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.
The IeSF was then subject to questions and criticism regarding its decision to separate females out of certain events and place them into events of their own. Fortunately, as reported by PC Gamer on Thursday, July 3, the IeSF has lifted its male-only restrictions from its eSports events, a move that was announced in a recently released statement .
“On 2nd of July, 2014, the IeSF’s policy about gender division, which separates the female division and the male division, has been brought into question. The IeSF has listened to the gaming community and has carefully considered their opinions. Upon hearing these concerns, the IeSF convoked an emergency session of the IeSF Board to respond, ” IeSF’s statement read .
“As a result, IeSF shall have two event categories: ‘Open for All’ events and events that are reserved for women. The events which were initially set aside as the male division will now be open to all genders, and the events which were initially set as the female division will remain as they were.
The IeSF Board addressed its reason for maintaining events for women, citing the importance of providing female gamers with ample opportunities to compete in e-Sports—currently a male-dominated industry. Female gamers make up half of the world’s gaming population, but only a small percentage of e-Sports competitors are women. The IeSF’s female-only competitions aim to bring more diversity to competitive play by improving the representation of women at these events. Without efforts to improve representation, e-Sports can’t achieve true gender equality, ” the statement continued .
“In order to apply the new policy with consistency, IeSF has added an ‘Open for All’ Tekken Tag Tournament 2 tournament, which was initially set aside for female-only competition.”
With these changes, both male and female participants will be able to compete in IeSF’s eSports tournaments. In accordance with this, the plan for the World Championship has been amended to incorporate both genders, which has been detailed below.
Open for All
DOTA 2 : Participating teams may consist of 5 male players, 5 female players, or mixed team;
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm : Players of all genders can participate in the event;
Ultra Street Fighter 4 : Players of all genders can participate in the even t;
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft : Players of all genders can participate in the event; and
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 : Players of all genders can participate in the event.
Female Competition
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm : Female event is conducted separately, in parallel with “Open for All” event; and
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 : Female event is conducted separately, in parallel with “Open for All” event.
Additionally, the Finnish Hearthstone qualifier that started the whole controversy has also lifted it’s gender restrictions. “ The gender restriction rule has been removed, we thank everyone who took part in this process, ” reads the update to the qualifier’s original event overview page on the official Assembly Summer 2014 website.
Information on tickets, events and tournaments for the IeSF World Championship and the Assembly Summer 2014 event can be found via their respective official websites.
[ PC Gamer ]