esports

Although esports – competitive, organized video gaming – has exploded into a billion-dollar industry, women players are hard to find on esports teams at America’s colleges and universities. In the following Q&A, Lindsey Darvin, an assistant professor of sport management, shines light on the reasons. The Conversation, CC BY-ND 1. Why are college esports dominated by men? Women and girls experience many obstacles throughout esports environments – both in terms of participation and employment. These include the way they are subjected to gender-based harassmment from male esport players, toxic masculinity, stereotyping and prejudices, as I and colleagues wrote in a forthcoming article for the Sport Management Review. These circumstances have resulted in lower numbers of women and girls i...

In day-to-day life, you probably haven’t had someone yell at you, “Get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!” If you’re a woman who plays online video games, though, statements like this, and worse, are all too common. As COVID-19 has driven much of life online and fueled a boom in online gaming, harassment in these and other internet spaces has increased. Forty-one percent of computer and videogame players are female, down from 46% in 2019. Despite its digital nature, online harassment can have real-world consequences for victims, including emotional and physical distress. This has left online gaming companies and players scrambling for better community management techniques to prevent harassment. As a researcher who studies gaming, I’ve found that the right cultural norms can res...

Tag: esports

Esports Teams Dominated By Men, At Colleges Nationwide

Here’s what it’ll take to clean up esports’ toxic culture