Beautiful or Badass? Don't Fuck It Up, Natus Vincere

Over the past year or so, geek culture has seen a massive influx of awareness and understanding with regard to the treatment of women in gamer/geek culture.  Thanks to prolific web artists, actors, and bloggers, the movement is more well defined than ever before, and the true problems in our culture have been thoroughly identified and marked.

I don't know how in-tune Natus Vincere is with the Western Feminist Meta, but judging by their mostly oblivious announcement yesterday, I'd wager they missed the boat.

Now, if I haven't already lost you because you cover your balls and flee at the sound of the word "feminism," here's a cheat sheet if you don't quite get what it's about yet:

• Feminism is a movement about equality. Period.
• We only still call it feminism because women get the short end of the stick 4 out of 5 times.  Both genders are impacted by feminist issues - male sensitivity comes to mind for men, but countless more issues exist for women (rigidity in family roles, sexual roles, body image templates, rape, you know the drill).
• Feminism is not about restricting freedom of choice or speech.  No one is stopping you from making your sexualized all-girl teams, putting up booth babes at your convention, or writing your damsels in distress.  Feminism is just calling you out on how these tropes promote a status quo that is unfair to women.  (It'd be nice if damsel in distress wasn't a default role.)
• Geekdom is a culture about welcoming strange people and their love for strange things.  Geek feminism is about erasing any judgments we might pass on a geek's love for something simply because they are a woman.

The Beast

Yes, the top comment reads "Why
are they not in the kitchen?"

We know that women compose a very small portion of competitive gamers.  The proportions are so bad, some tournament organizers create additional sideshow brackets that ban male entrants.  These brackets exist because, while we want to see more women in eSports, it sadly turns out that the few highly talented women that do currently exist aren't on the same level as the "god-tier" teams of gamers.  So, to promote visibility of female gamers, the organizers invite skilled women exclusively to a separate show where we can be assured a female team/player can make it to the quarter/semi/finals and take the cup.

Here's the double edged sword:

• Spectators get to see that, yes, women do in fact play video games and are teh hardcores about it, supporting the idea that women can be gamers just like us.
• Spectators see that women have to have their own bracket just for them, reinforcing the notion that women are not and may never be at the same level as men.

Na'Vi's female team announcement plays the same part as a female tournament bracket, and then makes it worse.  Na'Vi.5BeautifulGirls is a great way for an organization with international presence to promote the role of women in eSports.  But the team has a birthmark. A taint.

In the back of everyone's mind is the notion that Na'Vi.5BG was not created to be "the best of the best," but to be "the best of the girls."

Every all-female team will suffer this prejudice until geek feminism's goal is reached.  Na'Vi.5BG has the opportunity to make this happen, but so far, Na'Vi's PR guys (gender intentional) are doing a pretty terrible fucking job:

"Natus Vincere present DotA2 female team"

"From now on, five beautiful girls will represent the ranks..."

On top of that, Na'Vi don't link to their Dota profiles, share any stats, or make any effort to identify these girls as any more than six pretty faces.

At least the goddamn Siren let us know what roles they played.

Kiska, PerfectVoid, or whoever is leading the team charge: demand some fucking respect from the PR guys and tell them to get their act together.  Left on its current course, Na'Vi.5BG is more of the status quo.  If you truly want to give a "substantial boost" to women in eSports, your team needs to demolish the notion that you are merely "the best of the girls."  Call interviewers out on bullshit questions.  Demand that they ask you the same sorts of questions any other male pro player would get.  Call your PR team out when they try to play up your looks or femininity to tantalize their teenage male viewership.  I hope someone in your team has a passion for feminism, because there's a lot of ass that needs kicking out there.  I'd rather you be known as five badass girls instead.

To Na'Vi's general management: You have the chance to make this more than a gimmick.  But only if you stop treating your players like a PR stunt and put some effort into praising these women as gamers.  Your PR department should treat them with "honor and dignity."  It's not their job to prove the worth of women to you.  It's your job, Na'Vi, to give your players Na'Vi's god-tier honor they deserve for being talented gamers, and to give them the respect they deserve for daring to change the world.

And, finally, to the rest of us: promote the ideal.  Make sure it's known that skill, not sex, makes the gamer.  I hold the Dota 2 community to a higher standard.  Higher than the abhorrent fighting game community, and higher than the low-brow LoL community.  This is a community of intellectuals (relatively speaking anyway), surely you understand the impact of this whole thing.

Someday, I hope to see a team of ambitious young men and women holding the Aegis of Champions high above their heads, together, in the glory of Benaroya Hall, in the shadow of the Gaben, in the glistening light of the IceFrog, as they shed beautiful tears for the blossom of the glorious seed they planted.  Such seeds need water.