Institutional Responsibility:

Hegemonic Any key member who takes part in the management of tournaments
should be more aware of participant care and take more a proactive
approach in setting an appropriate code of conduct and providing

Play female participants with mentorship. Most importantly, they should

work towards providing a safe space for them for them to achieve their
potential.

Despite girl gamers’ efforts

When a female gamer wins a game to prove themselves, their
achievement is often
overlooked. Even after
winning and achieving
great things, people still
doubt about their ways of
playing and often make
“Are you connections to their
cheating?” gender. We should
recognize their expertise
Trash talking is greatly present without believing that they
during play, but the comments are less good simply
directed to women players are because they are women.
often gender based. These
comments include comments
on their appearance, rape She goes through an audit and it
threats and death threats. proves she did not cheat. Some girl gamers decide to mute
Women players are online to themselves while playing so they can
play games and socialize with blend in and act “normal”. However,
their audience. They are not this contributes even more to the
there to be eye candy for male hegemonic masculinity in the high-
players. One should reflect performance play since “the muting of
whether their comments are voices has a direct relationship with
playful or abusive. “Pervasive how gaming expertise and
“Ok, still you don’t look
communication of sexist, as visibility is “given” as a
like a woman. You’re not
well as racist and homophobic wearing makeup and you male/masculine pursuit.” Women
“(Witkowski, 2018, have short hair” (Choi et should not have to conceal themselves
p.189) al., 2020) as they are building their identity as a
should be avoided. gamer and breaking the stereotypical
image of a girl gamer.

If the girl gamer decides to voice her If the girl gamer decides to not voice
opinion and defend herself her opinion

“Let us put ”You are failing

this grill/girl the feminist
back to her community for
place” not standing up”

“I feel like I have to prove that girls

Stepping up to others who look down can be good at StarCraft and
on you takes a lot of courage and it motivated to improve so it feels like I
takes even more “when individuals She gives up am failing all of the women if I fail a
encounter and challenge gendered game, or many games in a row, and
spaces, they become acutely aware that I am proving the stereotypes to
that a personal attack is always just be right. “ (Witkowski, 2018,
around the corner, only one comment p.198)
or tweet away” (Witkowski
, 2018, as cited in ESL, 2015). On top of experiencing gender issues
related to their practices in building
Misogynist attacks from a personal their place in high-performance play,
and community level should be women players also feel the pressure
prevented and stopped. to be good because they feel they are
not just representing themselves but
also representing all women.