Abstract
Women remain underrepresented across most roles in the esports industry, which has long been associated with gender-based harassment and toxicity. While research has tended to focus on the experiences of women in professional esports careers, the current study investigated the nature and impact of harassment and toxicity on amateur players. Through interviews with eight women experienced in esports participation, experiences and costs of gender-based exclusion were documented. Stereotyped roles were common, with women facing gender stereotypes of both ability and character appropriateness, as well as sexual objectification. The women reported resignation about systemic misogyny, juxtaposed with hope that specific industry-level changes could elicit improvements. While the women often avoided revealing their gender, there was a strong sense that visible role models and solidarity among the female community in esports can provide an effective protection against gender-based harassment, potentially combatting low rates of women participating in esports in the longer term.
The video game industry has historically been associated with male players (Kowert et al., 2017; Paaßen et al., 2017) despite women making up 46% of the gaming population (Entertainment Software Association, 2023). Women who enter online gaming spaces such as electronic sports (esports) professionally are routinely treated with hostility and harassment (Consalvo, 2012; Fox & Tang, 2017). The current study is designed to explore whether these issues also affect women participating in roles in the amateur esports scene.
Esports is defined as a form of competitive gaming in which players compete in various tournaments and leagues for prizes (see Rogstad, 2022). There is no official distinction between amateur and professional players but unlike amateur players, who may play for no remuneration or in tournaments with small cash prizes, professional esports players tend to have multiple sources of gaming income, including lucrative contracts with high-profile teams (Mangeloja, 2019). Women are massively underrepresented across these levels (Hilbert, 2019; Rogstad, 2022).
One reason for the low level of female involvement in esports positions may be that such roles frequently attract gender-based harassment (e.g., objectification and sexist comments) and toxicity (a culture of negative behaviours) from other players (Darvin et al., 2021; Ruvalcaba et al., 2018). Public incidents of gender harassment have elicited few repercussions, suggesting that such behaviours are seen by some as an acceptable part of gaming culture (Vossen, 2018). Live-streaming services like Twitch provide an additional source of toxicity in the form of direct chat communication from viewers, with women who stream esports matches receiving more derogatory comments than male players (Ruvalcaba et al., 2018). Some professional esports women have faced such relentless harassment that they have left the esports industry altogether (Holden et al., 2020).
The link between gender-based harassment and underrepresentation of women in gaming is well-established. Fox and Tang (2017) found that harassment led to online rumination, which in turn predicted withdrawal from games and online spaces. Indeed, Darvin et al. (2021) noted the prevalence of ‘gender-zoning’ in esports, a process in which male players push women from particular games, teams or online communities through targeted harassment and toxicity, and exclusion from ‘scrimming’ (practicing) opportunities (Darvin et al., 2021). To deal with this issue, some organisations have created single-gender leagues and tournaments to provide a space for female players to develop skills and build confidence in their gameplay (Madden et al., 2021). However, this has elicited criticism, with some players believing it contributes to the stereotype that women are not skilled enough to play in mixed-gender teams against male players, further driving harassment and misogyny (Siutila & Havaste, 2019).
Women in esports report using personal coping strategies to negate harassment experiences. Gender masking is common, with players avoiding usernames or avatars that may identify them as a woman and avoiding in-game voice chat to communicate or de-feminising their language in text chat (Fox & Tang, 2017; Hao et al., 2020; Madden et al., 2021; Taylor, 2012; Türkay et al., 2020). Some women have also been documented to adopt the behaviour of male players and peers, participating in misogynistic jokes and ‘banter’ to deflect harassment elsewhere (Taylor, 2012).
Although there has been a significant increase in research on esports in the last few years, the effects of harassment on women in this particular area have been mainly focused on those in professional careers (Darvin et al., 2021; Holden et al., 2020). Few studies highlight the experiences of amateur players, despite these being a far larger cohort. To address this gap, the current study aims to develop our understanding of the experiences on women participating in amateur esports, exploring how they are personally affected by gender harassment and toxicity. We will take a qualitative approach using thematic analysis of interview data to gain insight into the lived experiences of women in esports.
Method
Participants
Selective sampling was used to recruit participants via UK-based Discord servers (https://discord.com/), which have been created specifically for women in esports. An advertisement was posted, and a secure questionnaire link was distributed to those who responded (N = 29), asking them to provide contact details and information on gender identity and esports experience. A poster was also used to advertise the study to female students of university computer games courses, which included a QR code to the same recruitment questionnaire. Of all the questionnaire respondents, 22 individuals met the inclusion criteria of (a) identifying as female, (b) being active in esports, and (c) having experiences with harassment and toxicity in the industry. These 22 individuals were invited for interview, and the eight who responded to this invitation comprised the final sample. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 30 years, and esports experience ranged across esports titles including Valorant (Riot games, 2023), Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment, 2016), Pokémon Unite (The Pokémon Company, 2021), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve, 2012), and League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009). The study was approved by Abertay University’s Research Ethics Committee (EMS6465).
Procedure of Data Collection
Data were collected through semi-structured interviews in 2023, conducted and recorded over video call. The researcher covered five main questions with each participant, exploring their general gaming background, any apprehension they felt before joining esports, their experiences regarding gender-based harassment and toxicity and how this had impacted them, and what they believed teams and organisations could do better to tackle these behaviours. Interviews lasted around 30 minutes each. Following the interview, each participant was thanked and debriefed, and their contact details deleted.
Procedure of Data Analysis
A thematic analysis was conducted, with the researcher (HC) identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns found within the data following Braun and Clarke's (2006, 2012) six-step process. Both an inductive approach and a deductive approach were adopted within this process, following Braun and Clarke's (2019) acknowledgement that using these in combination could improve the practice of reflexive thematic analysis in research (rather than adopting the more rigid singular approach advocated previously; Braun & Clarke, 2006). Firstly, the researcher familiarised herself with the data by listening to and then transcribing by ear each audio file. Each recording was listened to repeatedly and the transcriptions were revisited continually throughout the write-up process, having been imported into NVivo (QSR International, 2020) and read repeatedly to allow for data trends to be highlighted and noted. These were used reflexively to generate initial codes, and gathered into groups depending on their meaning, with this evolving organically as the researcher continued to explore the data (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The groups were collapsed to create initial themes that supported the exploration of the research question, with these then being reviewed iteratively by the researcher and the corresponding author (SC) to develop the final theme structure detailed in Table 1 (below). These stages were fed into the final step, in which the researcher decided how to structure the themes within the findings in a way that made sense, allowing for a consistent flow of information that would be easy for the reader to understand (Braun & Clarke, 2012; Byrne, 2022).
Themes and Sub-Themes Identified in the Data.
Findings
Experiences of Exclusion
Exclusion was a common theme, with participants experiencing explicit exclusion in the form of being rejected from esports roles as a direct result of their gender. P1 described being excluded from an opportunity in ‘casting’ (a commentating role for live-stream audiences). Having the requisite experience and skills, P1 submitted her resumé and highlight reel to apply for the caster role: ‘And they message me back and they’re like, “Do you identify as a woman?”. I’m like “Yeah, I do”, and they’re like, “Oh okay, so we really want a female caster in here, but we don’t have the space right now”’.
P6 recounted an equally explicit gender-based exclusion, this time for a game team membership: ‘I trialed for [a team] a couple years back, and everything seemed to be going fine, but at the end they were like, “Yeah we don’t really want a girl to play on our team”’. The directness of these gender exclusions is stark; neither P1 nor P6 was offered feedback or criticism on their actual suitability for the role, with their rejection based openly on their identity as a woman. There was a sense that male players – who have become accustomed to the hypermasculine culture that exists within the industry – may view it as risky to introduce another gender into a space so dominated by men.
Attempts by organisers and individuals to protect women from gender-based harassment and toxicity can result in further exclusion. P2 described how hostility from male counterparts in a mixed-gender team directly led to her own separation from the team: ‘One of the guys told me that I couldn’t do my job and then said the words. “Why have we let a woman set up the lobby, there's clearly something wrong with her”. And I was like, okay, this is a bit odd, so they ended up splitting up the genders of the teams so that I didn’t have to deal with it rather than just getting rid of the one person causing the problem’.
Instead of removing the male player, the female players were separated and put into their own team. The message is that the team's problem was a woman entering a man's space, rather than a male player's misogyny.
There are several costs of these forms of exclusion for women in esports, including financial. In particular, there was a sense that women may be limited to amateur roles as a result of their gender, with P3 noting: ‘The argument I see men have is that women aren’t good enough to be in the Tier 1 teams with men … Well, lots of these men had the opportunity to go to academy teams or have their games be salaried, so they don’t have to work a job, whereas a lot of women, there's not much funding in the area so women have to go to work and have a job, which means they can’t dedicate their time needed to their game to get to the same level as men’.
In-person esports events were associated with additional forms of exclusion for women attendees. P1 commented that she often has to pay for a single hotel room rather than reducing costs by sharing, as there are no other women attending. She also reported social costs to this exclusion, as being the only woman, ‘can just get kind of awkward sometimes’, and her single hotel room left her feeling cut off socially: ‘it can be lonely sometimes’. The implication is that male-dominated culture surrounding esports can leave women watching from the sidelines, feeling isolated.
Stereotyped Roles for Women
Gender stereotypes
Women reported being affected by the ‘gamer’ stereotype that only men are interested in playing video games. Exposure to gender-stereotyped comments often comes from platforms like social media, which, as P3 reflected, may be unmoderated by organisers: ‘All of the comments are like, “Women are shit, women should go back to the kitchen, they shouldn’t play video games”. And [tournament organisers] make like no effort to delete those comments or block those people, they just allow those sorts of comments to happen’.
Women also reported having to deal with stereotypical face-to-face reactions to their engagement in esports. P4, a video games student, noted: ‘I’ve had people come up to me and they were like, “Well you don’t look like someone who likes games” and I’m like, “… what does someone who likes games look like?” I wear dresses, I play games, I don’t think both need to be mutually exclusive’.
This shows women being presented with an artificial conflict between their identity as a gamer and their identity as a woman.
The sense that female stereotypes are forced on women in esports by their male counterparts was also strong in the context of role and character selection in games, as women are often expected to play particular female characters. For example, in the team-based action game Overwatch, there is an emphasis on mastering different characters in three individual roles: tank, damage, and support. P1 (a caster for Overwatch) comments that if playing a tank role, she is expected to take the role of female tank hero character D.Va: ‘I could go into a game of Overwatch; I’m a tank player – that's fine, right? I don’t play D.Va like stereotypical people do, and … if I decide to start talking, they’re like “Oh you’re a girl, why aren’t you playing D.Va? That's probably why we’re losing”’.
The clear implication is that women should stay in their prescribed roles. Participants resented this particularly because female-stereotypical characters are often associated with lower skill levels; in Overwatch, for example, the support character Mercy is recognizable by her angelic, feminine appearance, and kit that relies very little (if at all) on aiming ability. This aspect is highlighted by P6: ‘I played support, so obviously that already lumps me into that group of like, “Oh, she only plays Mercy” … but I hated playing Mercy. I would prefer to play like Lucio, Baptiste [male support heroes] like, you know, just normal support heroes and it took a lot of persuading sometimes, like doing trials and stuff, to tell people like look, I can actually play these support heroes.’
Despite preferring to play male support heroes who carry damage-dealing weapons in tournaments, P6 regularly faced the ‘Mercy stereotype’, having to prove to teammates that she had the required skill to play other characters. It seems that both female players and female characters are stereotyped into lower-status roles. Participants reported negative consequences when these gender stereotypes were transgressed and they played other roles, including verbal toxicity from other players: ‘I made a call, because I was playing Ana [a female support hero who carries a rifle] so like the expectation is that I have to aim well to play Ana, and ’cause I’m a woman, I don’t aim well apparently. So, they started like, “Oh switch to Mercy”, you know, “You’re trash, you’re throwing the game”’.
Even when playing well during a match or team trial, women received back-handed compliments because of their gender. P8 recalled trialing for a mixed-gender team in a tactical shooter game and being told, ‘Oh my god – you played so well for a girl’. This encounter was frustrating, although she noted that ‘it wasn’t the first time guys had been like sexist to me in a team, so I was just like “oh yeah, it's just another one”’. As this quotation conveys, women's experience of being judged on the basis of female stereotypic expectations can be so repetitive as to become routine.
Sexual objectification
Several participants highlighted the rampant sexual objectification of women in the esports industry, which they theorised stemmed from wider societal attitudes as well as the culture surrounding video games. P3 commented: ‘There's always been misogyny deeply engrained in society; I think it's a big societal issue cause like there's misogyny everywhere and a lot of that was brought in from people who were misogynistic before playing video games. I don’t think it's anything unique to video games themselves’.
This statement may reflect the participant's desire to avoid denigrating the esports community, but it may also be an accurate reflection of societal norms and the women's experience of sexism outside of gaming. The participants appeared to be aware before coming into the esports industry of the gender-based harassment they might receive, as a result of experiencing misogyny in other areas of life. This may be more intense online, due to players feeling anonymised behind a screen, giving them a sense of security that could lead to more concentrated harassment toward female players.
The participants noted either muting or ignoring the harassers to deal with harassment, although P4 explained that even this tactic can escalate aggression: ‘They either keep going and keep going in hopes of getting a rise out of you and that you say something, and some people have become downright threatening like … like to a point where I felt in danger. I had someone get so angry [during a game] in saying they would figure out where I lived and would find me and find my mum and rape my mum and stuff like that. It was just awful, yeah, it was horrible, really horrible’.
It is clear that harassment can feel physically as well as psychologically threatening, even in an online environment. Video livestreams of matches and games bring an additional source of harassment, with spectators using the chat features to engage in objectification of women. For example, P1 commented: ‘When I’m on camera, when I’m on broadcast there's a lot of comments in the chat and I try not to read them, uhm, anymore, it's just, it's hurtful. You get things, like, “Oh her voice is so cringe” …, “Oh put on a different shirt”, like, “Oh, you dress like a man”. I’m like, what is the issue? I don’t understand’.
Although chats are often moderated during high-tier tournaments, it may take several seconds for toxic comments to be caught and deleted, giving time for women to see what spectators are saying about them. These comments can erode women's confidence, with P1 noting that ‘It's just so many things … they’re small, but they gradually add up’.
Unwanted sexual attention led to awkward and uncomfortable situations for women both online and in person. P4 expressed discomfort at being sexually harassed online during competitive games: ‘I think most of the harassment that you get now is very sexual in nature, so most it that I get is like, “Oh, do you have Snapchat?”, “Do you have Instagram?”, “Can you send me pictures?” … It goes to a point where people literally ask very, very invasive questions that are just so incredibly uncomfortable’.
Sexualisation and objectification also leads to awkward social interactions in person. As an esports management student in a majority-male class, P3 discussed unwanted male attention and noted that her male classmates often had ‘a lot of interest in some of the girls in class, cause you know it's sort of a woman who plays video games, they’re like a rare unicorn’. P6 faced a similar reaction from teammates, who would ‘try and ask me out, and they’d develop feelings’ despite only having known her ‘for like a few weeks’. This made making friends with male players difficult as P6 had to remind herself that she couldn’t ‘really be friends with them because then they’ll think I’m trying to hit on them’.
Sexualisation was experienced as denigrating to participants. P3 recalled a male classmate who stated that women do not need to worry about financial strains in esports as ‘they can just do OnlyFans or get their tits out on stream’. This undermines the struggles women face, presenting unwanted sexualisation as an advantage rather than acknowledging the social and personal consequences of harassment.
The sexualisation of characters within esports titles also proved to be an issue. This was attributed to players rather than creators by P4, who reflected that games like Valorant ‘try to have very strong female characters in their games … and then the Valorant community goes “oh, mummy Sage [sentinel agent]’ and ‘mummy Viper [controller agent]”’. Objectifying comments such as these devalue the effectiveness of having women represented in games – as P4 notes, going from an ‘amazing strong character to just sexualised’, a perceived downward shift in status and value.
Addressing Systemic Gender Harassment
Women had conflicting views on the extent to which the esports industry should change in response to systemic gender harassment, expressing both hopelessness and a desire to see change happen.
Hopelessness Versus Capacity for Change
Change in gaming culture was acknowledged to be a difficult aim, with evident gender-based barriers across the industry. P1 stated: ‘Knowing that [harassment] happens on all levels too is kind of sad, and even more at the higher level you get, the more people kind of feel entitled to that. And I think that's a good part of the reason there are fewer women at the top too, it's just not safe. It doesn’t feel good to be there, it seems like everybody is against you’.
Her reflection carries a sense of hopelessness, that no matter how hard women try to hold their positions in the industry and how high they rise, barriers persist. P1 also noted that highly publicised cases of esports companies failing to act against sexism contributed to this feeling. Similarly, P2 expressed her disappointment with the lack of responsibility from organisation owners and game companies when harassment occurred against a team she was coaching during a live-streamed tournament: ‘Like, [the harassment] was reported to … their org owners as well, and the owners just did nothing about it and it was really frustrating to watch these women have to sit there and deal with it and not have any way to stop it’.
Experiences like this from companies who are supposed to protect them engendered a feeling of hopelessness about challenging misogynistic culture in gaming. However, despite expressing dismay at the current situation, there was a feeling that the esports industry's youth meant there was capacity to challenge old-fashioned attitudes. P1 described the esports environment as ‘the wild west right now’, indicating the ungoverned nature of a new industry that may become safer over time.
Ways that women could be more supported and protected during their time in the industry were proposed, such as moderation of social media accounts that focus on women in esports and gender-specific tournaments would help relieve the stress of harassment. P3 noted that, ‘women feel so discouraged from playing because of the toxicity they receive … so you should be more focused on making sure that their experience isn’t, you know, horrid’. Participants expressed a desire for organisations to take a lead on protecting women and making the esports environment less toxic for women, with P3 stating: ‘I definitely think that Twitch chat and stuff needs more moderation, as well as the social media. Anywhere that people have the ability to say things needs to be moderated’.
P3 felt there were no repercussions for gender-based harassment and toxicity, with the deletion of unacceptable comments ‘not going to discourage anyone’. Leaving these behaviours unpunished meant that those behind them had ‘been validated’ (P3), reinforcing online abuse.
Participants noted the importance of female role models in driving change and highlighted some improvement in gender representation. P5 stated: ‘I’m finally seeing like a female-identifying coach, and like female-identifying casters as well, and … seeing that, allows people to see what they could reach, see what they could go for. Hey, I could be in the same position as that person, that person looks like me, I wanna be there, I want to do exactly what they’re doing’.
This suggests that improving female representation may make the industry feel much more attractive to women. P7 commented that, ‘more advertisement or advocation for women in those esports scenes’ may encourage them to sign-up for team try-outs or to participate in other areas of esports.
Role of Gender-Specific Teams
The issue of gender-specific teams, tournaments, and leagues brought up conflicting feelings for participants. P4 welcomed the idea: ‘I watched [a female only tournament] … and the reception overall was quite fantastic, like the community a lot of people stepped up and was like “This is great, I like this”. There's loads of girls who play fantastic, you know, games and there's plenty of content creators as well, you have really good game players’.
Other participants echoed this view, believing that female-only tournaments provide a space for women to develop their skills and gain more opportunities in esports. P3 noted that ‘having women's leagues is a really good starting point because it gives them a competitive space to be able to develop’, especially in an industry where women rarely get the opportunity to go straight into mixed-gender teams of any level. Having these tournaments may give both genders a more equal level of practice, leading to more women competing in pro-level tournaments and increasing female casting and coaching representation. Gender-specific tournaments might also act as a safe space for women away from male harassment and toxicity, as P6 highlights: ‘At the moment we do need that safe space for women to be recognised, to find those pathways into the esports scene, because they do face so many barriers at every step of the way from, I guess, the cultural idea that gaming is not for women, gaming is for boys. So, from a young age they’re told they can’t play games and then, if they do go into games, it's probably later in life versus men. So, they’re already at a disadvantage in terms of that, and then once they try and play in esports sort of competitively, they then face harassment and other barriers and so, yeah I guess at the moment, these [single gender] opportunities are important and necessary’.
Although these positive outcomes were acknowledged, women were also wary that single-gender tournaments may prevent female players achieving their potential in the industry. One worry was that companies and organisations would put women in a gender-specific team instead of letting them try out for the mixed-gender team, with P8 noting that, ‘I do think in the long run that it's very limiting because it is sort of segregating them, it's like, “Well you’ve got your women's league now so you should be happy”’. She also discussed a sense of frustration surrounding this, feeling limited by these tournaments because of the views of others, who believed ‘you’re a girl so you have to compete in Game Changers [a female-only tournament]’.
Similarly, P6 raised concerns about both the need and outcome of single-gender tournaments, but also expressed hope that they may not always be needed: ‘It's a tricky one because I feel like in the current state that esports is in, it is like a requirement to … separate the genders almost. So, we have like our women leagues and … at the moment these opportunities are important and necessary, I just hope that in the future they’re not, because … I don’t believe it's right to have the genders segregated in a way, like kind of like traditional sports. It doesn’t really make sense for esports because our physical skills are not really as important’.
This idea that single-gender tournaments could serve as a starting point for improving game culture was prominent. However, optimism was tempered by the fact that although women's tournaments exist, there are very few professional tournaments for women to compete in. This paucity leads to frustration over even more gender imbalance in opportunity, with P8 pointing out that ‘so far this year all we have to look forward to is Game Changers in April. There is no more female leagues, and it's just like, men have them all year round’. Therefore, although gender-specific teams may be a good starting point for women, giving them a safe space to learn and grow into the industry, there was a sense of risk that women would be limited by both the number and the separatist nature of playing in such teams.
Coping Strategies and Support
The participants coped with harassment and toxicity in a number of ways, often relying on external sources of support like community and close friends, along with adopting individual strategies like gender masking in online games.
Gender Masking
For harassment that occurred in online team games like Overwatch and Valorant, the participants described avoiding disclosing their gender by not speaking aloud (i.e., in voice chat). This practice was not as prevalent in other esports contexts in which verbal communication is required. Although finding gender-masking frustrating, the participants agreed that it was almost essential to avoid harassment and toxicity, especially in ranked games where tensions may already be high. P3 reported that ‘In Valorant I refuse to use my microphone’ due to previous experiences in the game, where she came across ‘some really cruel people … who say some very unhinged things’. Similarly, P5 shared that: ‘So many years in the past I’ve tried my best to talk … but there are so many times that it causes like setback to getting better because of just me sounding female-presenting … So it's like, what's the point of speaking when I could do the same exact thing and if they’re gonna be toxic to me, at least they’re toxic to me like “Hey you suck at this game” rather than being like, “Can you make me a sandwich or like go back to the kitchen?”’
A negative consequence of the participants’ desire to hide their gender in-game is that this conflicted with an aspiration to support other women. P6 discussed not speaking up when another female player faced gender-based harassment, saying ‘I’ll admit that sometimes I’m too scared to stand up for her … because I don’t want [the male players] to then target me’. There was a sense of guilt that not disclosing gender to avoid being targeted led to harassment of other women going unchallenged, with this experience further negating the enjoyment of mixed-gender team games.
Participants reported hiding their identity in other areas of the esports community such as social media platforms. When she first started playing for a team in Pokémon Unite, P7 shared that she had ‘been fairly shy about admitting that I’m a woman in this scene’ with the word ‘admitting’ revealing a sense of guilt, an awareness that simply acknowledging her gender could cause friction within her social media community. She noted that she did not deny being a woman but tried to ‘avoid the question’ when communicating with others in the same community online. When she became more comfortable in sharing her gender online, she faced backlash and found her gender identity being attacked or questioned by strangers online: ‘They really ask “are you a woman?” and when I said “yes, I am, what about it?”, they said “oh, are you a transgender woman?” and they start questioning and attacking all kinds of directions just to get you’.
This shows that being open about their gender in the wider esports communities can be a risk to women, leading to unwanted comments or questions surrounding their identity.
Importance of Community and Inclusion
Whilst all of the women interviewed had experienced high levels of harassment and toxicity in esports, being involved in this community had also given them access to new sources of support and increases their sense of belonging. P7 reported that a positive aspect of eventually feeling comfortable enough to disclose her gender in the Pokémon Unite esports scene was meeting new friends online. She joined female-driven social media communities, which gave her the confidence to engage in new gaming sessions: ‘My favourite streamer in the Pokémon Unite scene is a woman as well and she created such a beautiful community, a really safe community and I find myself more and more engaging in events and talking with my friends on VC [voice chat] … who I wouldn’t have imagined beforehand, so just asking people on Discord, “Do you want to play, do you want to hop on VC to play a bit?” for hours and hours and yeah, it's really, really important to me and I really find myself in a better mental state when I can share this with my friends’.
Like P7, most of the women emphasised the importance of the female community surrounding them in esports, providing a protective ring against the negative elements and enabling their continued participation. The shared experience of gender-based harassment means that the female community is a strong source of support. For example, P1 talked about posts from other female casters like ‘hey watch out for this, these things kind of happen and you just can’t let it bother you’ being especially useful when harassment or toxicity occurred. Similarly, P3 noted that ‘there's a lot of examples of, you know, women sticking up for other women’ in the industry and in online games, such as when another woman in her Valorant match screamed over a man to block out his derogatory comments regarding her gender.
Interestingly, experiencing solidarity between women in the industry led participants to encourage others to join and participate in esports. P5 stated that: ‘Something that I really strive for is to, like, encourage other people that it is possible to have a career in games and it is possible to have a passion and to not be discouraged by, like, the toxicity in the gaming community. Like that exists, and it's sad that it exists, but like, there's things that we could do to help the community and help widen the community so other people are more interested in games as well and I hope that any time I’m doing a college activity [as a games arts student], like I always wanna be there, I always want to encourage people to get into gaming because it's a really big passion of mine’.
It seems that women not only value having a community that can rally around them particularly during or after an experience of harassment, but also see that they can serve that role for other women, adding even more value to their continued participation in the industry.
Discussion
The aim of the current study was to explore how gender-based harassment and toxicity have impacted women in esports. Harassment was found to be a common occurrence, often taking different forms, making it feel somewhat inescapable. Participants experienced exclusion as a result of their gender, and this had financial and social costs that impacted participation. Women felt judged against female stereotypes in terms of their roles, character choices and performance, experiencing frequent objectification. A novel finding was that participants felt a mixture of hopelessness at the scale and apparent social acceptability of gender harassment, and hope that it would change as the industry matured, with conflicting feelings also arising from potential solutions such as women-only tournaments. Similarly, coping strategies reflected a mixture of hiding gender to avoid conflict, and embracing female support and role models. These novel insights show that there are gender-based issues to be addressed by the esports industry as it grows, and women's voices need to be heard in directing this growth.
Gender-Based Exclusions and Expectations
Experiences with Exclusion were widely documented within the data, limiting the opportunities of the participants and blocking their growth within the industry. The explicit blocking of women has been previously highlighted in esports, with Schelfhout et al. (2021) finding that accessibility issues in the industry may occur due to a hypermasculine culture that surrounds esports. Denying women entry, thus contributing to a lack of female representation, ensures the comfort of male players and professionals by allowing them to continue any norms or behaviours that could be deemed harmful to women without punishment (Fox & Tang, 2014; Schelfhout et al., 2021). Social exclusion has previously been less well-documented, but its importance to participants in the current study suggests that this needs to be tackled, as feelings of isolation and loneliness negatively affected participants’ enjoyment, potentially contributing to low female representation in amateur esports. Similar findings have been reported in other male-dominated industries like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Casad et al., 2021; Korte & Lin, 2013), suggesting that esports may be an example of a wider societal issue. Financial exclusion was also experienced, with higher costs preventing non-elite women from accessing and enjoying in-person events, as well as creating a barrier to opportunities that might lead to future paid roles.
Gender-based expectations comprised an additional barrier for women, with the enforcement of Stereotyped roles for women leading to feelings of frustration and disengagement in their chosen game. In team-based games like Overwatch 2, participants reported finding themselves facing stereotypes surrounding role and character choice. When these stereotypes are questioned, women are met with harassment and toxicity, causing them to withdraw from the game. The gamer stereotype was shown to also harm women, with their place in the industry being questioned due to the presentation of their gender identity. Having a feminine identity contradicts with the male gamer stereotype, resulting in a clash that – for some – means they cannot co-exist (Paaßen et al., 2017).
Facing Toxicity
The current study suggests key ways in which toxicity should be faced by both women gamers and the esports industry on behalf of women. Unsurprisingly, the toxic culture and commentary surrounding gaming was found to negatively impact participants, who expressed sadness, anger and resignation. The normalisation of toxicity in online gaming and esports poses a threat to women, with hate and harassment being viewed as acceptable behaviour by those who engage in it (Beres et al., 2021). Toxicity can occur across platforms, including in-game voice and text chat, by fellow players or professionals and in live-stream chats like Twitch. A lack of timely moderation and punishment for these behaviours can give space for them to intensify, ultimately harming the women who face them and diminishing enjoyment and engagement surrounding their role. Experiences like these can lead to a lack of hope for women in esports positions, which may clash with their desire to see the industry evolve and become more inclusive. As esports continues to grow, opening up more opportunities for women could contribute to a change in the environment – making the industry safer and more welcoming for marginalised genders. Diversifying leadership may result in more women being hired for professional positions, increasing representation and thus encouraging more women to apply for roles (Darvin et al., 2021).
The importance of female visibility was a difficult issue. While participants discussed the importance of representation and solidarity with other women in esports communities, they also discussed avoiding disclosing their gender to minimise harassment. Fox and Tang (2017) suggest that women adopt masking behaviours when engaging with online games to avoid gender identification. Although this concept was reflected in the current findings surrounding games, gender masking was less prevalent in an esports setting; rather, it was mainly used when interacting with the community through social media. Instead of masking their gender, women in esports may adjust their femininity and behaviours surrounding this to avoid harassment and thus progress in their career (Ruotsalainen, 2022; Witkowski, 2018). Interestingly, participants noted that by not disclosing their gender, they lost the ability to stand up for other women being targeted, and this also has an impact on the perceived gender balance of players, affecting representation. Women players are left with the difficult choice of disclosing their gender and exposing themselves to gender-based exclusions and stereotypical expectations, in the hope of increasing representation and building solidarity with other female players.
Taking gender-disclosure and solidarity to a more extreme level, participants debated the usefulness of gender-specific teams in encouraging women to pursue esports, giving them a safe space to learn new skills, make connections, and take part in tournaments. However, there was a strong feeling that women should not be limited to such teams and tournaments, as being made to play in gender-specific teams contributes to the stereotype that women are not skilled enough to play with, or against, men (Rogstad, 2022). Instead, these should be used as a stepping stone, allowing women to progress into mixed-gender spaces.
Community and inclusion were highlighted as valuable sources of support when navigating mixed-gender esports environments, although this particular finding is currently underexplored in research. Here, women reported feeling emboldened by female esports community online, particularly when interactions included encouraging messages or in-game supportive comments in response to gender-based harassment. Participants conveyed that their individual communities and connections gave them both a reason to keep pushing forward in their esports participation, and the motivation to encourage others to join.
Limitations
Although the findings of the current study contribute to an under-researched area, it is still subject to limitations. Due to the nature of the sampling method used to collect data, all of the women interviewed were from Western countries, meaning data may not be representative of the entire population. Future research should seek to examine experiences of harassment and toxicity across different cultures and countries, especially non-Western societies, to see if these share commonalities. Additionally, using a mixed-methods study may have provided a deeper insight into any relationships or connections that existed within the data – for example, the extent to which age, role or longevity of participation may have influenced experiences of harassment and toxicity.
Furthermore, as the current research gave a broad focus on harassment in esports, the findings may not be generalised to every type of game and community within the industry. Fox and Tang (2017) suggest that harassment and toxic behaviour may differ depending on genre, features, and the type of culture surrounding the game. Therefore, exploring specific esports titles may prove to be beneficial in future studies, and allow for findings to be compared.
Future research should also aim to expand on the understanding of harassment and toxicity in esports – perhaps by exploring other marginalised genders. Although the study was not limited to cisgender women, any identity outside of being ‘female’ was not accounted for within the data. Therefore, the experiences of transgender, as well as non-binary, individuals may differ from those interviewed. There is a significant lack of research in this area, therefore the researcher would urge others to consider examining these identities to better support them within the industry.
Conclusion
The findings of this research highlight the female experience of gender-based toxicity and harassment in non-elite esports. Women players experience exclusion and gender stereotyping that negatively impact their enjoyment of gaming. Although these experiences led to a feeling of hopelessness surrounding the industry, women were eager to see change happen through, shifting in the toxic culture that surrounds both gaming and esports. Key issues were increased moderation of comments and consequences for misogyny, and increased visibility of women and solidarity among female players. Future research should continue to build upon these findings to better support women and other marginalised genders in esports, and to improve representation within the industry. The use of gender-specific tournaments and teams, as well as developing female-only communities, as a safe space for women to grow, meet friends, and develop their skills in esports may be a good starting point to work towards this. However, these should not be used to limit women. Opportunities in mixed-gender teams, high-tier tournaments, and elsewhere should be open and made more accessible to female players and professionals, allowing them to progress in their career.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
