We established on Wednesday, July 2 that female players would be segregated from participating in a Hearthstone qualifying tournament at this year’s Assembly Summer in Finland. The qualifier in question leads up to the International e-Sports Federation’s (IeSF) World Championship, whose rules stipulated that only Finnish male players would be able to compete in the tournament.
Though the IeSF was then subjected to questions and criticism regarding its decision to separate males and females into their own eSports events, the organization later changed its events following feedbacks to allow for all genders to compete its eSports events , but it still kept events aside for females only.
Following the debacle, the IeSF contacted PC Gamer on Thursday, July 3 to explain why it had originally separated the two genders, courtesy of PC Gamer.
” It is important to note the rationale for IeSF’s efforts to join the international sports society, ” IeSF’s general manager of international relations Alex Lim told PC Gamer, ” and why IeSF initial created a gender division policy. ”
According to PC Gamer, the IeSF’s efforts were aimed at attaining traditional sports status for eSports, so the organization could better support professional players. As part of that aim, the IeSF have been preparing to apply for SportAccord membership, which is a union for both Olympic and non-Olympic international sports federations as well as an organiser of international sporting events.
“ The structure of a sports society, which is able to support the athletes to live their life related to the sports or even out of the sports, is vital for the long term success of the players,” Lim continued . “By providing opportunities to continue school through scholarship IeSF can insure the athlete’s life, even after their retirement from the competition scene, will continue to be successful. ”
” While applying IeSF found out that it is one of the requirements to have active women promotion to join, ” Lim added. ” IeSF approached this matter by following traditional sports. From the tradition sports scene, men were dominating, and international sports society decided to install women division to increase the involvement of women in more easy and efficient way. ”
Lim continued to touch on the “ physiological difference ” between genders that, somehow, make it “ necessary to separate the genders in sports .” However, because eSports is in the question and not regular sports, it was hard for the IeSF to apply any “physiological difference” as no evidence of such could be applied to eSports, according to Lim.
“ Of course in traditional sports there has been the physiological difference between genders that make it necessary to separate the genders in sports. However, it was hard to apply to e-Sports since there has not been any evidence that can be applied to e-Sports. Though some says there is no physiological factor which may affect the performance of men and women, there are others who believe that dynamic visual acuity and precise control may differ by the gender, which may affect the performance.
It is the third year testing women promotion events, and we truly believe that has grown the women player pool in competitive events, ” Lim concluded. ” IeSF hopes that both men and women will continue to enjoy and compete in e-Sports and e-Sports can be a unique sport that men and women can both compete at an equal level. ”
We’ll bring you more news on equality in the videogames industry and competitive scene should further information reach our ears.
[ PC Gamer ]