'Girl only' competitions: a step too far

[Edster]

You may have noticed recently that Carl CJ is hosting a dirt competition on TM2 Stadium known as 'Dirty Ovlind Girls'. http://www.ovlind.net/f18-dog-dirty-ovlind-girls This is an event only open to female players, effectively banning male players from joining. I'm sorry, but whichever way you look at it, this is tantamount to sexism.

I have been arguing with Carl CJ, because I simply do not understand why this tournament has to be like this; not only does it exclude a large amount of the playerbase, but it also encourage girls to play in segregated competitions, which actually doesn't benefit them either. He told me:

I talk to several girls who get tired of the game because they fail to make results. They want to stop the game because it is dominated by boys. I encourage them to interresser the game by asking their build circuits for my Events. With circuits in a competition, they feel the same space as a boy in this game I created the DOG for the female community is recognized. 8 days, the whole community will be watching the female community. This Event interest to girls because they are registered. I showed the community what you are saying to me: Sexist etc ... Trackmania players are the first to say you're doing wrong with such comments.

I have nothing against Carl CJ; I hadn't met the guy until this, although I had heard only good things about him as a member of the dirt community, which I personally am not really hugely active in in terms of competitions. But I find his reasons for setting up this championship truly baffling. Firstly, he says that girls don't want to play the game because boys are generally more successful at it. So, what have we boys done that is so wrong? If you are playing Trackmania and someone else beats you consistently, you either A) Train harder to be more competitive against them, or B) Accept that the better player has won, and show good sportsmanship. The way Carl presents it here makes it sound like the girls have a "If I can't win, then I won't play" attitude, which sounds like very-unsportsmanlike
behaviour, and not in the spirit of Trackmania at all. (Maybe this is not the case, but that's how it is presented here) If I have a tournament, and I am being beaten by a pro-player, my reaction would not be to ban that pro-player; how is that fair on them? Carl says he wants the female community to be recognised; okay that's great, I think it's fantastic that he's building up a female community, but surely the best way to be recognised is to enter girls into competitions against men and not just settle for beating other girls. Even if they don't win, at least they'd have tried, and maybe even had fun and got something out of the challenge. Better yet, why didn't they let boys compete, but create incentives for Girls to do so as well, such as giving an extra prize for the highest 3 girls, or something, rather than taking a blanket approach. It's not as if women are incapable of beating men at Trackmania...

Tm ² offroad (Dirt) is a community. Everyone knows everyone. There are 24 girls who play Tracmania Dirt, of which 17 are regular players. 3 girls have contacted me to say they are not disponnible for days compet. The DOG is in a week and there are already 12 registration. It is a success that goes beyond my expectations.
Do not talk about sexism, because in many sports there in women's rankings ... I organize other Events such as DST Cup, and I'm the only one who can claim to be in the community, have to last season, 2 out of 24 maps that are built by a girl. For the next edition of the DST Cup, I already 6 out of 24 maps, which are built by girls, and maybe more ...
Do not talk about sexism, because when you're a daughter, you will dress with the pink, and you will buy her a Barby doll ...

Carl points out that women's rankings are used in other sports, and expects the same argument to apply here...But this is not athletics; this is a video game. Women are not genetically pre-disposed to be worse than men at the key skills needed for Trackmania: concentration, reaction times, etc. Indeed, I've read many reports which say that women are generally more proficient at multi-tasking, so they should be at no disadvantage whatsoever compared to men. So why are they being segregated, as if they're "inferior" in some way?

I know some of you will be reading this thinking: "But Ed, it's just one tournament for Girls, I don't see why it's such a bad thing." Well, look at it this way: What if it was an all white event which banned black people from competing? Doesn't sound so good now, does it? Is gender discrimination like this such a big step away from that?

What if, for example, a transgender person wants to compete? Would they be turned away? I mean, how can Carl CJ even tell whether anyone who signs up really is a girl or not, beyond the information he is given on forums/ingame?

All girls who are registered, I know them. And verrification ip addresses will be for sure a boy does not drive in place of girls.

Umm...Correct me if I'm wrong, (I'm not the authority on IP Addresses) but how exactly can you tell someone's gender purely from their IP address? Couldn't it be registered to multiple people if they use the same PC? And even if he can trace it to Facebook accounts or whatever, isn't that sort of stalker-ish behaviour, which shows he's taking this a bit too far in the first place?

I know some may not be convinced by my arguments, that in speaking out against D.O.G. I am being controversial, and that because Carl CJ is an established player and I'm not, I am an easy target for him to abuse, but I believe that prejudice in gaming is disgusting and should have no place in Maniaplanet, which is why I'm hoping that Nadeo does not choose to endorse this event. I'm all for seeing more girls competing in gaming, but in integrated games; not like this. There is more value in being the 600th best player in the world than being just the best female player in the world. Do not be fooled into thinking Dirty Ovlind Girls is some sort of 'triumph' for feminism; it is actually doing a disservice to the girls that compete in it, as they are basically banning worthy opponents they might otherwise have proved themselves against. This can't be right.

[steeffeen]

Well hearing about that tournament the first time, for me it feels like YOU're the one that's making it sexist in the first place
I think It's for fun and not like "we are better than you and want to play alone"
Saying a girl-competition is almost racist is like saying a championship of a country is racist because they don't allow people from other countries
I could think of a tournament for new players only, just to see who's learning the fastest
Or one only for shootmania players that actually can't drive at all
There are endless examples of possible filters
A girly one is just one of them

Please don't take this post as angry or something, I just try to tell about my thoughts while reading the thread ^^

P.s. I don't know either of you because I hardly play tm

[Edster]

Well hearing about that tournament the first time, for me it feels like YOU're the one that's making it sexist in the first place
I think It's for fun and not like "we are better than you and want to play alone"
Saying a girl-competition is almost racist is like saying a championship of a country is racist because they don't allow people from other countries
I could think of a tournament for new players only, just to see who's learning the fastest
Or one only for shootmania players that actually can't drive at all
There are endless examples of possible filters
A girly one is just one of them

Please don't take this post as angry or something, I just try to tell about my thoughts while reading the thread ^^

P.s. I don't know either of you because I hardly play tm

I don't expect anyone to agree with my views; if you think that by pointing it out I've 'made it' sexist somehow, then fair enough, but I disagree. I'm glad at least that we're engaging in debate rather than avoiding/perpetuating the issue. I understand this is a sensitive subject so I chose my words carefully.

Maybe I am overreacting, but I think somebody's got to before this gets out of hand. I think we've all known or have experienced prejudice at some point in our lives, but it seems few ever speak out against it when it crops up. I don't just see this as bad morally, but it will also have a negative impact socially; what this does is divide up an already fragmented community. Even if it is just for fun, (And Carl CJ flat out told me that many of the girls were upset about their results, which would suggest otherwise) it's not a healthy development, and I really don't see the point of it.

I'm not a fan of single country championships either, unless it's a LAN or local thing. In any case, usually country championships come down to location, not nationality.

As for all the other filters, you mentioned, they are all things you can control and have influence over...None of us got to choose which gender we were born as. If there was a "Men only" championship it would be equally pointless and would rightly be met with similar outcry to what I've bought up here.

[nailbomb69]

There is hardly any drama over single gender comps in sports being started up all over the world. This is no different even if it is a game.

[tombuilder]

I go here with steeffeen too,

this is a pure fun competition and doesn`t separate the dirt community at all. Most of the girls/women, if not even all, are driving in teams already for a long time.
This is not a big competition with hundreds of players or prize money. You could see it as a internal team cup or something like this. The only reason it may look so much advertised is that he has to reach all the girls/women as they are in different teams with different clan sites.
I think also that carl is doing the job more or less alone, so their isn`t even the capability of open it to everyone. Otherwise he would need more servers, organisation,...
And like Carl said, in the dirt community the most player know each other. And you can believe me, if that would feel sexist to some of the girls/women (most are not teenager), they would let us know that!

We have plenty of possibilities to compete in dirt, so this one single/special event is no big deal at all.

[Pedal]

Maybe I am overreacting,,,,,,

In this case, with humble honesty, i feel this is what you are doing and taking this way out of proportions....

I also feel that your reaction may come from not knowing and understanding the dirt-community. Like mentioned, it is a very small and tight Group within TM where almost everybody knows each other. The female-players are a well-known and well-respected Group within this Community.

Female teams, tournaments/competitions are not unique, neither for e-sports in general or sports in general. Look at CS who has a female-league..........

I feel quite the opposite, this is a good thing and i feel TM and esports in general will benefit from this....

i quote a reply on a CS-forum on a quite similar reaction/quation as you in this matter:

CS, like most gaming and most esports, is overwhelmingly male. When <1% of the general population is going to be pro-level at a game, and ~99% of the players are male... it just becomes very unlikely that you see any significant pro women gamers.

Women-only tourneys have the potential to generate more co-ed interest in the game, by putting women gamers in the spotlight. In the long run, that will mean a wider pool of female gamers, which makes it more likely that you have women in the normal esports pool.

[Hylis]

It's a complicated topic that had supporters on both side for long time.

In a fun perspective, it's obvious that if they say they would enjoy being among girls sometimes, in the thrill of a competition, there is little to say to refuse it. If it's to say that girls are less good than men in video games, that would be a mistake and I don't think it's the case here.

By the way, the most talented player I saw is a girl. She was invited to test Trackmania before a launch, because she told us she never played video games before, and we wished to test the accessibility of the whole. She played on 4 racing tracks and got 3 'temporary' author medals at first try. I met quite a range of talented players in many years, but never such a direct control: the car was having a pure trajectory, without any adjustements at every turn, like if the car was doing exactly what she wished, without any difficulty to do it

[Gugli]

Complicated issue indeed.

My personal point of view about these questions may be illustrated with an example, I think :

Imagine you work in a big & international company (for us it's Ubisoft ^^). And you want to organize a internal Tournament. It has to be online since the company is big and on multiple countries. So it's an Ubisoft-only tournament, and I find it very similar this girl-only tournament. The admission filter is arbitrary and based on something you don't have direct impact on. (You can not really choose to become an Ubi employee from yourself. All you can do is try very hard to increase your chances). If this example seem to different to you, because there's nothing "physical" about it, you could also imagine a 'tattooed-people-only' tournament or a 'age-under-16-only ' tournament.

Of course, if you see a fundamental difference between all those examples and a women-only tournament, I'd be glad to hear it ! But from my point of view, the only difference between all those is the difficulty to willingly change in order to meet the requirements (getting a tattoo is painful but not so difficult, but going backward in age is impossible xD. The others are probably in between.).

Now, about the consequences of a arbitrarily-restricted tournament : I personally see mostly good ones .
Of course there can be arguments about who is able to enlist (are interns or former employees or on-site consultants accepted?). This can lead to tensions of frustrations especially if there are big prizes.
But overall, I think it will motivate people because they feel they can achieve a prestigious ranking, and because they're competing amongst close peers. Also, by selecting a sub-community, it would probably make the games more popular inside this specific group (people of the company will discover the game because of the tournament and maybe start playing it).

I don't deny the risks you list though, about splitting the community. What if one of the restricted tournaments becomes so popular it becomes the standard one, the one everyone watches and talk about ? That would be a real problem because it would claim : this game is for this kind of people only. But I think the risk is pretty low, because as you say : the results of restricted tournament are not as valuable as the results of open tournaments. I believe people will rarely follow the results of these tournament unless they are part of the eligible people. I totally understand such concerns. Is that what preoccupies you ?

On a final note, you ask

So, what have we boys done that is so wrong?

I'd answer : Nothing ! It's not about you. It does not even concerns you in the first place. I even find it odd that you feel concerned. What if the tournament was "The tournament of people arbitrarily chosen by Carl CJ" and Carl CJ picked exactly the same women to compete ? Would you also feel concerned ?

To get back to my example, would you also say "What have we, not working in Ubisoft, done that is so wrong [to be exluded from a Ubisoft-only tournament]?" ? I've never heard anyone claim such things, but maybe.

If not though, then I'd be curious to know why you feel concerned when there's a woman-only tournament, and not when it's another kind of restricted tournament.

Peace, and enjoy the game

[Alter-Fox]

I think it's a good idea, and it could attract another playerbase to something (video games in general, in fact) that's traditionally very male-oriented. There's plenty of other competitions available for males if I'm not mistaken.
I think Gugli said it very well, although as for the part about "risk of splitting the community"... I doubt it. Very few teenagers or adults want to appear sexist, and that's the majority of the community.

Basically what I'm saying is, it sounds completely reasonable to me. Creating accessibility to try and draw a new group of players with something fun is not the same thing as discrimination.

[Cerovan]

the car was having a pure trajectory, without any adjustements at every turn, like if the car was doing exactly what she wished, without any difficulty to do it

Maybe she was in the flow, if it was the case, she was lucky

Else my personal view about it, maybe the girls in the competition can vote about it, that's simpler that way no? It's a difficult topic without hurting one of the side (girls wanting to play with boys and girls wanting to play with girls only). I'm always for mixed competition but i can understand why girls want to play between them. There isn't an absolute answer about this, so it must be decided case by case.

I have nothing more to add since there is already very good answers before me.