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Like many of the hobbies and interests we grow into from childhood into adolescence, esports competitor Emsy’s love of video games started with her family. As a kid, she’d go downstairs during sleepless nights to find her parents playing Tomb Raider, joining in so the whole family could guide polygonal heroine Lara Croft through temple mazes and puzzles.
Video games were a favorite hobby for the entire household, and there were always new games and consoles for her and her sister to try. The challenges and immersive worlds were a welcome escape from rural farm life in the middle of nowhere, the first steps of a journey that would take her from passionate hobbyist to winning a race to world first (RWF) in World of Warcraft as part of Team Liquid, a well-regarded championship-winning team competing across seventeen premier esports titles. It’s been a dream come true to break through into professional gaming, something she’d love to stay in as a long-term career. Yet, despite having a small-town story of passion turned to prowess that sounds so familiar, Emsy’s found the landscape, then and now, to be far less welcoming to women than men.
The resistance to women in gaming can take many forms, something Emsy experienced early in her journey to play WoW professionally and in games she enjoyed recreationally. There are still a substantial number of WoW guilds that won’t recruit women, and there’s an implied pressure for women to have to prove themselves more to be counted among the ranks of men. In games like Valorant, which support in-game voice chat, the discrimination can be much more brazen. “I was so shocked at how horrible women are treated in ranked games, with almost no consequences for the people who carry out those behaviors,” she says. “I’ve had people leave games when they hear my voice, or just be incredibly sexist whenever I attempt to communicate.”
Experiments with male players using female voice mods show stark differences in play experiences and in-game success, with feminine-sounding voices eliciting less team support and a stream of sexist insults. That inherent bias dramatically damages the play experience, where strong communication is essential to perform at a competitive level. Even the most offhand and casual remarks feed into a throughline of exclusion or dismissal.
Those on the outside might be shocked to hear pervasive sexism is still common — high-profile reckonings within and outside of gaming have called out double standards and toxic behavior, often specifically addressing bad actors who perpetuate the behavior in public. Yet many of these behaviors continue in the relative privacy of guilds and Discord channels, encouraged (or at least not discouraged) by a lack of accountability from people who witness the behavior.
“I almost quit so many times because I felt like there was no place for me where I could be myself and play,” Emsy says, stressing that she often felt obligated to put up with it if she wanted to build her profile as a competitor. “The places I ended up at felt like my only option if I wanted to push higher. I stayed in a guild for almost a year where leadership and other members of the guild had a hatred for me because I spoke too ‘girly.’” Women gamers comprise 46% of the global gaming community, a relatively even balance mirroring the general population that has persisted for over a decade. Yet, they still find themselves categorically excluded or ostracized from advancing in the field.
It’s a familiar refrain for those who have been in the field even longer. Heather Garozzo found her way into professional gaming in high school through Counter-Strike, following in her brother’s footsteps as a casual-turned-professional player before establishing a legacy in her own right as a top player and the first woman inducted into the Esports Hall of Fame. The Counter-Strike series remains one of the most popular titles in esports since its first tournaments in 2000, and one that is notorious for the toxic and abusive behavior of some of its users. “What bothered me the most is those that didn’t believe I was the person on the other end of the computer,” she says. The game had quickly become Garozzo’s passion, but its community could just as quickly wear her down. “My brother was also a professional gamer at the time, someone that was extremely well known. When I had a good moment in-game, it was consistently an assumption that it was my brother playing, not me. The fact people didn’t believe I could be as good as I was broke my heart and made me lose confidence in myself and my gameplay.”
While community toxicity remains a problem spanning game genres and generations of players, women have been making strides in esports against the odds. Women’s esports tournaments generated 28 million hours of viewing time in 2023, a nearly 15% increase from the previous year. There are also more opportunities for women and gender minorities to gain competitive experience through initiatives like Alienware’s Eve Ascension and VALORANT’s Game Changers. The increase in interest and engagement has also supported an ecosystem of sponsors and brands that see the field as more than just a curiosity.
“It can be the Wild West online, but we’re very fortunate to now have countless gaming events happening across the country and world on any given weekend,” says Garozzo. “There are university and high school programs. There are tons of opportunities to contribute to the gaming space.” The opportunity to build something greater and more meaningful drove Heather to found Raidiant, a broadcast, events, and content platform working to improve conditions for women in gaming and esports through education, experiences, and inspirational storytelling. “I want to introduce competitive gaming to every gaming community and hope that they, too, will choose to either compete or work in esports.”
“‘Women gamers’ is just as diverse and massive an audience as ‘adults 18+,’” said Erin Schendle, Founding Partner at Climbing Vine Media, a gaming-focused media agency that has been working with women gamers as the industry has changed. With the influx of interest comes a delicate balancing act of what makes sense for the community. “Gamers especially appreciate — and actually require — nimble authenticity. They’ll sniff out, call out, and reject brands and messaging that ‘don’t get them,’ just as much as they’ll latch onto and pledge loyalty to brands and products that they love.” Schendle, along with Climbing Vine co-founders Rachel Alexander and Sonya Artz, have worked with major brands, influencers, and communities in the space to identify opportunities that really connect with and honor the diverse backgrounds and preferences of the massive gaming community rather than default to outdated and less inclusive stereotypes.
More resources and role models spur more would-be competitors to enter the field, and new faces in the competitive landscape foster a diversified audience and support system. While some channels and guilds have been breeding grounds for exclusion and misogyny, the reverse is also true — inclusive and supportive communities have been existing and growing for some time, a welcome change from when Emsy was first starting. “The biggest thing I wish existed when I was younger was just the vast amount of servers and ways of making like-minded gaming friends that exist now on apps like Discord,” she says.
While progress has been made, the industry still has a ways to go, with asymmetric representation looking all the more stark next to explosive growth in other competitive sports like women’s basketball. Beyond inclusive communities, enduring diversity in gaming falls on the entire ecosystem — community management, programming, and advertising & brand deals. “Supporting women across a variety of games who have achieved successful careers in gaming has a big knock-on effect,” Emsy says. When women are treated as fully legitimized esports competitors — complete with sponsorships, visibility, and audience exposure — they’re one step closer to being recognized as more than an exception or niche.
“Being an esports pro has been the most memorable hobby of my life, and I want more women to experience what I have,” said Garozzo. Across the entire ecosystem, resources and support networks, online and in person, continue to push for parity and real career opportunities in the space, something Garozzo and the Raidiant staff are particularly passionate about. “We’ve given countless women job opportunities in the space. They have the skills. They have the passion. These women are now getting fair wages and real-life job experience that has helped many go on to receive full-time positions with [Raidiant] or elsewhere.”
Like many dedicated athletes, Emsy would love to spend her life as involved in the industry as she can. She’s thought about merging her education and career, combining her love of video games with the knowledge from her recently completed master’s degree in data science. “My absolute dream would be to use my skills in data science and work for gaming/esports organizations,” she says, hoping to build a long-term career out of something that has shaped her life since childhood. “Fingers crossed that, when that day comes, it’ll be something I’ll be able to achieve.”
