Females in OWL

Ok, so I've seen this discussion on twitter that it is appalling that there are not any females in OWL. And that this is clearly sexist (their words not mine)

I can only name two pro female overwatch players
Kitty
Geguri

Is there any other pro female players out there?

Kitty that played for France in the 2016 World Cup
I do agree with you though. I thunk some women just expect everything to be given to them. They should be the change they want to see

If there are any who are good enough they would be picked up, pretty sure most teams would instantly pick up any female player if she was as good as effect or soon, there just isn't a single one who proved herself as good enough for owl, especially considering some insane players like knoxx and akm didn't get in.

i remember a while back there was a list of chinese teams along with player photos, and there were 2-3 girls on i guess top teams in the region at the time iirc

anyway it's definitely not "sexist" as you say in OP lol. i think it's just a cultural thing and a lack of females that actually take gaming so seriously. when i was young videogames were definitely considered nerdy and a "male hobby."
with vastly less female players, there's going to be even less who care about the competitive aspect, then even less who are actually stand-out/talented players. there's just so many males who play games in comparison. i'd say the majority of my irl male friends play games of some sort whether console/pc, casual/competitive, and about 0 irl female friends play any games that i know of.

Sorry but how is that sexist? we live in a world now where we only want equality when it doesn't benefit us and if it does, who cares about equality?

There are female only tournaments for CS, do you think the female CS players talk about equality then? no, yet they talk about it when it doesn't benefit them ie them getting a free pass to big tournaments even though they didn't earn it.

People always look for a reason in something when there isn't any, fact is there is not one good enough female player on the planet who has shown they can compete in OWL and until they do so shouldn't be given an invite just because they are female.

Don't just mention names of female pros in OW, mention them across every major e-sport for the last 10 years and you will have a hard time coming up with a list, is that sexist?

My response pretty much sums it up https://i.gyazo.com/61773404a29038d64290f6efc8988e44.png

Not gonna respond if anyone disagrees because i've argued enough and im over it. Basically getting signed just for being a female defeats the purpose of signing the best competitive roster and also defeats the purpose of a female working their way into the league. I would love to see a female in the OWL, one who made it there the same way as everyone else, but because I don't agree with signing a female player to meet some kind of pity quota I guess that makes me a women hater.

These people would honestly prefer a league where you sign a female out of pity, if she isn't preforming as well as everyone else in the league, find a new excuse, maybe the male players hold her back because they don't want their ego crushed, continue to live in a fantasy world where there are hundreds of female players who are better than OWL players and are being left out purposely. Preach equality but don't exercise it.

-Supporting women is good, but thinking they NEED more support than anyone else is wrong.
-Encouraging women is good, but saying "You're good enough to be in OWL" instead of "You CAN be good enough to be in OWL" is wrong.
-Discouraging sexism is good, but blaming sexism on any position a male earned over a female is wrong.

I had the dumbest argument on twitter with someone on this topic, I swear I was being trolled.
https://twitter.com/pendarhk/status/951293275041861637
The original tweet said “Shame to see such a male-dominated league, especially with all the good female players in the game.”

Realistically how many females even tried out for an OWL team? xQc isn't on a team because he's a male, it's because he tried out.

If OWL is going to model itself off of traditional sports I see no reason why there can't or shouldn't be a WOWL. There are enough good female players for it to still have high-quality games and bring in a decent enough audience to make a women's league worth Blizzard's effort.

sup with the triggered feminazis here

This one is pretty :rage: Pixelfish

Also it's stupid to say OWL is sexist because multiple high level female players have said themselves they have never been denied a trial because of gender (Barcode, Geguri)

i think there are a few in china but cn ow is dying so the only one i can name right now is 177, support player for lucky future.

trill is a guy lmao

edit: initially the OP said trill and not kitty

Yeah, where are the female OWL team owners. They should speak up for the lack of female players.

If they can find an amazing female player then by all means she has all the right to play in the pro leagues. Getting a female player in the pro leagues just for the sake of "muh diversity" is just dumb.

I think there are plenty of really good female players in Overwatch it's just that the competition for the spots on the OWL is just extremely intense where even world renowned players such as AKM couldn't land a spot in the league. However, just like the Path to OWL video said they have to make or take part in a team and play through open division etc.

i bumped into this twitter page and they seem quite serious about going pro.
https://twitter.com/Venus_OW

Let me preface my opinion by stating a few things that seem to sometimes get forgotten in these types of threads.

1. I'm not an expert on the matter and my references are limited to the multitude of articles on the net.
2. I haven't properly researched it so I don't have any scientific studies to back up my take on this subject.

Here it goes:

Personally I don't see the lack of female pro gamers in OWL as an issue per se. In my opinion the issue actually stems from the general culture of video games being, for the large majority, tailored for boys. Whether it's marketing or content it's a fact that the main audience is young men.

There's also the cultural aspect where female gamers are more likely to be treated differently and/or harassed than their male counter parts. These and several other factors likely contribute to the smaller pool of available talent when it comes to male vs female gamers.

This then leads into the "issue" we have today where due to the lower number of competitive female players in comparison to their male counterparts you will inevitable see far less that are able to compete at the top level. This is a number's game plain and simple. Out of all the Overwatch players out there there was only a maximum of 144 if all 12 teams maxed out their rosters. That's an insanely small portion of the community, and if we assume the same level of skill is present when looking at female gamers their already smaller numbers should leave no one surprised that none of them made it into OWL.

My take on it is that this isn't something that will change just because we're outraged that there are no women playing on OWL rosters. This will need a cultural shift that will most likely take years. There was a comment on a Reddit thread talking about Geguri that I feel illustrated the idea for the most part:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/7pvkp7/geguri_disputes_kotaku_says_her_not_getting_into/dskdunf/

Right now there are no female Overwatch players that I know of that I consider OWL caliber day in, day out. Granted I have very little information on these women in the first place so my line of sight on this is very narrow. I don't see this as a top down problem necessarily, the women that are already competing were able to go past that barrier, and I'm not discounting all the shit they have to deal with on a daily basis (see articles about Geguri for some examples), but getting into, and staying into competitive gaming seems to already be half the battle for women. If OWL is around for long enough it will eventually happen, but it'll probably take more time than some are comfortable with.

So in closing I think the debate isn't about if there should be more women in OWL, or about why there aren't any right now and I've omitted any reference to sexism in my arguments because I don't feel like it's overtly at the root cause of the issue. I think this debate should be about how we can normalize gaming to both sexes to try and eliminate that barrier to entry and hopefully have a more organic representation of people who just like to play the game.

It's cultural. Not even the fault of the way the games are made. It's the way we look at and treat eachother in real life. The way we have expectations and judgments about what people can do in their lives. Of course people aren't going to do something as often if it gets them personally attacked. It takes a strong woman to play overwatch (although its getting better with the new report system) and frankly I'm glad that there are some in competitive. It's refreshing.

I think is more on a statistic point of view: less female players means less good female players. I think a player like Genguri is actually at OWL level and i wouldnt be surprised on seeing it on a mid season pick up/season 2. I think there actually are good female players and i hope we can see some of them in the league in the next seasons. But i dont think teams dont wanted them but probably other factors,

respek wamen

M4risa...I miss her