Gaming Tournament: No Women Allowed?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/02/no-women-allowed-at-upcoming-hearthstone-tournament?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Really? Its freaking 2014 and we're still doing this kind of stuff? So what is the bs excuse this time? They can't use the same one they use for real sports so what is it?

Supposedly by only allowing us to play in tournaments specifically designated for female gamers I guess it is somehow going to promote female gaming, Yeah only allowing us to play in lesser tournaments just for us and for lesser prizes will really help a lot..They are basically saying we can't compete with the male players. LOL Did I go back in time to like 2000 or something? Do they not know that many of the best gamers around these days are women?

If these people really don't think that we can compete, I'd love to see them play against me or Envy on an FPS game. We would make them believers really fast. ;O) I'm so freaking tired of seeing this crap.

Damn. This is bad pr for masculine entertainment. At least the digital kind. The hell're these guys doing drawing heat on us? This aint the olympics. Allright HBO. You win. Its not a sport.

LOL.

Wow, that's just dumb..

So you want equal rights huh? Ok, if I am ever in a sinking ship, I want the women to be the last ones out.(save the woman and children? Not anymore, save the men and children first) When dating, women need to pay for everything. When there is war, women need to be on the front lines. Lastly, men can hit women if they hit first, no more overprotecting abusive crappy women just cuz they're females.

If all this happens, then you can join this dumb little tournament that means absolutely nothing.

Hmm, before this debate even needs to begin i wonder is there even any female gamers good enough or even wants to compete in the competition?

LOL Jac.

Such good laughs, I cannot stress how much I appreciate reading your posts. My hats off to you. Thank you.

Not half as much as i enjoy reading yours Anita ;)

But do please justify why anyone should get angry over this if no females even want to compete in the tournament or is good enough.

And remember there is no such thing as positive discrimination so i hope you're not suggesting that this competition should include females who are not qualified to even be there?

You really need me to explain?

You're defending the segregation of genders in a digital card game tournament. Why should anyone get angry over that? Hm...

Do you mind not putting words and meanings into my post? if you are having trouble understanding something ask instead.

But i am not justifying anything at all , i am simply asking you to either proof that an actual female gamer have been denied entry or explain why we need to get angry over a hypothetical situation that clearly isn't real since there is no females gamers good enough or even want to compete in this competition

Also as a private org. they have every right to exclude who ever they see fit, as long as they are not breaking any laws. Exactly like your feminist camps bans men and not just men even Transgendered ecause they are not WBW.

No, Jacanuk just want to keep this debate from becoming sexist toward males. His/Her mind set is coming from treat male and female gamers the same and see what happens.

I don't get what you mean, but, his support of the segregation of genders (circa late 1800's) is the opposite of treating female and male gamers the same. So I assume you're calling him out for that.

By the way, the IeSF changed their policy on female exclusion in all of their Hearthstone tournaments.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/02/no-women-allowed-at-upcoming-hearthstone-tournament

I wonder why you are even on this forum. Again you disregard what is being said and just invent your own meaning. So again stop lying about what i actually wrote.

And the competition will now allow women, great, so do you mind linking to the women who now will go there?

no women would play this crappy game anyways

how in hell can they do this kind of stull? LOL

Wow. This is one of the stupidest things I've seen in awhile. There's absolutely no reason why a "no women" policy should have been made for this. It's good that they reversed it but it still shouldn't have happened in the first place.

There's no defense for it without coming off as a sexist, and I'm not a sexist (at least I don't believe myself to be) so there is no defense.

I don't agree that you cannot defend their practice after all there are hundreds and thousands of examples of female only clubs, camps, tournaments etc. So either its inclusive for both or exclusive unless you are a hypocrite.

saw this posted on the escapist. probably not relevant but interesting

Anonymous Source

Posts: 2

Joined: 3 Jul 2014

I think most have missed the cause of this controversy. The IeSF World Championship is held in Baku - the capital of Azerbaijan, an Islamic country.

Last week I watched a volleyball game held in Iran (Poland VS Iran) and there were 12k MEN in the audience - no women, because they aren't allowed.

If Islam doesn't even allow women to be spectators in sporting events I hardly think they would allow them to compete.

It's simple. It's Heartstone, it's WoW with cards: most of the participants to that tournament have never even seen a woman in the flesh. The presence of one may cause a series of heart attacks in the worst of cases and excessive perspiration in the best of them. It's for safety reasons.

How can you not understand it's the principle? Girls play games competitively. It's like saying let's ban black people from hockey because there aren't that many people with darker skin that play hockey. If you are ok with girls being BANNED from events we are losing progress with our society.

Do you know who Groucho Marx is? if you do you should listen to what he said.

But also no its not like banning blacks or anything racist like that. but let me clarify, Is it ok if a female was turned down and not allowed to compete in this tournament, if she has qualified like everyone else, Not really but at the same time if this competition doesn't break any laws and have a legitimate reason its their right to decide who they want to compete, exactly like a feminist camp exclude men or hooters doesn't want manboobs but womenboobs

As a private business they have no obligation to be inclusive as long as they uphold the current laws in the land. And you as a private citizen have every right to exlude them from your world.. Thats how a free western world works.

Not to mention that this whole thing is hypothetical and getting angry over it would be pointless.

There's still a "no male" policy for the women only tournament by the same organization. Insane right?

No you are wrong there are no such thing as a women only tournament because if there was we would of course have heard the same outrage.

(some sarcasme might have been used in this post)

Policies like this are one of the reasons gamers are seen as a bunch of manchildren.

Right right and what's your opinion about the female-only competition? are that why gamers are seens as blond females?

Indeed.

I agree, but it really is a shame though.

That's a good point.

You don't hear such a fuss when it's women only.

The all-female tournament would be infinitely better if they just paid some hot chicks to play. At least then people might watch or care

No, that's perfectly okay. Much like how only white people can be racist, only men can be sexist. But in all seriousness, the lack of outcry over that really shows that these social justice warrior femnazis don't want equality, they want preferential treatment because they have a vagina. Nothing less.

Yeah, they changed it in less than 24 hours after we organized a massive backlash against them on facebook and twitter. It wasn't a perfect win but it was a win. The downside was that they kept the female-only tournament, which shows that they still don't really understand our objection. I'm not sure that their intentions were bad here. They may really want to promote female gaming but they are going about it all wrong. Having a Starcraft 2 tournament for everyone and then a second Starcraft 2 tournament just for female players kinda implies that most female gamers aren't good enough to compete with the men. That was what our objection was all about and they still don't seem to comprehend it. Well, one win at a time I guess.

The tournament isn't until like October and they just announced this yesterday so how about you give it some time. LOL Also, it doesn't matter if anyone was going to attend this specific tournament, the option to do so should be open. What if some restaurant like Cracker Barrel decided to ban black people from their stores and said it was okay because not many black people went to their restaurant anyway. Does that mean its okay? Your kind of thinking is what leads to a lot of bad things happening.

Maybe if you stop acting like a neckbeard and actually paid attention you would have seen that the majority of us on the IESF's facebook and twitter were complaining about the fact that they kept the all-female tournament.

Here, go look at the tumblr post I made right after I discovered the news and pay close attention to the last paragraph.

http://hailtothequeenbaby.tumblr.com/post/90663404064/we-won

But hey, don't let facts get in the way of your irrational hatred of feminism. LOL By all means, continue with your neckbeardedness.

Question : what is your opinion on female only competition ?

I am not sure why you assume that it matters what you wrote, also who are you? i follow a bit of ESL and i have never heard of you at all. The problem still is that no media outlet at all picked up on the fact that this tournament had a male only and a female only and still have a female only part.

This ESL was made out to be huge sexist pigs who just wanted to ban all women, which certainly isn't the case. Because you know why they have a male and female only? its probably because most real sports, IE not pretend sporting events like this, have a female and male segment.

But congrats on getting females included hopefully you and your fellow feminist will now make sure the media knows that they still have a female only competition.

I think I made that clear in the blog post I linked to above.

I'm not part of that tournament and I don't even play that genre. I'm a competitive FPS gamer. But its not just about ME, I did this on behalf of other female gamers who DO play that type of game. And once again, if you looked at their facebook and twitter you would see that we did point out that they still had the female-only tournament. And I already explained why this is bad for female gamers.

Also, this is NOT a real sport and never will be a real sport so there is no need to divide anyone. Lets be realistic here, if this was a real sport then most gamers wouldn't be playing professionally because most (both male and female) non-athletes do not have the physical ability to play on that level.. LOL This is something that take places entirely in an environment where physical abilities have no relevance to your success. So lets all stop pretending that "E-Sports" is a real sport. And since it is not then there is no rational reason to separate people. The end.

And since you asked me who I am.... Who are YOU? What experience do you have with IESF or the games in question?

First let me point out i am nobody , i dont compete in IESF or any ESL at all, my area is football and cycling, you know real sports. But i also didn´t link to my tumblr and made it out like it was special that it mentioned the girl only part.

But you are absolutely right E-sports is and never will be real sports but that doesn't mean that the officials like IESF and others like tthe LOL community try by renting football stadiums and make pots with huge amounts of cash. because they assume that is what makes a sport.

Anyways back to the real issue here, as you can probably see not one single major media outlet have even touched on the female only and that doesn't just make them look hypocritical but also the feminist movement.

Weird how quickly this subject gets into ad hominem.

Interestingly enough, Quakecon was doing women's only tournaments back in 2002. By 2005 the prize pot for "Ms. Quakecon" as it was called was $30k. I knew both of the players in the finals that year and I can't say they were particularly offended.

Yes, I pointed it out because supposedly none of us were saying anything about the female-only tournament... When in reality that is complete bs.

Also, I wasn't aware that feminists other any other single group controls what the media decided to cover.... LOL So even though female gamers spoke out ourselves against the female-only part of the event, its somehow our fault that the media decided not to cover it? Fascinating logic.

Yes, clearly two female gamers represent ALL female gamers. If those two were okay with it then everyone should be, right?

Yeah, That was a stupid thing of them to do. Good thing they changed their mind because of the feedback.

Hm, browsing through there are some strange claims coming out here...

Physical attributes are irrelevant to success in gaming? Are we removing reflexes and reaction times from that category?

Some of the best gamers are female? Where are they? What tournaments are they winning?

Let me clarify by saying that there's no reason for eSports to be exclusionary, and in fact most of them are not. They should be (and for the most part they are) built around a meritocracy: the best players earn their spot and compete from there. But given the bulk of psychological and physiological evidence surrounding reflexes, we shouldn't be surprised that the field is generally dominated by 18-24 year old males, even as the competition continues to expand and the sample size continues to even out.

Age and gender are believed to be two of the biggest determinants of reflexes and reaction time. Looking at the League community is an interesting case study: professional League players are being replaced on teams as they hit their mid twenties at a startling rate. They continue to play and stream all day every day to bring in income, but they can't catch up to the 18 year old who replaced them. Very, very few professional gamers have been able to retain their ability to compete as they've aged. Doing well on Xbox Live is not a determinant of overall skill. There is no quality of competition there. The best gamers are the ones bringing in the dollars, and those always appear to be young men for now.

If you're one of the best FPS gamers on the planet, enter the tournaments and beat the guys. Prove everybody wrong. So far nobody has done that.

@hailtothequeen: You are actively damaging your own cause with your abrasive and divisive attitude, just like Anita Sarkeesian. Their are people who would otherwise be on board with you who will refuse to lend you their support simply because being associated with you is incredibly unpleasant.

I have no patience for irrational people and since there is no valid reason to separate genders in gaming, that view is entirely irrational. Also, disagreeing with me just because someone doesn't like my "attitude" is pretty irrational as well so I really couldn't care less about those people. Your opinion should be formed based on the issue at hand, not the person who is talking about it. ;O) Some people can't handle the fact that I'm outspoken, blunt and don't water down my words just to be nice and that's fine. I can't say I really care either way. But the issue we're talking about has nothing to do with whether or not you like my personality. Its about everyone having access to the same tournaments. Nothing more and nothing less.

Divisive attitude? Divisive? Lets see, I am on here saying that all people should be allowed to play in the same tournaments and some other people are in this thread actually arguing in support of segregating genders? Who is really being divisive here?

What evidence? Studies? You can have studies "prove" pretty much anything you want and different studies often have conflicting results.. Some studies have shown that men have a slight advantage in general with reflexes, one showed that the advantage has decreased in recent years, one study showed that women have better accuracy, etc... Basically what it comes down to is people trying to make up ways that they can claim superiority (in some way) over another group of people. We have seen this throughout history. This isn't any different then the idiotic studies from decades ago where people tried to "prove" that women weren't as smart as men, black people weren't as smart as whites, etc... Don't waste your time talking to me about this kind of nonsense. I can safely say that if men have better reflexes than me it really hasn't ever showed when I play FPS games with them. ;O) And it isn't just me. Envy and SexxyKate are two of the best snipers I have seen in gaming and have no problems with making the guys look bad. As a CQC Rusher myself, I can say they are a nightmare to play against on games if you try to fight them at a distance. And just on Planetside 2 alone we have a lot of female gamers who are some of the best players on the game.

No, the best gamers are not always those who bring in the dollars. The best gamers are the best gamers, period. One big problem is that you don't necessarily always see the best players at tournaments. You see the players who have the time to go tournaments. When I was a kid Fatal1ty was a great player who stayed at the top for a while but if you ask me if I think he was the best FPS gamer around at the time, I'd tell you to lay off the drugs. I have watched his game-play and I can safely say I have known players who would most likely have beaten him if they played but not everyone has time to go to all of those tournaments.

"If you're one of the best FPS gamers on the planet, enter the tournaments and beat the guys. Prove everybody wrong. So far nobody has done that."

Seriously? You haven't spent any time in the competitive FPS scene in PC gaming during the past several years have you? ;O)

I have spent years proving everyone wrong and I actually have played in tournaments, starting with the old X-Tribes tournament back when I was a kid in the Tribes series and up until my most recent tournament in the Modern Warfare 2 tourney on the MW2tournaments.com site, which was run by two successful e-sports teams, Area 51 and SorryNoobs. Oh and while we are on the topic of MW2, I beat the two best players (Strick3n and PBnJ) from the top clan (Team Elit3) from that tournament in one-on-one duels after the tourney was over during a public feud with them. I also had a 1 vs 4 clutch win against another one of the top teams on the game, Natural Enemies, after my teammates were eliminated. To put things in perspective, they had beaten Area 51 before. I also played in the HGN 1v1 Tournament for MW2 too but narrowly lost in the second round to Zeran, who was one of the other best players on the game. And if I hadn't played on my worst map, I'm pretty sure that could have ended differently.

I have also had a lot of success in countless leagues, ladders, etc... OGL, TWL, MLG's Game Battles, and many, many , many others. Its true that I haven't competed in an official MLG tournament but that is only because they haven't had many PC games that I actually WANTED to compete in on there... Most of the good games seem to go to console tournaments while we get stuck with crap like Starcraft 2. I thought I was finally going to get my chance when SOE announced that Planetside 2 would become an MLG game but that never really happened..... We're still waiting to see it.

Aside from the tournaments, leagues and ladders, I have proven it in countless other ways. Being in the top 5 on almost two dozen leaderboards (and for individual servers too) for a lot of different FPS games, maintaining a really high KDR and a high accuracy, being recruited by many of the top clans, beating most of the top players in one-on-one situations, etc...

My current main game is Planetside 2, where I am arguably the best infantry Rusher on the game. I have held the best single weapon accuracy in the game (slightly over 40% with the Orion and the highest was 41%), I have maintained an insanely high KDR (from 3.7 to 5.35) on ALL of my characters while spending most of my time rushing in CQC and not taking any shortcuts (vehicle farming), which is something about 99% of other players cannot do. I get accused of hacking daily, I have outplayed most of the other top players on the game during my two years on PS2, I have been heavily recruited by many of the top teams (plan to join Outfit X on one of my alts in a few weeks), the list just goes on and on and on... So when you tell me to prove I am one of the best FPS gamers around... Well, I have. LOL

If you think there is someone who can beat me, then by all means, send him or her my way. I'm always up for a challenge. And this isn't just bragging, its a statement of fact. I'm sure this post will break out the angry neckbeards with fragile psyches but oh well.... Deal with it. ;O)

@hailtothequeen: Like Anita, your inflated ego doesn't allow you to recognize that you are actively slowing the progress of your own cause down. You are a lost cause, goodbye.

So you claim to be the best FPS around, care to back that up with some links to leaderboards or stats-sites? because i think most would like to see your stats for real and not just coming from you

They lifted the tournament entry rules straight from official international sports regulations -- the ones used for traditional sports. Their reasoning isn't bad.... They were trying to be viewed as competition at the same level of traditional sports, and the clearest way to do that was to follow their rules.

I think people need to realize that they didn't craft these rules from scratch. If they had, I'm positive that segregating the genders wouldn't have even come up, because it doesn't make sense in this context. This isn't a bunch of sexists and misogynists at work; they were following rules that have been in place for a very long time.

It's good to speak up and get them to rethink the rules, but it isn't very productive to assume that the people in charge of this tournament were actively trying to degrade women.

Here is a hypothetical question and please respond with appropriately:

I have hosting a tournament and there are 40 males and 10 female that want to enter but I only have 10 space open. Who should I let in?

The best 10 no matter what and no "positive" discrimination.