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from the perhaps-men-don't-like-losing-to-a-woman dept.
On Monday the e-sports industry awards take place in London to applaud the top players in the business but not one female player has been nominated.
Competitive gaming, also known as Electronic Sports or e-sports, is growing at an incredible pace. In 2016, revenues from e-sports are predicted by professional services firm Deloitte to rise by 25% to $500m (£406m). Its regular global audience will likely top 150 million people.
Unlike in traditional sport, physical advantages in e-sports are non-existent yet the most popular games are still overwhelmingly played by men.
Recent research by the Pew Center shows men and women are equally likely to say they play video games but men are twice as likely to consider themselves "gamers". It is when gaming becomes competitive that the number of women playing drops dramatically.
Steph Harvey is one of the most successful gamers in the world. She says that the number of women in e-sports is as low as 5% and the main reason is the stereotype attached to gamers. "It's still a 'boy's club' so as a woman you're automatically judged for being different," she says.
Online abuse has been prevalent in the gaming community for years and even led to a misogynistic hate campaign.
Steph has even received online rape threats in the past: "The way I get harassed is about what they would do to my body, about why I don't deserve to be there because I use my sexuality - it's all extremely graphic."
[...] Julia Kiran is the leader of Team Secret, which in October became the top female team in the world. She thinks this reflects a common attitude: "It's always felt that female teams are not a real scene. Male players see us as a side game that doesn't count."
One of the solutions has been the creation of female teams and female-only tournaments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:13AM
An important part of the discrimination comes from the prejudice that women don't play games, women are no good at competitive games, etc. So, how do we get rid of this prejudice? By proving them wrong - by going in and beating the crap out of the male players (virtually, of course - I'm not suggesting violence).
The rape threats will not be as simple to get rid of, but we might just be able to reduce the effects on those receiving the threats by turning them into something you hear from whiny boys about to get their asses kicked by female players. That would make the threats easier to laugh at, which would ruin the effect of making the threats in the first place.
Or we could try to amplify the prejudices, by pretending that women really are so bad they need their own tournaments.