. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  33. ^ Kordyaka, Bastian; Pumplun, Luisa; Brunnhofer, Marlies; Kruse, Bjoern; Laato, Samuli (2023). "Gender disparities in esports – An explanatory mixed-methods approach". Computers in Human Behavior. 149: 107956. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107956.
  34. ^ Tjønndal, Anne, ed. (2023). Social issues in Esports. Routledge research in sport, culture and society. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, N.Y: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-032-19320-5.
  35. ^ a b c N. S., Kruthika (2020-01-01). "Esports and its Reinforcement of Gender Divides". Marquette Sports Law Review. 30 (2): 347.
  36. ^ a b c Witkowski, Emma (2018), Gray, Kishonna L.; Voorhees, Gerald; Vossen, Emma (eds.), "Doing/Undoing Gender with the Girl Gamer in High-Performance Play", Feminism in Play, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 185–203, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90539-6_11, ISBN 978-3-319-90538-9, retrieved 2024-09-29
  37. ^ Li, Roland (2017). Good Luck Have Fun; The Rise of eSports (1st ed.). Skyhorse Publishing. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-5107-2590-4. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  38. ^ Cote, Amanda C. (2017). ""I Can Defend Myself": Women's Strategies for Coping With Harassment While Gaming Online". Games and Culture. 12 (2): 136–155. doi:10.1177/1555412015587603. ISSN 1555-4120.
  39. ^ a b Kim, Jinhee; Lim, Dayoun (2021-06-30). "Exploring on Gender Perception in eSports Gamers". Korean Journal of Sport Science. 32 (2): 217–229. doi:10.24985/kjss. ISSN 1598-2920.
  40. ^ Tang, Wai Yen; Reer, Felix; Quandt, Thorsten (2020). "Investigating sexual harassment in online video games: How personality and context factors are related to toxic sexual behaviors against fellow players". Aggressive Behavior. 46 (1): 127–135. doi:10.1002/ab.21873. ISSN 0096-140X. PMID 31736097.
  41. ^ Kim, Jinhee (2022-04-30). "Perception of Female Gamers in Esports Players'". Research in Dance and Physical Education. 6 (1): 61–74. doi:10.26584/RDPA.2022.04.6.1.61. ISSN 2671-6577.
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