By: Grace Sacoman, W*SS Undergraduate Intern
As I sat down to think of a topic for this week’s zine, a fellow intern of mine suggested I write an article about women in the gaming community (thank you, Dani James!), being an avid gamer girl myself. Not only is Dani a fellow intern, but a life-long friend and roommate of mine who also proudly declares herself a gamer girl. While I know from personal experience how the gaming community can be, I never realized how truly toxic lower level game play is for the mass majority of female gamers. This toxicity, I’ve noticed, can pose as a real barrier for women to succeed in eSports and make a name for themselves as pro-gamers.
In this article I’ll be focusing on FPS (First Person Shooter) games in particular, such as Rainbow Six Siege and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, two of the most popular eSport games (prize pool winnings between R6S and CSGO totalled to $19.77M in 2020) (For context, eSports is a term used for video games played at a highly competitive level around the globe. Tournaments and competitions are typically between multiple countries and are taken very seriously. There are even some colleges that are offering competitive eSports teams, just like MSU offers D1 basketball and football!). While harassment is experienced with other games, the FPS realm is the sub-category I’m most familiar with (being an ammature R6S player myself).
According to research conducted by the Women’s Media Center, “chat room participants with female usernames report receiving threatening or sexually explicit private messages 25 times more often than those with male or ambiguous usernames”. While I personally do not engage in online gaming chat rooms, I do, at times, rely on voice chat to communicate with teammates (R6S is heavily reliant on verbal communication to win matches). To this day, I go out of my way to keep my microphone turned off during gameplay in order to keep my identity hidden, in fear of receiving nasty comments from my male teammates. These comments span from odd questions such as “how much is your gamer girl pee worth?”, to derogatory name calling, and intentional team killing (Team Killing: Killing another teammate, either by accident or intentionally). It is bothersome to me that I am genuinely relieved after giving callouts (Callout: Information given to teammates in order to improve the team’s awareness of enemies or potential threats) to be branded as a twelve year old boy instead of a woman, knowing I wouldn’t have to worry about White Knights (White Knight: According to dictionary.com, it is internet slang for “a man who comes to the unsolicited defense of a woman online, in the hopes of romantic or sexual favor”) or misogynistic comments for the rest of the game. Thankfully, though, that is the worst I’ve dealt with.
But personal experience only goes so far. To give you a better understanding of what a lot of women have to deal with in the gaming community, I urge you to watch this video by Spawntaneous, a female R6S player (Warning: sexually explicit and mature language is present in the video). She captured only a slice of what she experiences on a consistent basis in this video. Comments that include “get back in the kitchen”, “we get it, you play video games and try to get laid”, and “send nudes” are showcased in her youtube video series OMG a Girl, a 16 episode series revealing what gameplay is like for many gamer girls. After encountering another girl during a match, she mentions that Spawntaneous is “the first female I’ve met in this game besides me. Most won’t talk because there’s a lot of harassment that goes on in this community”.
No wonder there is such little female representation in eSports! Having to deal with going through that sort of verbal harassment to get to the top is discouraging to say the least. Oftentimes people say that’s “just the way it is” in the gaming community. In my eyes, that is an undeniably pitiful excuse for grotesque behavior that needs to be corrected immediately.
To date, there have been no recorded female pro-league gamers representing R6S in the eSports arena. However, in November of 2020, one of the first all-female gaming teams for CSGO was announced. This is an awesome feat for female players around the globe. This team is praised for its highly accomplished player set, not just because they’re all female. As a gamer girl myself, I desperately hope to see not just improved gender representation, but better social behavior and respect given to female counterparts in the R6S community, and in other highly competitive gaming communities that make up the eSports world.
Resources Used
Top 10 Esports Games of 2020 by Total Winnings https://esportsobserver.com/top10-games-2020-total-winnings/#
These Women Gamers Are Fighting Back Against Toxic Online Culture https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/sports/toxic-online-culture-women-esports/ What Girl Gamers REALLY Have To Deal With | OMG a Girl Series [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL0aVqVslSE&list=PLEDsO12Ccv9ES1Qlnwu_Gi72udJyhVXyZ&index=2
Want to learn more? Here are a few more links:
Dozens of Women in Gaming Speak Out About Sexism and Harassment https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/style/women-gaming-streaming-harassment-sexism-twitch.html Is the Video Games Industry Finally Reckoning with Sexism https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/jul/22/is-the-video-games-industry-finally-reckoning-with-sexism
Let’s end this on a lighter note….
Here’s one of my favorite cinematic clips featuring some kickass fictional ladies from my favorite video game “clutching” and winning the game for their team (Clutching: being the last teammate alive, keeping cool during a tide-turning moment, and making the right calls to win the match). The tournament is meant as a training simulation using clay bullets for operators from around the world to showcase their elite marksmanship and strategy skills. Hibana, the last attacker alive, gives her opponent, Pulse, a run for his money. Girl power for the win! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aUG2Pn-WDs
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