Physical sport leagues are separated into male and female divisions due to differences in size and strength, but what about e-Sports? Despite physical capability not being a factor in the virtual realm, many e-Sport organizers, including the South Korean-based International eSports Federation (IeSF), insist on separating male and female players. Or, as would have been the case with certain games at this year's sixth World e-Sports Championships, women couldn't play at all.
To be held this November, the World e-Sports Championships, organized by the IeSF, didn't allow for women to compete in games like Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Dota 2 and Ultra Street Fighter IV. The organization has separated male and female players for years.
"The decision to divide male and female competitions was made in accordance with international sports authorities, as part of our effort to promote e-Sports as a legitimate sports," leSF told a gamer in a Facebook comment reply.
An email from a Finnish organization called Assembly, which hold qualifiers for the World e-Sports Championships, would draw attention to the policy when it was posted onto Reddit. The email stated competition would only be open to "Finnish male players."
Adding fuel to the fire would be Assembly organizer Markus Koskivirta, as he attempted to explain the organization's reasoning.
"This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things." he said when speaking to PC Gamer.
This, of course, set off an Internet firestorm. Why would it be a problem for a female player to beat a male player in a competition? The issue, however, didn't lie with Assembly, as they are only hosting qualifiers for the World e-Sports Championships and must follow the rules put in place by the IeSF.
The IeSF elaborated more on its decision to divide the genders on Facebook, saying that hosting female-only competitions is to promote female players. Another reason is to comply with international sport league standards. As the IeSF is attempting to have e-Sports recognized as a legitimate sport, it closely follows standards established by more traditional sports, which often do divide male and female players, citing chess as an example.
Thankfully, the IeSF opened its ears. The organization held an emergency meeting in light of the controversy and decided to make some changes. All-male only tournaments have now been opened up to female players, though female-only competitions do still exist in an effort to promote women in the sport.
"Female gamers make up half of the world's gaming population, but only a small percentage of e-Sports competitors are women," says the IeSF in a statement about the changes. "The IeSF's female-only competitions aim to bring more diversity to competitive play by improving the representation of women at these events. Without efforts to improve representation, e-Sports can't achieve true gender equality."
