Hello.
I didn't really intend to write a blog post about this until after I had finished my Bachelor for fear of plagiarizing myself, but when the topic comes up I can't resist sharing my thoughts on the topic.
I will deal with it more superficially now, but will go into more depth on this on a later occasion, when I am not sitting down with bachelor's writing.
But this post is circulating on twitter these days: https://twitter.com/TaylorMorganS_/status/1789927866865787228?t=NmDKITQJaf0W0EUko44cfw&s=19
It concerns a woman who goes by the name Taylor Morgan asking Riot to crack down on players who talk about rape and threaten to rape girls.
He used a phrase in the clip that was highly provocative:
"its not rape if its good for me".
Taylor leaves the game, clearly affected by what she is subjected to, and is then given a warning by Riot that she will be banned if she leaves the game. Fair enough, this was an automatically generated banning warning, but it puts a two lines under the answer here. Women try to protect themselves, and get slapped on the wrist.
The comment field under this post is absolutely wild! It is written that women can't stand a bit of trash talk so they have to find another place to be like this tweet. I have cut out the name to protect them from their own stupidity.
It is constantly pointed out that guys receive trash talk too, but a direct threat of rape is not the same as trash talk. Trash talk is often about what you do, or is impersonal, a threat of rape is just that - a threat. Gender discrimination is not trash talk, it is discrimination.
By justifying this behavior, one becomes part of the problem and not part of the solution. Oh, just to be clear, men are not exempt from incitement in games either, but rather speak up about it, than legitimize the behavior that girls speak up about! As a coach for girls' teams in e-sports, as a human being and a woman who has worked with girls' teams for over 6 years, I have gained a lot of experience with how girls are treated in e-sports. Included in tournaments and leagues and it's a lot of strange things to experience as a female e-sports player.
This was probably the reason why it was so important for me to make the Girls' Cup so well also. Because the girls needs safespacers.
Research shows that being exposed to toxic behavior, harassment and gender discrimination actually makes a person ill. You can become physically nauseous, get headaches, you are more prone to other injuries and burn out. It affects the way you play, and it does something to the mental health of players. This is perhaps the biggest difference between girl and boy players. The prerequisites, harassment and discrimination. Those who speak out against girls who speak out about what they experience are often quick to say "just shut up", but you guys, this is a team game, and how is the training in a team game if you have to mute your fellow players because they can't behave? Of course, the practice will suffer from it. On the way to becoming good, you have to grind, you have to play with many different people to adapt to other players' way of playing and learn from others. As a female player, this is more demanding, because you constantly have to mute the game, this contributes to making self-training for female e-sports players more demanding. My solution as a girl gamer is that I find a "safe" group to play with, and only play with them. But what happens then is that I don't play with many different people, I only adapt to a few players' playing style, and only learn from my small group. So my learning curve will not be as steep as if I had played with randoms in ranked.
And when the girls try to create their own places to feel safe and only pursue their sport and interest, they are ironically accused of discriminating themselves.
We shouldn't be so afraid to stand up for the gaming environment to be inclusive of girls. We should know about the stereotypes and how girls are treated in the gaming environment.
It's easy to think that "it's not that bad", but it actually is! And you don't do anyone a favor, neither the guys nor the girls, by accepting "that it's just the way it is".
The gaming environment is a big boys' wardrobe, and is really a very good example of what happens in an environment without adult involvement and someone who comes in to adjust behaviour.
I hope and believe that the generation of gamers who have been on broad epsort teams know and have been taught better, but it actually requires that we who work in broad, know about and acknowledge that such behavior actually exists.
And that we who work in the Elite actually take action and educate our players on how to behave and take a stand on this matter.
And there are 2 important points of view to address in this case.
Stop the harassment of women in eSports
Stop harassing men who speak up about unacceptable behavior!
For the guys who stand up to say something, they don't necessarily do this without consequences. They are called "whit knight" and "simp" because they speak up about what they witness.
And last but certainly not least, I would like to say that there are an incredible number of great, steady and committed boys and men who do not support such behavior at all, who react and take the consequences for speaking out, and I want to thank them! Because they can choose to be quiet and be comfortable themselves, but they choose to say something! Oh, that shows respect! And I choose to believe that there are more of these types of boys and men in the gaming community, but the others are so much louder!
Comments