i should have mentioned this in the video but if you're interested about learning about the women that i show here and Even More female esports personalities, you should check out my watch mojo video where i (in no particular order) talk about 10 women in esports i think you should know about: ua-cam.com/video/ohqoFntEEtc/v-deo.htmlsi=ovqwha3N4ykNJVLJ
the stereotype threat thing is honestly something ive thought about a lot when it comes to ever coming in contact with a guy who talks down on lady gamers. i cant help it getting in my head and distracting me. it’s hard not to think about it when toxic, misogynistic guys like to bring it up every chance they get. no amount of muting or reporting can fix that. also, i think it’s important to note that the lack of marketing of video games to girls also impacts their ability to practice. many gamer guys grew up behind consoles, but many gamer girls are newer to gaming. the disadvantage is not as natural and inherent as misogynists want to believe. it’s quite literally a product of misogyny that many girls didnt get to hone in their skills at an earlier age, and are now playing catch up. obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but i think it applies to enough people
yes... and no. toxicity existed before women started to join gaming, men were already toxic to other men, what says that men were only toxic towards women once they joined the gaming sphere? so this begs the question? what exactly caused toxicity in gaming? for starters, when you look at toxicity in gaming, it is always games like C.S, COD, valorant basically any FPS games. how often do you see toxicity as flourished in any other gaming genre? in complete honesty, i believe that misogyny is an outcome rather then a product of. this makes sense when you realize that some of the most popular games were influence by social circumstances. for example, post 9/11 saw massive influence in gaming by the U.S military. the 2000 was filled with FPS war like games and the U.S military developed games themselves as a strategy to get gamers to enlist to fight in Iraq or afghan. this push also pushed away women from gaming as it was intentionally design to get men to play these types of games. this helped foster toxicity from the beginning. in short, toxicity was there before women started to join gaming in masses. yes women are disadvantaged because they had a late start. but i don't think its inherently misogynistic. if we discount that men and women biological difference in gaming, then its literally a skill issue. spending time and practice to get good. it doesn't help when you have those who are toxic towards you, but not everyone grows the same rate. people who are bad can get good in a couple of weeks or months, or maybe years or maybe never, its not necessarily gender specific.
Yes!! And it's a damaging two way street, growing up I preferred slower paced games, less competition, and more creativity. That really got me the "you play games like a girl" like as if that was an insult. When I was younger, it drove me to play competitive games to "prove" my "manhood" and I just didn't like myself in that place, the pressure and drive manifests bad behavior, I was angry a lot for not being "good enough." Grown up a a lot since then, and I realize gender is... complicated, and I stopped trying to be what society labels as typical. Video games, particularly competitive games, are probably one of the places where gender or sex really doesn't affect performance at all, and I agree that the biggest contribution to the skew in competitive spaces is Misogyny. I think as a community of gamers, we need more content creators that are just themselves talking about very real harmful stereotypes that inhibit access to something that should frankly be open and equal to all.
One of the most impressive Counter Strike player I've met was this girl who used to go to the same internet cafe I went to back in college. She was absolutely insane at the game. People would gather around to watch her destroy people in Counter Strike.
Only been 53 mins since the video was released but let the record show there are no misogynistic comments yet. So either misogynists type very slow or have been real quiet since this dropped.
Low key surprised by that tbh. I know Jilly is a small channel but the algorithm has a tendency to point people who hatewatch things eventually, basically no matter the subject.
Yeah I can't remember the details but I remember reading an article on the marketing of games in the 80's and how it led to a sort of self-reinforcing positive feedback back loop of "videogames are for boys" over the next couple decades.... Because they based their marketing strategies off the aisle arrangements of toy stores???? Moral implications aside, the amount of money and customers the gaming industry could've earned had the marketing teams NOT inhaled crayons?
The thought process behind it was that if you market a product for both boys and girls, neither side will really take to it because it's "too boyish for girls" or "too girlish for boys". To make marketing easier, they decided to target one gender specifically, that being boys. And that's a snowball that's been rolling down the endless hill ever since, purely for money reasons.
exactly, before the 83 crash, gaming was marketed towards family, not gender. my take away is that these companies used flawed market research and made the assumption "based on our research, we don't think women play video games". this is in addition, they used aisles in toy stores because they didn't think they had enough money to invest in both demographics so they decided to pick one gender based on toy selection.
The argument that women's sports get less attention because there are worse players always comes from people who watch an 8th-division soccer team or the LCS. None of them are the best players in the world and yet it's still entertaining
@@MrRono19 And I think that's the core problem. Attention = payment. You won't get the money until the esports women's site would be popular, which would take a lot of money. If you would do that, I think there would be little to no difference in attention and therefore pay in a very short period. One example is the Olympic Games. Just as many people are watching when women compete with men. Because it's exactly the same, the same quality of broadcast, the same venue, etc. If there is a women's league or anything like it in esports at the moment, it's presented by some random guy from his bedroom, whereas the men's teams have entire studios with full management behind them.
The whole “you couldn’t handle the old C.O.D lobbies man” and I’m like no I’m sure I wouldn’t like it because all I’ve heard is a bunch of sexist and racist comments among other horrible things being said.
i remember having a argument about a similar topic regarding women in gaming and i considered making a video about it because its kinda crazy. for starters, gaming was never gendered to begin with. the 70 to 80s was when gaming was marketed as family based rather then gendered based. so gaming was never inherently misogynistic (based on how certain people talk about it online), a misconception if you will that i will explain a little later. However, the biggest shift in gaming was the 1983 gaming crash where over saturation of poorly made games shrunk the gaming industry from 3.2 billion in 83 to 100 million in 85. However, Nintendo came in and LITERALLY vowed to make quality games only, along side consoles brought back the industry from death. now this where the misconception comes in. when i looked into this recession and Nintendo, Nintendo believed they didn't have the resources to appeal to both demographics so they thought they will invest everything they had into one gender. they did some market research and they assumed that women were not a worth while to invest in, however their research was flawed and didn't realize a potential market as well. so the reality is that it was a case of "based on research, we don't think women play games" not "women don't play games". in short it was a bad business decision rather then a misogynistic decision. so how did the gaming industry come back? a quick and simple strat: sex sells, having character like Lara croft and other icons to draw in the male audience did bring back the industry from death. now here is the interesting bit of research i found (this is a connection i made in my research). the 2000s marked a massive shift in gaming, the rise of FPS games. now this is where gaming became truly became toxic towards women, but why did it become so toxic? surprising answer: the US army meddling with games and Hollywood to get male gamers to join the army. its not a far off connection when you understand that the U.S influenced film and tv shows (especially post 9/11) and actually used games (America army) as a legitimate strategy to get male gamers to join the army. essentially the rise of games like COD, CS and similar FPS games saw more men play them which became a turn off for literally most women, this left to fester a toxic community in the FPS. it only in the last decade or so we have shifted demographics and women have started to play more games. problem is, these communities were already toxic and were pretty much assholes to each other before women joined them (or attempted to at least). so when i see video of the "female experiences" it is ALWAYS in games like COD, CS, valorant (debatable tbh) literally any FPS games is where you get this toxic behavior. so yes while you have these videos of men being misogynistic towards women, don't think they aren't being dickheads to other men in the gaming space. that why i call them assholes rather then sexists or misogynists. now is everything i said 100% true? probably not, but i think its a reasonable explanation of how gaming developed, especially in regards women place in gaming and i think that this is a more nuanced take on women in gaming instead of people saying "misogyny or sexism" in gaming (i am not saying there isn't, i am saying that sexism or misogyny is the outcome, not the cause.) TLDR: failed business decisions following the 83 crash, marketing towards men over women (who they thought was not viable enough to invest) and meddling from the U.S military in gaming to get men to enlist pushed women further away from gaming and shaped toxicity in games like COD or CS which when women finally returned to gaming, they were faced by preexisting toxicity
6:16 What does this caveat even mean? Like its specifically leaves out competitions woth rules qgainst collusion? Or only discludes all tournements without rewards you can share? Its probably not a big deal, but listening to the whole video that one part jumped out as sounding wierd
I'm dumb and tend to read the comments on videos, and it seems like you just... Can't have a comment section without misogyny if women are involved in any sort of competitive gaming sphere. With regards to trans people, even people who are friendly towards them tend to have their comment sections flooded with people raging at each other over pronouns. I couldn't imagine being in that position and having the motivation to keep at it like that.
There also isn't a comment section where there isn't someone crying "misogyny". The gaming community is in it's whole toxic af. If it was "just misogyny" then guys won't be attacking other guys. Everyone goes after everyone in the gaming community, people go for the lowest hanging fruit.
@@MrRono19 Yeah, no. Women can tell when they say nothing, and then speak up in public lobbies and are instantly barraged with rampant sexism, to just pretend its 'everyone goes after everyone' is a pretty severe understatement. Capital G Gamers tend to be wildly misogynistic.
Esports may be fine but others should still be seperated, i never even heard of longest rally or whatever it was called in tennis until the two guys some days ago
I've thinking about the points brought up and I don't disagree with anything brought up but I feel there's one major point that makes "equal representation" maybe more hypothetical than realistic. If I'm following the logic correctly it's something like, Men in the past say the 60s to 80s were extremely misogynistic so marketing used misogynistic tactics that led to a mostly men demographic and to today's "boy's club culture" rooted in misogynistic and hostile interactions with women thus less professional women gamers? IF and only IF that led to an equal representation of gamers and pro gamers, great, but if it doesn't that shouldn't be a problem. Essentially equity over equality You state that "the numbers are there" but the actual breakdown of genre affect the ratio of genders more accurately than a general statistic of 'gamers'. The actual breakdown percentage of men to women by genre matters for the conversation of esports since most esports are MOBA(90%), FPS(93), fighting games(67%), racing(94%), Real-time strategy(93% or 89% on subgenre), sports games(98%), third-person/tactical shooters(96%), and card games(couldnt find data). All leaning to a huge male demographic. I'd argue that very broad and casual gaming like 'match 3', 'farming sims', and puzzle games have a huge women audience because it's naturally open to everybody, a casual audience, but far more niche community lend to more men audiences. how much of 'femininity' actually correlates to women and 'masculinity' correlates to men? how much is nature or is it nurture? I don't know but it's relevant for trying to get a fair representation of women vs an 'equal' representation. I'm all for ending misogyny, gender stereotypes, and the 'boys club' culture but I find it hard to believe equal representation is a real result. source for the gender breakdown: quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/ www.reddit.com/r/Fighters/comments/jusgep/gender_ratios_of_characters_in_the_most_popular/ 8:16 nice lip smack
i appreciate the thoughtful response (minus the lip smack part). i definitely agree that equal representation is definitely unrealistic. across the board, titles that make good 'esports' are definitely those that have a lesser female population (which is a whole other conversation about masculine qualities and preferences playing a part in the determination of what 'esports success' looks like, but i digress). i guess my goal in making these videos is simply to get MORE women involved in esports than what we're seeing right now, with the added perogative of lowering the misogyny/harassment/etc that girls and other marginalized communities in the space encounter. 'equal' representation would be impossible to strive for at present-- we're not even seeing it in place in industries or spaces outside of the gaming world, and given the masculine connotations video games have, i highly doubt esports will be the first place women break even. i just want to spread the idea of women existing in the space to the youtube algorithm and hopefully convince people that women in gaming are worth giving a shit about-- right now, even though (as you point out) women are a minority population in most genres, little to no effort is being made in recruiting more or making the spaces more welcoming in the first place. some would say this doesn't matter, but ultimately, i just want the option to be available; if a girl wants to be one of the 7% of FPS players who isn't male, she should be able to without getting backlash or encountering misogynistic themes in the games themselves. i talk about valorant a lot in my videos, but in this example, i think it definitely merits discussion- riot seems to have made an active decision to bring more women and marginalized genders into the game and FPS genre at large through their gameplay and game changers league, and i think it's really paying off. if more games were to follow in their footsteps, i think the gender breakdowns that you describe here would start to drastically change. i don't know the exact statistic, but i know that valorant already has a MUCH larger population of female gamers than 7%.
LMFAO, its pretty simplr, there aren't enough women supporting women in esports, it aint my responsibility as a dude to "represent" females in esports bub, i watch it to watch pros play, i have no issue if the whole team was female and they were cracked, but where are those cracked females tho huh??? just curious
My personal theory is that women are just as good as men at video games, but because of how hostile and misogynistic the gaming space has always been means a lot of women don't invest as much time into competitive videogames as their male counterparts, because it's a commonly hostile environment
This is the one, why would you spend time feeling like shit to get good at something where you’ll be treated like shit, what a waste of time when you could actually enjoy your hobby either by yourself or by posting online whatever, like maybe if they made the space welcoming women would try
Misogyny is only the tip of the iceberg here, gaming quickly became and was perceived as a guy thing for decades, so marketing needs to cater to them, once that’s done, they started getting weirded out when girls showed up more often in recent times. It also needs to be said that women in general just don’t have as much interest in videogames as men, and those that do game play games of specific genres like the Sims, CK3, or other games that have character interaction as a main feature, there’s probably a few more things i’m forgetting that draws some women to gaming, it sure as hell isn’t grand strategy games which are the main games i play, it is a literal meme there that there are no women in the community, or that playing those games is the reason for not having a significant other, all of this despite us not having a reputation of gatekeeping or hostility, it’s simply a lack of interest, the only exception here is CK3 because it’s a game with characters and interactions as a main focus and selling point. This was already apparent since gaming’s infancy where the marketing didn’t yet seek to cater to either. Growing up i never met girls who played videogames as a hobby except for my mother who to this day only has interest in Tetris, i’m sure anyone who reads this can simply go talk to people they know at work or school and ask them if they game, i’m pretty sure most will end up having the same observations, mainly that a good junk of men will say they do, and be hard pressed to find any women who say they do. Implying it naturally interests men a lot mote than women no differently than men typically having no interest in becoming, say, skin care specialists when compared to women.
You could argue though that men being interested in video games and women being interested in skincare is all thanks to the type of marketing targeted at them and not any organic preferences. Also what are these grand strategy games you play that you say no women do? Certainly less women do but not every woman who plays games plays the sims and animal crossing, it depends what social spheres you’re in
@@katierasburn9571 Marketing has its roots from knowing what men and women typically want. It didn’t come from nowhere, there’s no reason anyone conducting business would only want to market to one group, the more the better, it’s all about the money. Yes, Grand Strategy is one such example, virtually no women play them. No, i don’t look at the minuscule amount of them that do, we’re talking about the rule, not the exception. Grand Strategy seems to appeal very strongly to men simply because they instinctively like the idea of using strategy and tactics to compete, same thing with war games, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV, etc etc. i’m sure you can find many statistics showing how much of a sausage fest it is. It is irrelevant whether or not they all play the Sims or Animal Crossing, many women tend to play them because it appeals to their instincts to care and nurture. Simply put, men and women are wired differently, it is unsurprising therefore that each tends to naturally and instinctively gravitate towards specific interests or types of games, they’re just different.
I don't think there is an issue with non cis people in esports. Even though racism is definitely just as big as sexism in gaming. Almost like misogyny isn't the reason for there being no women in pro gaming...
agree and disagree with sum points, having “interest” in going pro or playing at a high level may it be in sports or gaming isn’t enough u have to be actually qualified to do so. The notion of oh bcuz they’re something else than men so that means we won’t allow them is just not true, i get not being a man and seeing always men at a high level may give u the feeling but there have been multiple examples in the past of individuals that weren’t men competing and them just not being able to perform at the same level or not being able to take in all the criticism/hate (u can have 10 good games but if u one bad one ppl will chastise u for that one bad game, ofc that sucks but gotta be able to tank that and focus thats what comes with playing at a level where all eyes are on u), not saying its impossible but it’s probably just such a minuscule amount of ppl that are able to handle all of these factors combined. Also it may be true women hide their identities to stay away from weirdos, but that has nothing to do with wanting to play pro if ur passionate enough and yk ur better at the game than most “men” and u genuinely think u could do pro we would see them come forth (like we have been seeing for example Danica Patrick,claressa shields these women arent scared of the misogynists and haters they believe in themselves wether thats delusion or genuine confidence at being able to hang with men) and as a man let me tell u if there was such an individual they would get such a huge fan base bcuz its jus unprecedented to see that at a high level so also the notion of “men would simply hate on that individual solely bcuz they aren’t men” isn’t gonna pull here every single player has haters sum more, others less and i’m sure sum hate on genders but if ur good enough most will respect ur skill and dedication (clark being an perfect example watching her is honestly such a breath of fresh air and she has alot of men rooting for her)
Bro nah shes saying that if women want to there should be availability for them to try, there should be marketing towards them and it should be welcoming to them instead of this toxic boy club no girl wants to join even if she is good enough for the cut. No one is saying just put them in because they’re women…
2:21 it's very strange that westerners keep reaping this argument. Don't they have statistics at school? According westerner's logic Denmark would never be esports superpower it's now.
The gaming (and sport) community is overall very toxic. People will using anything and everything they can to belittle other people, if you happen to be , people will us it as fuel against you. You either need to be very resilient against it and not let it label you, or have a better insult than the other person. If not, you will give up. I gave up on games cause I didn't want to handle the toxicity. Move on to a less agressive/toxic game and move on. Will this ever change? I don't think so. Competitive (e)sports run on adrenalin and being agressive. Villainizing your opponent is a way of hyping yourself up against them. In both male and female sports you will see players talking smack to the opponent before and during the game and typically hug it out afterwards.
Nah bro the problem is its WORSE if you’re any kind of minority, so its literally not worth spending your time in these spaces playing these games because the chances you’ll get any enjoyment are nuked, its not about being resilient its about im here to have fun and thats not happening so I’ll take my time elsewhere
Have you tried confidence? But really, societal expectations are a factor. However women cannot compete in high end top 0.1% activities of almost any kind against man. Man are made to have greater spread of their abilities, making them simulteously the best performers and the worst performers at the same time. Women tend to be spread more around the average. Evolutionary strategy. That is why even top women performers cannot compete even in purely non physical activities such as chess or high end carreer. However in non physical activities the average women is pretty much the same or better than average man.
@@dankdungeon5104 For example writing. Almost any stuff related to academia. Language learning, etc. There are some exceptions even for physical actovities such as rhytmic gymnastics that generally favors women. However we are talking on average now. Exect rhytmic gymnastics example, the men dominate the high end of mentioned activities too. This subsection of gymnastics could serve as a false equivalence that could have been used for this video. Because men are likely underepresented in the high end mostly because it is too feminine.
personally, ive seen alot of top players who are women. transwomen, who transitioned after they became top players. i am also one of these women, i got good first. i have prctically never seen a ciswoman go pro
There's no proof that women are worse at video games, unless you count stereotypes as proof... I've had a lot of dogshit team mates, and 99 percent of them were men
"The fact you said misogyny first thing in the description is wild, look at the statistics, less women play video game means less women pro. wow crazy" next time comment once youre done watching the video
i should have mentioned this in the video but if you're interested about learning about the women that i show here and Even More female esports personalities, you should check out my watch mojo video where i (in no particular order) talk about 10 women in esports i think you should know about: ua-cam.com/video/ohqoFntEEtc/v-deo.htmlsi=ovqwha3N4ykNJVLJ
the stereotype threat thing is honestly something ive thought about a lot when it comes to ever coming in contact with a guy who talks down on lady gamers. i cant help it getting in my head and distracting me. it’s hard not to think about it when toxic, misogynistic guys like to bring it up every chance they get. no amount of muting or reporting can fix that.
also, i think it’s important to note that the lack of marketing of video games to girls also impacts their ability to practice. many gamer guys grew up behind consoles, but many gamer girls are newer to gaming. the disadvantage is not as natural and inherent as misogynists want to believe. it’s quite literally a product of misogyny that many girls didnt get to hone in their skills at an earlier age, and are now playing catch up. obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but i think it applies to enough people
yes... and no. toxicity existed before women started to join gaming, men were already toxic to other men, what says that men were only toxic towards women once they joined the gaming sphere?
so this begs the question? what exactly caused toxicity in gaming? for starters, when you look at toxicity in gaming, it is always games like C.S, COD, valorant basically any FPS games. how often do you see toxicity as flourished in any other gaming genre?
in complete honesty, i believe that misogyny is an outcome rather then a product of. this makes sense when you realize that some of the most popular games were influence by social circumstances. for example, post 9/11 saw massive influence in gaming by the U.S military. the 2000 was filled with FPS war like games and the U.S military developed games themselves as a strategy to get gamers to enlist to fight in Iraq or afghan. this push also pushed away women from gaming as it was intentionally design to get men to play these types of games. this helped foster toxicity from the beginning. in short, toxicity was there before women started to join gaming in masses.
yes women are disadvantaged because they had a late start. but i don't think its inherently misogynistic. if we discount that men and women biological difference in gaming, then its literally a skill issue. spending time and practice to get good. it doesn't help when you have those who are toxic towards you, but not everyone grows the same rate. people who are bad can get good in a couple of weeks or months, or maybe years or maybe never, its not necessarily gender specific.
Yes!! And it's a damaging two way street, growing up I preferred slower paced games, less competition, and more creativity. That really got me the "you play games like a girl" like as if that was an insult. When I was younger, it drove me to play competitive games to "prove" my "manhood" and I just didn't like myself in that place, the pressure and drive manifests bad behavior, I was angry a lot for not being "good enough." Grown up a a lot since then, and I realize gender is... complicated, and I stopped trying to be what society labels as typical. Video games, particularly competitive games, are probably one of the places where gender or sex really doesn't affect performance at all, and I agree that the biggest contribution to the skew in competitive spaces is Misogyny. I think as a community of gamers, we need more content creators that are just themselves talking about very real harmful stereotypes that inhibit access to something that should frankly be open and equal to all.
One of the most impressive Counter Strike player I've met was this girl who used to go to the same internet cafe I went to back in college. She was absolutely insane at the game. People would gather around to watch her destroy people in Counter Strike.
babe wake up new jill video !!!!
Only been 53 mins since the video was released but let the record show there are no misogynistic comments yet. So either misogynists type very slow or have been real quiet since this dropped.
Low key surprised by that tbh. I know Jilly is a small channel but the algorithm has a tendency to point people who hatewatch things eventually, basically no matter the subject.
I’m VERY angry at this video, how dare women enjoy something I enjoy 😡😡😡😡
Came for the CK3 videos, subbed for the femmes in esports content 💯💯💯
commenting to push the algorithm
appreciate it
i'm so serious i do not say this as a friend but in a genuine raw sense I FUCKIN LOVE YOUR VIDEO ESSAYS JILLIAN
Yeah I can't remember the details but I remember reading an article on the marketing of games in the 80's and how it led to a sort of self-reinforcing positive feedback back loop of "videogames are for boys" over the next couple decades.... Because they based their marketing strategies off the aisle arrangements of toy stores????
Moral implications aside, the amount of money and customers the gaming industry could've earned had the marketing teams NOT inhaled crayons?
The thought process behind it was that if you market a product for both boys and girls, neither side will really take to it because it's "too boyish for girls" or "too girlish for boys". To make marketing easier, they decided to target one gender specifically, that being boys. And that's a snowball that's been rolling down the endless hill ever since, purely for money reasons.
exactly, before the 83 crash, gaming was marketed towards family, not gender. my take away is that these companies used flawed market research and made the assumption "based on our research, we don't think women play video games". this is in addition, they used aisles in toy stores because they didn't think they had enough money to invest in both demographics so they decided to pick one gender based on toy selection.
great video!!
The argument that women's sports get less attention because there are worse players always comes from people who watch an 8th-division soccer team or the LCS. None of them are the best players in the world and yet it's still entertaining
8th-division soccer teams don't expect to be paid the same as 1st division teams nor do they expect the same amount of attention.
@@MrRono19 And I think that's the core problem. Attention = payment. You won't get the money until the esports women's site would be popular, which would take a lot of money. If you would do that, I think there would be little to no difference in attention and therefore pay in a very short period. One example is the Olympic Games. Just as many people are watching when women compete with men. Because it's exactly the same, the same quality of broadcast, the same venue, etc. If there is a women's league or anything like it in esports at the moment, it's presented by some random guy from his bedroom, whereas the men's teams have entire studios with full management behind them.
@@MrRono19and yet if you dont invest in the worse teams they’ll never improve so the gap just grows and grows
The whole “you couldn’t handle the old C.O.D lobbies man” and I’m like no I’m sure I wouldn’t like it because all I’ve heard is a bunch of sexist and racist comments among other horrible things being said.
You know my sister used to play old cod and she found it funny, You definitely couldn't handle old cod.
Your reasoinging supports the first statment of you not being able to handle it.
and there you go lol
courageous video, and well done!
i remember having a argument about a similar topic regarding women in gaming and i considered making a video about it because its kinda crazy.
for starters, gaming was never gendered to begin with. the 70 to 80s was when gaming was marketed as family based rather then gendered based. so gaming was never inherently misogynistic (based on how certain people talk about it online), a misconception if you will that i will explain a little later.
However, the biggest shift in gaming was the 1983 gaming crash where over saturation of poorly made games shrunk the gaming industry from 3.2 billion in 83 to 100 million in 85. However, Nintendo came in and LITERALLY vowed to make quality games only, along side consoles brought back the industry from death.
now this where the misconception comes in. when i looked into this recession and Nintendo, Nintendo believed they didn't have the resources to appeal to both demographics so they thought they will invest everything they had into one gender. they did some market research and they assumed that women were not a worth while to invest in, however their research was flawed and didn't realize a potential market as well. so the reality is that it was a case of "based on research, we don't think women play games" not "women don't play games". in short it was a bad business decision rather then a misogynistic decision.
so how did the gaming industry come back? a quick and simple strat: sex sells, having character like Lara croft and other icons to draw in the male audience did bring back the industry from death.
now here is the interesting bit of research i found (this is a connection i made in my research). the 2000s marked a massive shift in gaming, the rise of FPS games. now this is where gaming became truly became toxic towards women, but why did it become so toxic?
surprising answer: the US army meddling with games and Hollywood to get male gamers to join the army. its not a far off connection when you understand that the U.S influenced film and tv shows (especially post 9/11) and actually used games (America army) as a legitimate strategy to get male gamers to join the army. essentially the rise of games like COD, CS and similar FPS games saw more men play them which became a turn off for literally most women, this left to fester a toxic community in the FPS. it only in the last decade or so we have shifted demographics and women have started to play more games.
problem is, these communities were already toxic and were pretty much assholes to each other before women joined them (or attempted to at least). so when i see video of the "female experiences" it is ALWAYS in games like COD, CS, valorant (debatable tbh) literally any FPS games is where you get this toxic behavior. so yes while you have these videos of men being misogynistic towards women, don't think they aren't being dickheads to other men in the gaming space. that why i call them assholes rather then sexists or misogynists.
now is everything i said 100% true? probably not, but i think its a reasonable explanation of how gaming developed, especially in regards women place in gaming and i think that this is a more nuanced take on women in gaming instead of people saying "misogyny or sexism" in gaming (i am not saying there isn't, i am saying that sexism or misogyny is the outcome, not the cause.)
TLDR: failed business decisions following the 83 crash, marketing towards men over women (who they thought was not viable enough to invest) and meddling from the U.S military in gaming to get men to enlist pushed women further away from gaming and shaped toxicity in games like COD or CS which when women finally returned to gaming, they were faced by preexisting toxicity
So glad i found your channel!!!
Your crusader kings videos are amazing, and you are based and are trans friendly 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
6:16 What does this caveat even mean? Like its specifically leaves out competitions woth rules qgainst collusion? Or only discludes all tournements without rewards you can share?
Its probably not a big deal, but listening to the whole video that one part jumped out as sounding wierd
Lovely video!
I'm dumb and tend to read the comments on videos, and it seems like you just... Can't have a comment section without misogyny if women are involved in any sort of competitive gaming sphere. With regards to trans people, even people who are friendly towards them tend to have their comment sections flooded with people raging at each other over pronouns. I couldn't imagine being in that position and having the motivation to keep at it like that.
not just gaming, any competetive sport is full of mysogonists
There also isn't a comment section where there isn't someone crying "misogyny". The gaming community is in it's whole toxic af. If it was "just misogyny" then guys won't be attacking other guys. Everyone goes after everyone in the gaming community, people go for the lowest hanging fruit.
@@MrRono19 Yeah, no. Women can tell when they say nothing, and then speak up in public lobbies and are instantly barraged with rampant sexism, to just pretend its 'everyone goes after everyone' is a pretty severe understatement. Capital G Gamers tend to be wildly misogynistic.
Good video!
Really nicely edited video!! It’s really sad that men harass women on videogames, such primitive behavior
7:44 nice lip smack
thanks
Because women and men are different.
good video
Esports may be fine but others should still be seperated, i never even heard of longest rally or whatever it was called in tennis until the two guys some days ago
Always comparing themselves to men thats why
My bad
I've thinking about the points brought up and I don't disagree with anything brought up but I feel there's one major point that makes "equal representation" maybe more hypothetical than realistic.
If I'm following the logic correctly it's something like, Men in the past say the 60s to 80s were extremely misogynistic so marketing used misogynistic tactics that led to a mostly men demographic and to today's "boy's club culture" rooted in misogynistic and hostile interactions with women thus less professional women gamers? IF and only IF that led to an equal representation of gamers and pro gamers, great, but if it doesn't that shouldn't be a problem. Essentially equity over equality
You state that "the numbers are there" but the actual breakdown of genre affect the ratio of genders more accurately than a general statistic of 'gamers'. The actual breakdown percentage of men to women by genre matters for the conversation of esports since most esports are MOBA(90%), FPS(93), fighting games(67%), racing(94%), Real-time strategy(93% or 89% on subgenre), sports games(98%), third-person/tactical shooters(96%), and card games(couldnt find data). All leaning to a huge male demographic. I'd argue that very broad and casual gaming like 'match 3', 'farming sims', and puzzle games have a huge women audience because it's naturally open to everybody, a casual audience, but far more niche community lend to more men audiences. how much of 'femininity' actually correlates to women and 'masculinity' correlates to men? how much is nature or is it nurture? I don't know but it's relevant for trying to get a fair representation of women vs an 'equal' representation.
I'm all for ending misogyny, gender stereotypes, and the 'boys club' culture but I find it hard to believe equal representation is a real result.
source for the gender breakdown: quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/
www.reddit.com/r/Fighters/comments/jusgep/gender_ratios_of_characters_in_the_most_popular/
8:16 nice lip smack
i appreciate the thoughtful response (minus the lip smack part). i definitely agree that equal representation is definitely unrealistic. across the board, titles that make good 'esports' are definitely those that have a lesser female population (which is a whole other conversation about masculine qualities and preferences playing a part in the determination of what 'esports success' looks like, but i digress). i guess my goal in making these videos is simply to get MORE women involved in esports than what we're seeing right now, with the added perogative of lowering the misogyny/harassment/etc that girls and other marginalized communities in the space encounter. 'equal' representation would be impossible to strive for at present-- we're not even seeing it in place in industries or spaces outside of the gaming world, and given the masculine connotations video games have, i highly doubt esports will be the first place women break even.
i just want to spread the idea of women existing in the space to the youtube algorithm and hopefully convince people that women in gaming are worth giving a shit about-- right now, even though (as you point out) women are a minority population in most genres, little to no effort is being made in recruiting more or making the spaces more welcoming in the first place. some would say this doesn't matter, but ultimately, i just want the option to be available; if a girl wants to be one of the 7% of FPS players who isn't male, she should be able to without getting backlash or encountering misogynistic themes in the games themselves. i talk about valorant a lot in my videos, but in this example, i think it definitely merits discussion- riot seems to have made an active decision to bring more women and marginalized genders into the game and FPS genre at large through their gameplay and game changers league, and i think it's really paying off. if more games were to follow in their footsteps, i think the gender breakdowns that you describe here would start to drastically change. i don't know the exact statistic, but i know that valorant already has a MUCH larger population of female gamers than 7%.
LMFAO, its pretty simplr, there aren't enough women supporting women in esports, it aint my responsibility as a dude to "represent" females in esports bub, i watch it to watch pros play, i have no issue if the whole team was female and they were cracked, but where are those cracked females tho huh??? just curious
maybe if you watched the video you'd have your answer bong dude
My personal theory is that women are just as good as men at video games, but because of how hostile and misogynistic the gaming space has always been means a lot of women don't invest as much time into competitive videogames as their male counterparts, because it's a commonly hostile environment
This is the one, why would you spend time feeling like shit to get good at something where you’ll be treated like shit, what a waste of time when you could actually enjoy your hobby either by yourself or by posting online whatever, like maybe if they made the space welcoming women would try
Misogyny is only the tip of the iceberg here, gaming quickly became and was perceived as a guy thing for decades, so marketing needs to cater to them, once that’s done, they started getting weirded out when girls showed up more often in recent times.
It also needs to be said that women in general just don’t have as much interest in videogames as men, and those that do game play games of specific genres like the Sims, CK3, or other games that have character interaction as a main feature, there’s probably a few more things i’m forgetting that draws some women to gaming, it sure as hell isn’t grand strategy games which are the main games i play, it is a literal meme there that there are no women in the community, or that playing those games is the reason for not having a significant other, all of this despite us not having a reputation of gatekeeping or hostility, it’s simply a lack of interest, the only exception here is CK3 because it’s a game with characters and interactions as a main focus and selling point.
This was already apparent since gaming’s infancy where the marketing didn’t yet seek to cater to either. Growing up i never met girls who played videogames as a hobby except for my mother who to this day only has interest in Tetris, i’m sure anyone who reads this can simply go talk to people they know at work or school and ask them if they game, i’m pretty sure most will end up having the same observations, mainly that a good junk of men will say they do, and be hard pressed to find any women who say they do. Implying it naturally interests men a lot mote than women no differently than men typically having no interest in becoming, say, skin care specialists when compared to women.
You could argue though that men being interested in video games and women being interested in skincare is all thanks to the type of marketing targeted at them and not any organic preferences. Also what are these grand strategy games you play that you say no women do? Certainly less women do but not every woman who plays games plays the sims and animal crossing, it depends what social spheres you’re in
@@katierasburn9571 Marketing has its roots from knowing what men and women typically want. It didn’t come from nowhere, there’s no reason anyone conducting business would only want to market to one group, the more the better, it’s all about the money.
Yes, Grand Strategy is one such example, virtually no women play them. No, i don’t look at the minuscule amount of them that do, we’re talking about the rule, not the exception. Grand Strategy seems to appeal very strongly to men simply because they instinctively like the idea of using strategy and tactics to compete, same thing with war games, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV, etc etc. i’m sure you can find many statistics showing how much of a sausage fest it is.
It is irrelevant whether or not they all play the Sims or Animal Crossing, many women tend to play them because it appeals to their instincts to care and nurture.
Simply put, men and women are wired differently, it is unsurprising therefore that each tends to naturally and instinctively gravitate towards specific interests or types of games, they’re just different.
Let's go women! Let's go Lesbians! Let's go non-cis people! We need to show guys we are here!
I don't think there is an issue with non cis people in esports. Even though racism is definitely just as big as sexism in gaming. Almost like misogyny isn't the reason for there being no women in pro gaming...
agree and disagree with sum points, having “interest” in going pro or playing at a high level may it be in sports or gaming isn’t enough u have to be actually qualified to do so. The notion of oh bcuz they’re something else than men so that means we won’t allow them is just not true, i get not being a man and seeing always men at a high level may give u the feeling but there have been multiple examples in the past of individuals that weren’t men competing and them just not being able to perform at the same level or not being able to take in all the criticism/hate (u can have 10 good games but if u one bad one ppl will chastise u for that one bad game, ofc that sucks but gotta be able to tank that and focus thats what comes with playing at a level where all eyes are on u), not saying its impossible but it’s probably just such a minuscule amount of ppl that are able to handle all of these factors combined. Also it may be true women hide their identities to stay away from weirdos, but that has nothing to do with wanting to play pro if ur passionate enough and yk ur better at the game than most “men” and u genuinely think u could do pro we would see them come forth (like we have been seeing for example Danica Patrick,claressa shields these women arent scared of the misogynists and haters they believe in themselves wether thats delusion or genuine confidence at being able to hang with men) and as a man let me tell u if there was such an individual they would get such a huge fan base bcuz its jus unprecedented to see that at a high level so also the notion of “men would simply hate on that individual solely bcuz they aren’t men” isn’t gonna pull here every single player has haters sum more, others less and i’m sure sum hate on genders but if ur good enough most will respect ur skill and dedication (clark being an perfect example watching her is honestly such a breath of fresh air and she has alot of men rooting for her)
Bro nah shes saying that if women want to there should be availability for them to try, there should be marketing towards them and it should be welcoming to them instead of this toxic boy club no girl wants to join even if she is good enough for the cut. No one is saying just put them in because they’re women…
2:21 it's very strange that westerners keep reaping this argument. Don't they have statistics at school? According westerner's logic Denmark would never be esports superpower it's now.
The gaming (and sport) community is overall very toxic. People will using anything and everything they can to belittle other people, if you happen to be , people will us it as fuel against you. You either need to be very resilient against it and not let it label you, or have a better insult than the other person. If not, you will give up. I gave up on games cause I didn't want to handle the toxicity. Move on to a less agressive/toxic game and move on.
Will this ever change? I don't think so. Competitive (e)sports run on adrenalin and being agressive. Villainizing your opponent is a way of hyping yourself up against them. In both male and female sports you will see players talking smack to the opponent before and during the game and typically hug it out afterwards.
Nah bro the problem is its WORSE if you’re any kind of minority, so its literally not worth spending your time in these spaces playing these games because the chances you’ll get any enjoyment are nuked, its not about being resilient its about im here to have fun and thats not happening so I’ll take my time elsewhere
Have you tried confidence? But really, societal expectations are a factor. However women cannot compete in high end top 0.1% activities of almost any kind against man. Man are made to have greater spread of their abilities, making them simulteously the best performers and the worst performers at the same time. Women tend to be spread more around the average. Evolutionary strategy. That is why even top women performers cannot compete even in purely non physical activities such as chess or high end carreer. However in non physical activities the average women is pretty much the same or better than average man.
what non physical activities is the average woman better in than men? I can't think of much
@@dankdungeon5104 For example writing. Almost any stuff related to academia. Language learning, etc. There are some exceptions even for physical actovities such as rhytmic gymnastics that generally favors women.
However we are talking on average now. Exect rhytmic gymnastics example, the men dominate the high end of mentioned activities too.
This subsection of gymnastics could serve as a false equivalence that could have been used for this video. Because men are likely underepresented in the high end mostly because it is too feminine.
personally, ive seen alot of top players who are women.
transwomen, who transitioned after they became top players.
i am also one of these women, i got good first.
i have prctically never seen a ciswoman go pro
They suck
There's no proof that women are worse at video games, unless you count stereotypes as proof... I've had a lot of dogshit team mates, and 99 percent of them were men
Cause they got no skill
or theres just less women too but yk
"The fact you said misogyny first thing in the description is wild, look at the statistics, less women play video game means less women pro. wow crazy" next time comment once youre done watching the video