Home Gaming This is how we help girls get into gaming

This is how we help girls get into gaming

3 min read
38

Trying to understand some peopleI stayed out of the last IesF and MSSA rubbish with girls having their own leagues because both of those organisations are stupid and don’t really understand how to help gaming in the world. Well that’s my opinion at least. However I saw the theme crop up again recently when an all girl team was penalised for playing too well.

Which was topical for me as over the last weekend I headed out to Dullstroom for a 3 day fly fishing competition. Or drinking competition, they seem to merge together a bit at times.

Anyway to the point, as with eSports there is no real advantage that being male gives you as a fly fisherman. Granted you need muscles to pull the fish in but seeing that the fish are all under 70 cm’s any normal sized female has enough muscle to pull that in. However they also have the same problem as eSports where men dominate the sport and as such are actively trying to attract women to the event. But instead of being stupid and creating a women’s event and a men’s event they went straight for the simple solution.

But while I keep you in suspense, the event works as a team based event. Every team needs 4 people and these 4 are split into two pairs. You randomly pick dams and off you go to catch your fish with pairs from other teams.

The prizes are awarded to the longest fish caught, longest total of fish (from your 10 best per location), last fish caught for the event, first fish of the event and then best team etc.

The only thing they changed to help attract women was to include the best female angler prize. That’s it. What this does is the simplest form is to give the new ladies something to aim for while they still were competing for the other prizes. It doesn’t bring any resentment from the men as we’re not all douchebags and have no problem with ladies joining in at all. Generally it is highly encouraged actually.

But it also allows the ladies to have something they felt they could strive for without worrying about the professional anglers in the group. They were still competing for all the other prizes and in fact different ladies won some of them as well. In short, adding extra motivation to bring in the fairer sex is great and should be encouraged. But by refusing to allow them to compete fairly against the men is extremely sexist and any organisation affiliating with such rules should be brought up on charges in the constitutional court.

Discrimination is illegal in South Africa and just because your Korean overlords find it acceptable does not make it acceptable to have here.

To bring this back to gaming, girls should be allowed to compete on the same playing field and in the same team as boys and to motivate more lades entering the event you just have a special prize for top female gamer of the tournament.

Most kills across all the games, top rank achieved or most fights won. It’s really not hard to sort out.

*First person to mention fish AI loses 10 Internet points

Like esports?
Check out esports central

Last Updated: October 9, 2014

38 Comments

  1. Viking Of Divinity

    October 9, 2014 at 12:48

    “Dullstroom – A drinking town with a Fishing Problem”

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief 0

      October 9, 2014 at 13:00

      I love it there

      Reply

    • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

      October 9, 2014 at 13:03

      One of the best places in SA. Hands down

      Reply

    • Thats_how_I_Troll

      October 10, 2014 at 11:47

      Sounds like my old hometown Swartkops… in PE

      Edit: Where the fish AI is very realistic….

      Reply

  2. Spaffy

    October 9, 2014 at 12:49

    Well said.

    Reply

  3. oVg Definitive and Remastered

    October 9, 2014 at 12:51

    I wonder if girls know the difference between 60fps and 30fps? 😛

    Reply

  4. Alien Emperor Trevor

    October 9, 2014 at 12:51

    You can’t have women in a fly-fishing competition Gavin, the song clearly says “pretty fly for a white guy”.

    Reply

  5. ReaperOfSquirrels

    October 9, 2014 at 12:51

    LOL @ the starred point at the end.

    I totally agree, but being banned for playing “too well”? WTF! Someone needs to get over themselves… seriously. There’s nothing wrong with being bested by a female (used to include young and old), in ANYTHING.

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      October 9, 2014 at 13:06

      I was tempted to do it anyway because internet points are scored like golf right? Lower is better?

      Reply

  6. Matewis Jubilai

    October 9, 2014 at 12:51

    “as jy ‘n tagged vis vang gooi hom terug, ons gaan vir die troos prys…”

    Reply

  7. Sir Rants A Lot Llew

    October 9, 2014 at 12:58

    Dullstroom has the best whiskey bar in the world!!!!

    Reply

  8. Sir Rants A Lot Llew

    October 9, 2014 at 12:59

    I’m still really pissed that girls were disqualified for “playing too well”.

    Reply

    • z1n

      October 9, 2014 at 15:05

      afaik: They were DQ’d because they didn’t follow the rules in the first place (as arbitrary as they may be). They also have one player who is known to let her boyfriend jump in halfway through the match, so the play-style changed noticeably.
      Basically one of the girls that was DQ’d just created a reddit shitstorm before anyone had their facts straight.
      TL:DR they weren’t DQ’d for “playing too well” but for (1) not complying with rules and (2) cheating.

      Reply

      • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

        October 9, 2014 at 17:39

        Source? It’s the first I’ve heard about rule breaking or that her BF jumped in?

        Reply

        • z1n

          October 9, 2014 at 21:08

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

            October 10, 2014 at 08:32

            Nothing there

          • z1n

            October 10, 2014 at 09:23

            Ahh shit. There was something there yesterday I swear! Basically they (the girls wars SEA management) said the reason for the DQ was no skype (tourney rules) and that they just suspected one of the players for having her boyfriend (a.k.a “pilot”) play from mid-game onwards.
            Damn you source! Y U DISAPPOINT
            On a side note it would probably be a good idea to learn an asian language :/

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

            October 10, 2014 at 09:39

            I’d love to see more info on this. I was really hoping there was a legit reason other than being “too good”

            I hope more info is shared soon coz if not then they are in serious crap because if they have no proof it’s going to cause a !@#$ storm

          • z1n

            October 10, 2014 at 09:51

            http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2ij7da/response_from_girl_wars_sea_explaining_the_ban_of/

            There’s still this on Reddit. It contains the text that was removed on my other link along with a little more info in comments.
            I think the sh1tstorm has blown over already or at least reddit doesn’t care anymore cause they were full of sh1t.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

            October 10, 2014 at 10:05

            Sweet thanx for that

  9. Ross Woofels Mason

    October 9, 2014 at 13:00

    In certain sports yes one can see why things would be split. Example :- boxing. How ever e-sports especially there is not one physical thing to them apart from how quickly you can click some buttons and your resistance to carpal tunnel.

    If people want to bring more girls to gaming just stop point out the fact they are girls and that everyone is on equal ground when it comes to e-sports.

    Reply

    • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

      October 9, 2014 at 13:08

      That’s what the whole point of showing how broken the current model is.

      By pointing out that girl only tournaments in eSports is bad it’s bringing to light the horrible unethical discrimination.

      By removing female only comps and rather adding in other types of trophies such as highest scoring female gamer, it helps to try and incentivize woman to come back to the sport where they can now start to compete against the pros who have had so much more experience due to being able to get in to comps easier and still have the chance of walking away with something.

      Eventually there will then be no need for female only prizes as more woman get in to it and gain the much needed experience they have thus far pretty much been denied.

      I think female only prizes with them being able to join any tourny is a great idea

      Reply

      • Ross Woofels Mason

        October 9, 2014 at 13:15

        Yeah I’ve got no problems with the incentive or awards. That’s done in so many different ways, It’s a nice thing sure, I just don’t feel like that’s the primary thing they should be pushing.

        Make mention of it, let the ladies know it’s there but make the main push is that the main prize is open to anyone and everyone who wants to and can play the game.

        Reply

        • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

          October 9, 2014 at 13:19

          That’s why I said with woman being able to join any tournament.

          Main prize up for grabs to anyone, regardless of gender and the smaller female only prizes are simply just to help draw more woman to the tournaments.

          Reply

  10. Admiral Chief 0

    October 9, 2014 at 13:11

    To put matters into perspective, I had an issue with one of our VMware production servers earlier this year, logged a moerse high priority ticket, and received a prompt response from a Scottish lass, stating that she has taken ownership of the ticket and will be assisting me.

    Now, tech support is a male dominated environment, and you get used to the idea, and granted, the only female “tech” support I had experience with in the past was with very inefficient (read useless) support from one or more of our wonderful local telephone companies. (At this point I’m not pointing fingers to the female tech support consultants, I’m pointing fingers to ALL of their tech support consultants being fairly useless)

    Now, with this bit of history behind us, let me get back to my point (yes, there is actually one). This Scottish lass then went on to give me such a high level of support in the matter, as she is quite the expert in her field. 3-4 hours later, we jointly resolved the problem, production performance resumed, and I was a very happy customer.

    I was so impressed I asked for her supervisor’s details so that I could give her the highest commendation (which I did).

    Now, had I taken up a stupid attitude towards “female tech support” I could have had a huge delay in the support process and lost even more precious production performance (how is that for alliteration?)

    In the end, it does not matter what gender the person is, as long as the skills are there.

    Reply

    • HvR

      October 9, 2014 at 13:25

      Think most of our tech support and QA people are female.

      Reply

      • Brady miaau

        October 9, 2014 at 13:43

        seriously? Nah, we have very few woman, most of our permanent people, for example, are male.

        No reason, really, hire the best for the job. very few woman interviews

        Reply

        • HvR

          October 9, 2014 at 14:34

          Not based in South Africa though; here we have one or two out of the 30+

          No idea why we have so few women in the tech industry in South Africa; I’ve never had the feeling that it is an “old boys club”. Seems that very few girls go to university to study maths/science/engineering/software/IT.

          And to make it weirder there is quite a few women at university level that are brilliant lecturers and researchers.

          Reply

    • Sir Rants A Lot Llew

      October 9, 2014 at 13:42

      Well said

      Reply

    • Aries

      October 9, 2014 at 15:40

      All the tech support Ive dealt with are dumb, I was on the phone for over and hour with a second level support who was supposed to be a more clued up on what was wrong with my internet line (note, my internet line had high latency to the exchange server) she asked what was wrong told her and she asked can I browse the internet, said yes, as you can sort of with a ping in the 400ms+ region, and then she asked no whats the problem and told her the latency is to high and the internet is slow, and then she pissed me off by saying what is the ping supposed to be, because if I can browse the net I don’t see a problem and hung up, as if I wasted her time.

      This was all with Telkom, Ive got around 7 references where they send updates everyday that they will see to my line, and it still unstable as shit, though my area is as well as my friends have the same problem

      Edit: All the tech support were female though, not saying women are dumb just that these few that I dealt with are

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief 0

        October 9, 2014 at 16:16

        Telkom tech support is atrocious! (luckily I have AM’s to bypass the normal support process)

        Reply

        • Aries

          October 9, 2014 at 18:03

          Lucky, im stuck with them because the problem the exchange server

          Reply

    • Gavin Mannion

      October 9, 2014 at 16:17

      The very best SQL expert I’ve ever met or dealt with is a local female. Kicks everyone’s ass

      Reply

  11. Hammersteyn

    October 9, 2014 at 13:35

    Let men and women play together. Online and “offline”. That’s how more gamers are made.

    Reply

  12. UltimateNinjaPandaDudeGuy

    October 9, 2014 at 13:48

    Awesome point and exactly what I was thinking too!

    Reply

  13. Sageville

    October 9, 2014 at 14:29

    Good post there,

    I feel your fishing competition is on the right track. Ideally there should be no mention of gender in these types of competitions, but I can totally see that some areas like fly fishing need to break that glass ceiling and pull more females into the sport, a “Best Lady” award is the right way to go in my opinion as you need to have an equal playing field for all. Then at the point when the overall winner is also the “Best Lady” winner then you can remove the female prize altogether and everyone then competes for the same prizes.

    Reply

  14. Joe Black

    October 9, 2014 at 14:46

    If girls want to play they will play. There’s just not a massive girls gaming culture, but it is developing. Nothing one can really do to force the issue, but I would agree that in gaming the playing field should be more or less level unless the majority of the girls actually want to compete in their own league – Then its their problem. If girls want to compete with the guys I really do not see why not.

    Reply

  15. konfab aka derp

    October 9, 2014 at 18:19

    Hypothetically, say if female teams start consistently winning the main prize in gaming. Would it then be fair to have a best male gamer prize?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Sony has bought the EVO fighting game tournament series

Sony is betting big on esports entertainment, and it's taking that first step forward with…