Women in counter strike. Where are they? What's it like for them? And how can we make things better for them?
0:00 - Intro
1:00 - When I discovered the problem
2:07 - Example of abuse
2:35 - How to deal with it?
3:44 - Valve's responses
4:02 - Objectifying
4:29 - 'Just ignore it'
5:52 - Female CS
7:04 - Character models
8:48 - Woman-only leagues
using door stuck as video material for showing male competiveness/aggression was genius.
Upscaled to 4k I bet
lol best way to describe the male demograph of cs
the door is stuck though.
I could get way more door stucker than that guy!!!
It seems as if the door might actually be stuck.
"I have to admit, my experience of being a woman in Counter-Strike is very limited." Philip cracking jokes while talking about serious subjects as per usual
I think the most insightful points in this were "if women reached the top tiers, would they even want to be there if they're being constantly belittled and insulted" and "female only tournaments should be viewed as a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself"
haha yeah surely they would give up 1 million dolar rewards just because some mythical sexism, not because they aren't good enough for top tier
@@mmmdawe where is the myth? What proof do you need
@@mmmdawe Nobody ever said that women in CS currently are good enough for it. Philip says that out of the gate in the video. However, a reason that dissuades a lot of female, competitive gamers from staying in CS super long *is* definitely constant belittlement and sexism that male competitors don't have to deal with.
@@davidk7439 wonder how full female team would experience that poor poor sexism on lans and majors. every person experience bullying, racism, xenophobia etc in online games and even real life. male suicide ratio is like 8 times higher than female but yeah poor girls are being called girls in csgo we definitely need to do something about it
@@mmmdawe Yeah, everybody deals with all of that. They still gotta deal with sexism on top of it when they play. And yeah, the male suicide rate is higher than women. I'm acutely aware of that, and have lost loved ones and friends from it, and there's not a day I wish they were back. And I do advocate for suicide prevention. Wish I could do more. Meanwhile, this is a situation that can be improved on by just...not being a dick to women in games. :/ Also, they absolutely deal with that shit at LANs, and on average, just as bad if not worse than in MM. That's why you rarely see them there.
Its nice to see Lucy from that clip now casting at the Major qualifiers. She has been amazing.
@@3kliksphilip he*
@@smr_0172 you just woke up today and chose to be a sad piece of shit huh
@@smr_0172 bruh
@@smr_0172 ?
@@smr_0172 😐😐😐 damn bruh you made the whole squad laugh
I have a friend who's friends with a deaf girl. They are both gold novas and while they're not exceedingly good, seeing them using pings, chat and other means of communication is so heartwarming. Someone who has the courage to play cs while being deaf is beyond me. They both deserve all the respect in the world.
Nice pfp and name mate lol
I have a deaf neighbor who goes to my go-to local internet cafe. I feel sad that everyone in the room plays together, leaving him out. So we decided to play together so he wont be lonely. Thus, the journey to study ASL so we can communicate with each other without the use of words/texts
He cant hear players flaming him so hes got that going for him xD
Meanwhile here I am not deaf and with very good hearing but I can't get out of silver
Just a bit tangential and humorous: it would be interesting to know the "Rush B" command 😅
I'm glad you made this. Way too many people excuse it, not realizing the trash talking they get is nowhere near the amount that women get just for being present.
People will use anything to get inside your head and if all they have is your a female then be prepared. There are some vile people out there that say the most racist sexist things they can say just to be shocking. I just mute them and it goes away… I like playing on a 5 stack too for the same reason, not just a female thing.
Could you show me some proof? Please do not give me anecdotal evidence.
This is 100% anecdotal. But the times ive had girls in game ive been flamed haaard by them. Im not very good and i know it. So i guess some of them have their thorns out too not get harrassed first.
@@MichaelEhrmantraut12 get your glowy blank banshee album cover pfp outta here
@@MichaelEhrmantraut12 ahahhahahahhaaah
I saw the saddest post on reddit in tf2 of a woman who asked how to change the pitch of her voice in game, just because she got loads of abuse whenever she used voice chat. I have never witnessed anything like this in thousands of hours, but once every 20 hours is already way too often to justify continue playing.
I play cs since i was a child, I like fps games very much, cs is my love. Now when I play csgo (or other games), I even practice my voice to sound like a man.
@@estleexin7584 what a shame
Wow.. This makes me think back to the few times I've had games with people who I was pretty sure were using voice changers, but I never asked because I figured they were just kids trying to sound older. Now I realize they probably were just women trying to avoid harassment and abuse. I really hope that the cs community can become more like valorant one day. There's still sometimes toxic players in lobbies, but its so much rarer and there's a much closer split between the male/female playerbase.
@@estleexin7584 oh my god, my first experience meeting a women was "wow! how rare to meet a women in csgo" it was also my last experience on meeting a woman in cs..... how damn sad it was
I'm a trans woman, and on a good day, my voice passes and I get sexist comments. A lot of other times, I get voice clocked, and get called slurs. Now days, I think it's easier to just drop my voice. I can still do a 'guy voice'. I hate doing it, but at least people aren't horrible to me.
Has anyone made a "it's called global offensive for a reason" joke yet?
That's a good one.
writing this down
💀💀
34 and have seen this all the way back on rainbow six 3 and halo. It's just too easy to be a coward behind the mic. I'd hate to be a woman online.
Yoo I used to watch your cs montages and live streams
lol
Most Woman don't use mics in game at all.
I remember once watching a compilation video of news anchor fails or something, and some of the clips featured some pretty blatant examples of sexual harassment. And holy hell, so many comments under the video were bitterly attacking anyone who called out the clips as examples of sexual harassment and defending the harassers. That was when I realized just how many awful misogynists there are floating around.
I'd love to be a woman online. I could milk money from lonely men.
This is a real man. He can be serious, and he also can be a CSGO Case-Unboxing Millionaire. Thanks for this vid Philip, we need to stop this abuse to women, my girlfriend stopped playing because of it :/
Video games are an escape for men in a world that's forgotten them. I seriously don't think we're missing anything by not having women in our games.
@@mistershekel3054 What? How does that relate to the original comment, firstly? And secondly, I didn't see the point of calling it exclusively an "escape for men".
Since females have to deal with Randoms in mm, I don't see the point of an exclusive female league other than woke publicity stunt... Since Esport tournaments are not in mm lmao I don't go to cheerleading and ballet and yell "wHy aRen't tHerE anY oF mY gEndER pArTiCipAtINg" Don't like "toxic men"? Literally nothing stopping you forming a team with 5 female to participate in fair tournaments
@@khorehmandirani It's more of an observation than a reply to your comment. You're entitled to your views, friend. I just feel men get the shaft in everyday life. We work hard jobs, we bear the highest suicide rates, and the only escape is video games and other small things.
@@mistershekel3054 we are talking about women being abuse, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem so please keep your mouth close.
Thank you for this video, Philip! I find your channel very interesting and informative with your insightful and meticulous analysis of many aspects of CS and I can say that I have even more respect for your work after viewing this video.
My friends an I play for fun, not trying to grapple our way up the ranks. We have a pretty regular team of 4, and thus occasionally we get a woman as our 5th teammate. One time, about halfway through a game on overpass (we were getting crushed; she was top fragging. any other teammate would be annoyed with us) she told us that this was the most fun shed had in a game in a long time. Its strange, that the bar is so low for solo queuing women that just treating her like a normal teammate made her so happy. Experiences like these (and sometimes having my own girlfriend play alongside us when we happen to get another woman on the team) make csgo feel a little more inclusive for women I’m sure, but they also exemplify how terrible it must be the other times when people just treat women like utter trash.
On top of this, its been nice to see more women playing recently. Not sure if its just my personal experience but my friends and I have been seeing more women playing in general
I’ve been told by many female gamers they don’t like to use voice chat because of this. So people are excluded from good teamwork because of gender. Thank you philip for addressing this!
Probably around 90% of mutes in games are girls (Well I play VR games and every headset has a built in mic so they could talk if they wanted to)
yeah, i was wondering if maybe something that distorts the voice could help too. Sounding like dath vader is genderless.
@@MyMayLily try a pitch shift plugin, realistically you shouldn't, but you can always try
I mean as a female myself I've never felt excluded or had misogynistic things said against me and I voice chat every game, in fact people r usually very nice and tend to be nicer when they realize I'm a woman. Idk if that's a good or a bad thing, but I've never felt excluded in any fashion
I don't think getting bullied in cs go is special to females. Its more like being singled out. Most likely if women are Solo Queuing they will get bullied and abused. Like I get most of the times, when I get 4 team mates who queued together. I can't tell you how many times, I have put up a good performance, only to be kicked right before winning the match, just because those 4 guys think its fun to kick someone and deprive them of winning a match. There are countless times, when a team mate thinks he is a god and will abuse you for doing a clutch, because he died. I think its more about girls being SoloQ than them being a female player. Because I get the same treatment, only I don't get the sexist comments such as "go back to kitchen" - rather, a much worse abusive and foul language. I don't fight it back, I just stay quiet. But the experience, completely changes when I am not a soloQ. When I play with friends (3-4 players) - the other guys know they are soloQ, so they don't really get toxic.
Solid video philip, it's good to see one of the bigger CS youtubers to talk about this openly and strongly. It's nice to see that there's still people left who will go out of their way to document and discover people's experiences instead of just making assumptions on top of assumptions as I usually see in threads about this topic.
The primary sources really help in the authenticity.
Hey Phillip! As a woman I am so grateful you made this video. I hope it serves to be enlightening to those who watch it! I play CS and my experience tends to be very mixed, sometimes being harassed in a negative abusive way sometimes in a weird thirsty desperate way. Sometimes I get nice teammates who are just here to play and are positive and friendly, so shout out to all those people! I was at the Faceit major in London with two of my guy friends and we saw you and had a chat with ya. Being at the major as a woman was a bit of a scary experience, there was such a huge amount of guys and sometimes there were some odd or dirty looks and such. Thankfully my friends made it better for me. But that's definitely another barrier women face in the esports side - being demeaned for attending an event. Thanks again Phillip
this video really made me mad. it's like, when a girl plays online with random people, she either meets complete simps or total assholes, there's rarely anything in between. i'm not claiming to be a "playboy" or anything but i honestly think that the reason i'm able to just be nice to everyone in general, without any sexism, is because unlike 50% of gamers, i've actually seen pussy in real life. like yeah, it sounds harsh but it is what it is, they're simping or they're toxic because they're either incels or misogynists.
@@FreshNicolas love your simple world
@@FreshNicolas nah don't worry about how you sounded there, you were speaking facts. When you hear blatant sexism or simping you just know they are a huge loser because interacting with a woman is such a novelty to them, they feel the need to overreact one way or another.
@@nightfire_CSGO How sexist of you. lmao
Thank you so much for making this video Phil, I'm not a woman but I play with quite a few and I'm afraid they'll get abuse hurled at them as soon as they speak. All I can tell the assholes is "Shut up and play the game." Even then, they'll come up with some snarky comment "oH iS sHe YoUr gIrLfrIEnD" Not to mention all the guys who will put them on a pedestal in an attempt to get some "gamer girl pussy" and then get incredibly mad when she doesn't give her insta! It's fucking absurd. Women just wanna play in peace without being treated differently just because they're women.
As far as I understand it, those people are extremely low-IQ players who think that you are a simp as long as you are not toxic towards women. For that reason, I think sarcastically making fun of them and "how masculine they are because they are not simps" would be a better option.
@@Yveldi I would, but I'm too sick and tired of that shit to bother arguing with someone every single time. I at least tell my friends I'm sorry that this happens.
Absolute fucking bullshit, you don't play video games.
@@panameadeplm ???
honestly everyone gets that type of abuse online. not the second half but the first half is extremely common. everyone gets called slurs online.
Thank you for posting this. It gets blown aside far too much by people who have never experienced it and think it isn't an issue.
I'm in that group 😆 But i trust uncle Phil, it must be a serious problem
Thank you for bringing this to light! Abuse inside videogames goes unknown by a lot of people, thank you for using your platform for something important!
Weirdly enough I can kind of relate. I started playing CS when I was 12 and had a very squeaky voice for years. Even when I played well, I'd get constantly belittled, dismissed, yelled at and usually teamkilled, kicked and sometimes banned because of it just cause I was young. It sucked. I never realized why they did it and it only got worse if I performed worse, or god help made a mistake. It never really bothered me personally as I would usually just laugh at them off the mic and took it as for what it is - a grown ass dude making fun of a kid for being a kid. Can't find a more moronic and ironically childish reason than that and I realized it. But I realize not everyone can tolerate it the same and the fact that it's there in the first place is just sad, especially given it's your personal choice to queue up with random people in the first place. But there will always be people who are butthurt. If anything I'm glad to have gone through that experience, get the perspective and be much more supportive to what are sadly the minorities in online gaming cultures. I genuinely enjoy helping out no matter how long it takes and cheering on no matter how big the flop whenever meeting them in game.
I mean as a child who's 13 and starting off this genre at valorant at an age of 12, I have seen abit of abuse but it wasn't as bad as my time in csgo, nevertheless I enjoy both games, I also shrug it off, nothing new and i laugh it off for the same reasons you do. Probably going to get into csgo more after csgo 2
meh, everyone goes through it. bullying squeakers is just part of gaming i suppose.
@@pliat yeh
Go figure many adults don't like playing with dumb children especially in a competitive setting. Your parents failed you by assuming the internet was a good place for their child to socialize
yep, used to happen to me too. All young gamers (sadly) go through it. I always see it and try my best to defend the kid if I can, I've never understood why people do it so much. Its such a shitty mentality, its like they have "It happened to me so I might as well do it" very, very toxic shit
The CSGO community in general is just so extremely toxic. I’m with you on this 100%.
have you seen russian late-night drunk face it players? (no offense, no hate , a joke)
Thank you for utilizing your platform to speak on this. As a woman in the community it's incredibly inspiring to see a prominent voice taking the opportunity to discuss an issue that many overlook.
Amen! Seeing this video not only made me feel good knowing it was being addressed but also reminded me of how strong I am for dealing with it.
Same! The issue is exactly what made me decide against sticking with CS I was bad at shooting stuff, yes, but I could give callouts, but even if I opened my mouth I would be often ignored
@@lenorelestrange Why does it make you feel good to have someone talk about something that has no solution? Like, prayer?
@@panameadeplm rising awareness is important. It has a solution, that is to have the community not stand for this bullshit. CSGO should be inclusive and an important way to do that is telling assholes to shut up.
@@MossSquid What if you get told to shut up?
6+ years in CSGO as a woman has been quite the experience, thank you for showing love to the female community, this means more than I can even begin to express.
Proud of you! #transrightsarewomenrights
@@allahdoesnotexist3823 i'm not trans but you are not wrong!
@@allahdoesnotexist3823 HAHAHAHHAHA HHAHAH
@@itsjustmargo Not a woman myself but it's truly something uplifting to see this shift start to finally happen within gaming, especially fps scenes. I've been around for ~13 years, starting with Quake 3. And growing up with fps games, seeing the way people casually treated and talked about women in games and their communities (I was guilty of this too back then) makes it almost unbelievable that things are starting to change for the better. Running into a woman in cs back then was pretty rare. At least one that was ok with making it known they were a woman. Now way more women are playing pretty much everything, and it's trending towards being more accepted. Still not near the levels of acceptance we should be at, but it really is great to see things changing. We all deserve to enjoy one of the greatest stress-distraction and escapism tools in existence! Why should something as sweet as games be the opposite of that for women?
@@RequiemOfSolo its been rough but like many of us ive just laughed it off. Keep calling out and playing the game because if i wanna waste my time, im gonna waste it my way.
I look forward to watching the new ESL tournaments. Thanks for the perspective, Philip.
Me and my friends recently got matched up with a girl as out 5th, and we tend to tell the 5th teammate that we're all in teamspeak so just tell us if we forget to call. She spoke for the 1st time in maybe 4th round, and then gave very little info. Somebody called her out for not calling enough and she told us she was scared to talk to us. That is heartbreaking... In the end she was a nice teammate so we invited her to play more after she had told us it's nice to be able to just speak normally and not get heat for being a woman. I wasn't aware of how bad the issue was, I knew that this problem existed but I never really had any girl tell me exactly how bad it is. And yeah she used to just play 5 stacks with her friends to avoid the hate but now her friends stopped playing and she's stuck in this limbo where she enters a match being 90% sure she'll receive hate for speaking up in a game where I'd argue that pings aren't enough, it's no league of legends match where for matchmaking purposes the pings are actually just enough. And I always though that majority of the sexist abuse is caused just by being bad, and being a woman just opens up another branch of insults for the people that are toxic towards you, after all we all get hate in cs... But apparently people just hate women? Every time I see someone hate on a gamer girl that plays just as well as the rest of the team I feel like I travelled 3 centuries back...
Honestly I think the toxicity is to do with younger gamers and the toxic views certain influential people within the scene propagate. Young players usually are easily influenced and the companies behind the scene need to proactively provide positive viewpoints and discourage toxic viewpoints, else the game will descend into a quagmire of toxicity.
exactly. you make amazing points in this video as to how sexism is so common that we become numb to it, and thats a problem
Thanks for this Phillip. I think men don't understand that it goes beyond normal trash talk. It's one thing to have someone call you bad at the game. It's another thing to be demeaned for who you are, in the same way most women are outside of video games. It's an incomparable level of demoralising.
For that reason I always found these fail compilations of female pros so demeaning and cruel. Because like it didn't seemed to be in good fun, but more to make a general point about women. I'm always embarrassed when I say that I play a lot of cs
Oh yes, because people do not offend each other on racial and ethnic grounds. Men do not understand "poor women who suffer much more."
I mean.....I get your point but men go after mens core identity all the time too. Arguably better because they know it more intimately. Short, small dick, no hair, etc etc etc
That's the key thing, a lot of these people who say that "men in CS experience the same thing" are confusing trash talk with targeted sexism. Take that Lucy clip, the guy starts out by saying she has low ADR and flames her for baiting teammates. Guy's a dick, sure, but they're complaints in the context of the game and that's as far as it would go against a man, but he starts with the kitchen shit almost instantly because she's a woman, which is clearly targeted verbal abuse.
@@mnemosftb "but he starts with the kitchen shit almost instantly because she's a woman, which is clearly targeted verbal abuse." What's the difference? Racism, Nazism, cultural insult, being sent to the kitchen. What makes you think that this offends more?
thanks 4 doing a video on this important topic phil, very much appreciated!
I used to know this girl who absolutely demolished me in CS. Thankfully she managed to gather a full team, so the abuse was at a minimum and she could focus on performing. They aren't inherently bad, there just aren't that many of them, as you said.
get better at game lmao
was that the day that you decided to become trans?
Incels in reply section
Good on you for posting this, awareness is key.
Love the idea that we all pretend to be women to dilute and experience the abuse ourselves.
*cringe*
Now I actually have a good reason to try one of those voice changer programs!
@@Svemirsky How is this cringe?
I've been pretending to be a woman on the Internet longer than I've been a man on the Internet
My friend did that a couple of years back. The amount of skins he got because of it was unreal
Amazing of you to support this topic, been thinking about it for a long time and I just hope it gets better some day!
Straight to the point. I see it every time I post a clip of a female CSGO player. Many comments are simply "simp" or "girls shouldn't play video games". This is just sad. Most people who comment things like this are just not as good as the shown clip of a female gamer.
1:20 "And still is." Glad to hear she's still alive somewhere
i think it’s also something about the power of anonymity. majority of them-they wouldn’t dare do or say something like that in real life. and if they do-they’re considered an outcast. the thing is that CSGO is an awesome game that brings every body from every single part of the world.
+1. This holds true for other games too. People do realize that they can get away without consequences after spewing hatred and nonsense. Sure, some would suggest to develop a thick skin since "thats how every online gaming community works" but that's not a solution either.
Anonymity *or* distance. There are plenty of toxic people using real names on social media
@@SpeedRexful Unfortunately that is the only solution really. These people see tolerance as weakness. You cant argue with them, they will just riducule everything you say. You have to hit them back harder until they give you respect. It's the same as in school days with bullies and being bullied. Asking friends or teachers or parents for support doesnt change a thing for the better, often it gets even worse. You have to hit back and defend yourself, even if that is not what you want to do. It's the only solution that works. We're living in a fucked up world, you either stand up for yourself or you go down. This is the sad truth and the sooner people realise the better for them. Most men had to learn this the hard way during their childhood and were encouraged to do so by their fathers and friends while many women weren't exposed to this kind of toxicity as much and their parents told them to behave "ladylike" and non violent. Girls and women have to learn to stand up for themselves and defend themselves and we should encourage them more to not take shit from anybody.
@@SpeedRexful There can never be solution for community though, too much policing of what people can say or hear and it would be annoying to play at. As insensitive as it is, having thick skin is really the easiest way
no one is gonna get cast out of a male friend group for badmouthing women lmao what kind of lala land do you live in
One of the coolest things from valorant are the in-game callouts so you can be helpful to your team without having to be in voicecomms. This benefits a lot of people who play games - women can dodge gender bias, younger kids can dodge getting called a squeaker, people with hearing or speaking-based disabilities can communicate faster and even the odd person with an actually broken headset or no mic in general can be credit to their team. The whole industry is slowly sliding towards more accessible comms. Even counterstrike has improved a lot in this fashion. I remember when map callout locations were something you couldnt even look up online and with some spots there was no consensus even if you thought you knew. You either were in the know or you got flamed for not calling things right, sometimes both at the same time.
Oh the good old days, spending a round arguing about what that one callout is ACTUALLY called...
cs has this as well?
One of my friends, she played counter strike and absolutely slaughtered every game, but never used the voice chat and had a super generic username. Literally had their steam profile linked to a male name just to avoid harassment. It isn't that people can't play, it's that they are prevented from playing.
Sexism in gaming is really pervasive and it mostly goes unnoticed. Thank you for making this video and raising awareness for it. Personally, I've just stopped playing online games at all except for rarely with friends, because it's not worth dealing with the constant harassment. Any time you try to talk, it's like rolling the dice to see if you'll get some incel screaming at you over the microphone. It sucks since online games are fun, but they're a lot less fun when you get attacked for existing in a way that makes some people furious.
That's literally the experience every person in CSGO has, lul.
ever thought of muting ppl? just saying
@@ForOne814 it's literally not, but go off I guess
@@insu_na I dunno, may be on Western European servers the situation is different, but on Eastern Europe you first establish who's who, then start cyberbullying each other based on ethnicity, language and nationality, as well as other stuff like speech impairments or accents. Women are just, well, women. They expect special treatment in the First and Second worlds, and they kinda get it.
@@ForOne814 ah yes, i remember when i get shit talked for being a man. People telling me to go back to the kitchen and such. Such a common thing men go through.
Great point about speaking up, it really does help (not always, but most of the time!): I play a lot of cs and valorant with my 8 years younger brother. Some people like to flame either because he is so young or because they think he's bad (we all make mistakes from time to time). However when they say something toxic i usually respond with something like: "Its just a game, we're only playing for fun so there's no need to harass your teammates because of this". I mostly do this to show my brother that this behaviour is not ok. That he shouldn't just accept it and become numb to this thrashtalk. But in 90% of the cases people have acctually apologized for their comments, or at least stopped their toxic behaviour! This really shows how easy people show their worst part of themselves online, but more importantly what difference one small comment can make when needed. Wish you all the best when gaming folks!
Thank you for this video, this was a fantastic analysis that really helps
Thanks for making me 'see' these borders philip, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed so it really helped understanding
This is why I've not used my microphone ingame for over a year.
I'm so glad you're talking about this topic. It's my dream to be a pro CS player one day(although I don't think it will ever be possible). However, I would love to see a female CS player in one of the big teams one day. It would just feel really good to get some representation and although I don't think I can become a pro, it would feel really inspiring to see a pro female player in one of the big teams. So I really hope that we will eventually see more female players in CS
Sports are not about representation, you're either pro or not
Maybe it can inspire you to be the first one, so that other females can look up to you.
@@blue7081 i'm sure you're one of those sexist bastards who insult women in CS.
@@blue7081 you really havent watched the video have you?
@@GustavoSor3y Watched fully, blown out of proportion, everyone gets equally shat on
Such an Important topic!! thanks for making a video on this!!
I've never understood why people treat other people like dogshit in games, female or not, I've always approached every single person with kindness. Growing up and playing Xbox live with all sorts of people, and having female friends never really hit me, until one of my friends showed me her Xbox messages. it truly broke my heart, seeing that after nearly every single game she spoke in, or was noticed she was either met with abuse, or sexual depravity. We both would constantly be neck and neck, dominating games together and pushing our team to victory in every single game we played together, but purely because she was a girl she was treated like shit. People should fuck off, and stop letting being a Male, Female or whatever else people identify as in 2021 be an obstacle, and just let people play video games and have fun, not be a creep and treat everyone as you would your own damn kin. Thanks for uploading this video Mate, I hope that Girls can get a fair share and a good shot in the video game community.
Very insightful video, thank you for covering this topic.
This isnt unique to CS unfortunately. I just got out of a match of Team Fortress where I was berated by 3 players relentlessly. I left the match, quit tf2 and then saw this video. I've had a lot of issues with verbal abuse in cs and tf2 and it has gotten worse over the past couple of years. Usually it would be one bad apple that would sling abuse until they were kicked, but recently I was kicked for cheating because "A woman couldnt find her way out of spawn" and when I told everyone to f2, two people just said "based" in chat. I wish this would change but I doubt it will.
I am fortunate in the regard of being a male, so it's even more saddening hearing all these problems and issues I myself have never encountered. Only after talking to my sister or female friends online did it become apparent how much I underestimated the toxicity against women specifically.
I always wanted more girls to play video games since i think they are art and fun. But since I rarely met any i was sad because I thought they were missing out on something. Now I realisize why that is and I'm sorry you had interact with those guys. Hopefully you still enjoy playing online games
@@nara6540 These communities are generally toxic to anyone and everyone. I don't think we're dealing with the underlying cause here. It's like everyone is pretending that toxic comments only happen to female players.
They probably never touched a female before in their entire life.
Yea they are and they will get you unless you mute them. Really makes you think why they act like that. I fully understand why women don't play online games, like csgo or dota, I wouldn't either if I hadn't already played since teenage years when I had all the time in the world. And from my experience women are less likely to spend 8 hours in a row in moms basement playing dota at the age of 15 like I was. Nowadays I'm so numb to the abuse that I just mute people and don't give a fuck usually. And I always play with a couple of friends, so there is less toxicity.
Thank you for shining a light on this Phillip. It really means a lot, especially since I’ve had to leave comp gaming to escape abuse.
@@Dasistrite shut up bro, you have no idea what they have gone through
T-Bag
lol
I hope some of you in the comments change and grow as a person.
I will be very proud and happy when one day we have a women's team or a mix team in the major. You've made lots of valid points in the video. In a game where your physical appearance and capabilities are irrelevant, why do we place these barriers indeed? This topic has been on my mind since I saw Juliano doing sponsored merch adverts with G2. I am sure a younger Juliano and perhaps other girls who watch would have wanted to play the game more than be models for some merch.
We're never going to, see women's chess.
@@GSG-io8zp When men lose against me, they always have a headache… I have never beaten a healthy man. - Susan Polgar, former women's chess world champion. I did a little bit of reading, seems there is still much debate on what it to be done, both chess and csgo evidently.
Tbf G2 uses all of their players as models for merch. Especially people like Rekkles, Jackz and Juliano because they fit the role well. G2 seems to be treating their female team as well as any of their other teams, so I'd say they're doing well to get rid of this stigma about women being somehow different
@@GSG-io8zp hou yifan is on a pretty high level on chess, and she has played with many of men top players
@@Mixu. I don't agree with treating your players better than other teams when half your players don't even play actively. G2 should be leading the charge in women's csgo. There's so much money in cs rn, I'm sure we can reassess how we use it.
Great video! This is an important topic to adress and I was so happy when seeing the female tour being announced. As a male I cant stand playing cs:go cus its so incredibly toxic. Cant really imagine being a woman trying to get in to this scene.
Great video. Thank you for doing this. Every time I have a female on my team I cringe at the idiot behavior. Be it the over protective white knighting, over sexualizing, or ignorant misogyny; none of that is necessary. They deserve the same support and respect we all want from our teammates. It's a team game for god's sake.
It's even more infuriating when people brush the harrasment off as "Something everyone deals with" or "Everyone does this on the internet", it feels like a point that they don't even believe in.
wtf xd. %70 of my games i get insulted for no reason and have long verbal fights. sometimes it doesnt even matter if you're the top fragger. you can count on me on that
@@big_2361 do you get team killed over your gender? I've had arguments in game like these tons of times and it's nothing like what was shown here, it's more like banter in this case.
@@Talentlesssss usually i get insulted over nationality and rarely teamkilled. after that maybe i insult them or retaliate in some other way. doesnt bother me anymore except tilting for that match. but not everyone is me ofc, and some people do get upset which i see more clearly now. still, even if i dont care about it i still have to deal with toxicity directed at me so does everyone else
@@big_2361 "If it happens to me, then women can't express discontent with getting harrased"
@@Talentlesssss no im not saying that at all. men can have their way and blow off steam or even have fun by insulting and cursing other players but thats no way to talk to a girl. even if shes is playing bad i think its better to just not speak and let it slide than insult her. because women are just not used to that kind of communication. and im just explaining that toxicity a common occurance because you wrote that not everyone deals with it. because its wrong
Thank you. THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this video. I've been playing cs since i'm 8. The harassment got worse once I grew older and I turned more "girly" and tried to use voice chat more. It was a mistake, of course. I've even been harassed by other girls and other "pick-me" girls. I know I shouldn't refer to other girls in this way, but it was exactly the attitude they displayed afterwards. Harassment has been part of my life ever since I got into online videogames, and I've tried competing (I've been on teams with guys and girls, all of them amazing), but the barriers do exist. Abuse is a thing that for me, happens 2 out of 3 games. It gets worse in Valorant, but for my teenage years, it was deppresing. I loved the fact that you mentioned the female characters added as skins. For me, it was so heartwarming. I finally feel represented, and not because "it's a strong female character", it's because we finally have a female character. Ironically, I also got hate and harassment from players ingame lmao. I've learned to deal with the "go back to the kitchen", and I just try to shut them up with my gameplay (which happens all the time). Again, thank you. I know this was kind of a rant, but I wanted to show a bit of my experience, especially being from another region (LATAM), which ends up being worse, since misoginy is still a big deal here. Thank you so much for your perspective on this, and for making a point of the misoginy, discrimination, and barriers we have to deal with.
This is a whole nother topic that needs to be discussed in full, girl on girl infighting. The audacity and ferocity of some girl gamers that want to keep their 8 boyfriends on their team all to themselves when I'm there to play a fkin casual match is kinda insane.
@@lenorelestrange Maybe the pick-me-girl-problem is descending from to the sexist harassment from men? Female players has to fight a lot harder to get acknowledgement from the male players and the community in general because of their sex. So they might end up being mean to other female players to keep their spot on e.g. a team.
What rank are you in valorant?
@@MGraversen yeah it's all actually men's fault. yeah sure women get shit for being female, but you can get shit for anything, it's just that being female is obvious. everyone has things that they would get shit for. imo best way to combat someone chatting at you is just to find something on them, doesn't have to be much, then just keep building on it and keep going in on em for it. It helps if you have a friend to join in. i think ignoring them is a less effective thing to do (and less fun, for me anyway). E.g i was in a match of HLL, and this guy started piping up at me, after a few minutes i found out he was from estonia, now i dont really have anything against estonia, but it's a semi-poo country so that'll do. anyway, minutes later he wanted me and my friend to fly to estonia and fight him, obviously we just started laughing at him harder and kept calling him a caveman until he left. anyway, you get the idea.
Love the new pfp
In an ideal world this video wouldn’t have existed. Sadly enough, it does and I’m really glad you addressed this huge issue.
I used to verbally chat with my team (in other games.) I wasn’t always picked on by my co-players, even though I was treated with misogynt the bigger portion of the time talking. Most of the times it weren’t enough to get me hurt, but it happened soooo frequent and consistently I just stopped talking in-game unless my bf were with me. At one time the bullies persistebtly followed me outside of the game and disturbed me on my profile page. They were maybe five or six guys, and they didn’t stop harassing me and my friends for a whole day and night. I’m grateful beyond words my friends were there for me. Since then I didn’t go in a game by myself thinking that I’d talk.
I am always amazed how cool and reproducible you explain complex topics like this one.. thank you for showing where you think the problem lies and for handing some tools on how to fight this behavior if somebody would encounter this and even make the people more sensitive to this problem One of the most important videos on KZhead I've seen in the past weeks
nice to see a large youtuber finally talking about this.
Thank you for the video
jesus christ your script writing is so good. My anttention span is quite long, but when i understand the point of the video and the creator just elaborates for too long i just close the video. But in your videos i just enjoy listening. And the pacing is so well done.
The funniest game I've ever had while soloQing was a few years ago when we had a girl on our team and everyone was very respectful and not a single bad thing was spoken for the first half which we won 12-3. Then we lost the pistol round and it turned out that another player on the team who hadn't said a word before that was also a girl, and they instantly started fighting and calling each other names. The rest of the game was just two girls screaming at each other. We lost 13-16.
Based sexist women
Hahaha, I've met some very toxic women and 9/10 they have a 3-4 q of orbiters that insta kick or bit at other girls because it's a power thing or something. Thrown my fair share over that tbh. "if you got dk then you would be so sht" WELCOME TO THE T H R O W Z O N E!
You get stories like this one...... BUT ITS STILL MEN WHO ARE THE CONSTANT PROBLEM, SOMEHOW, lmfao
Was just thinking about this yesterday. Seems like most videogames sport more guys than women, really. Glad you made a video of it.
I will call out anyone talking shit towards my team. Toxic behavior is never okay no matter who it's aimed at.
Thank you~
Thank you so much for making this video
thank you for making this video, it's interesting to think how this could change in the future
Wonderful video as always! I'm genuinely so glad you made this, I think this topic in general needs much more attention from the community at large. While plenty of smaller voices in the community and larger voices from outside the general gaming scene have been vocal, individuals like yourself speaking on these kinds of issues are few and far between. On another note, if anybody needs convincing that women are capable at competing at the top level in games, the competitive scenes in mmos stand as a great example. While men are still very overrepresented, they tend to be far more diverse than that of a typical FPS. Two that I know of are Naguura(ex world first raider in WoW) and Stal(World first contender in FFXIV).
Happens in every game. My sister played r6 with her boyfriend and he literally said she was his girlfriend, but people just went:"You're really good for a girl! Accept friend request pls!". Also happens to ' squeakers ', sadly like me. Usually when I say something I either get instantly attacked for my voice. If not, then usually when I get into an argument or sometimes when I'm literally giving callouts. It has made me much more toxic and like competitive gaming very little, usually resorting to more laid-back games when I'm too tilted.
Well said, Philip! Great video
Being a girl on CS I literally sometimes get kicked for... no reason. Even if I am basically carrying, top scoring, whatever, I get kicked because I am a woman. CSGO I have found is the only game with this problem, R6, OW, and basically any other competitive FPS shooter is nowhere NEAR as toxic as CSGO.
Solo MM is bad experience
Solo matchmaking is honestly a horrific experience for men too CS players are soo toxic I can definitely understand how extremely bad it would be if i were to add in sexism in the already blatant toxicity Stay strong and make teams with people you know and are comfortable playing with you (this is currently the only way to enjoy counter strike)
Overwatch has a lot more female players so I’d imagine that’s part of why. I guess overwatch just tends to appeal to more women than cs.
imagine being a woman lmao
Solo is toxic for everyone that’s why I stopped playing it
Thank you for addressing this Phillip, it really means a lot to have someone as big as you in the counterstrike seen to address something as important as this. I hope others see this and take note to improve how welcoming and excepting the community is.
Nice profile picture :)) also yes I adore philip for this video, what an amazing guy
I wish most of the community was as kind as the minority, though it warms heart to see this the bleak reality is nothing will get done. "women are too frail" Seesh, the things I've even read in the comments here shows how blind they are to it all. Also sewerslvt 😊👌
Thank you for addressing this issue.
thank you so much for this video!
This is going to date me pretty accurately but I was playing at the top level of European CS leading up to 1.6. I was playing with a player called Snajdan (if you know, you know) and we were playing a scrimmage VS A-laget. At the time a female was arguably their best player, her nickname was Queen and she later on had a career in female CS and CS:GO. Back then she was on a top team on her own merit. Snajdan figured out she was a woman and, being the young brat he was at the time, he made it his mission to go around the map (cbble) as T and hunt for her. Totally ruined any practice we were meant to get and going A alone every single round doesn't play into the terrorist's favor. But I remember the nasty things he yelled in our comms (he was at least too scared to be disrespectful directly to her) and we were laughing at how pathetic he was acting. Being older now I regret not trying to speak more directly to him why it wasn't okay, at the time we felt like he was proving himself wrong by hunting for her and going something like 2 for 12 in his duel with her. Anyway, she was a top level player way before women's esport was a thing. I remember being a bit sad when she ventured into female CS because I really felt like she belonged to 'my' scene.
Thats the problem, there shouldnt be. Theirs and ours scene. It shoult all be our scene. We bitch and moan about womens cs being weak, when in reality lots of female gamers are better than your average male. Also imagine being abused everytime you play, it hardly will make you wanna practice and improve as a young 12-13 year old girl. Its made that in 2021 we still have this and racism etc. Its like we have a chance to be the leadersi n equality since it literally is a level playing field but we artificially created this barrier, just so we can be as backwards as the rest of the world.
Ok not to kill your point because you say some good things but if you're 12 you probably shouldn't be playing cs go. Boy or girl...
@@matt-de9ie That should be painfully obvious if you've ever played a competitive online game before. 12 year olds are no way near mature enough on average to play these types of games and it's exactly what leads to behaviour like this in the first place.
@@zombieguy yet starting this early is the only way to get into pro scene. S1mple, m0nesy, all others started at 10
Would definitely love to see more women casters and analysts, as well as the hosting/interviewer roles. Shout out to Freya and Frankie!
❤
Also I’m pretty sure Frankie was not presenting at the major due to her pregnancy, she was a great interviewer and had some really good insight of top tier play.
Thank you for making this, Philip
this video was perfect, to the point without acting like the entire community is at fault, while still providing strong and intense frustration at points when needed. loved it
Exactly, a sane perspective. If this video was made on any other channel or for any other game it would probably be campaigning for women being able to issue immediate bans with one button press or all male [game] players to be castrated or something. Practical and realistic solutions are rarely spoken of these days.
Nah just klick voice make it seems nice.
@@meferswift this definitely helped as well
I think the Battlefield players were salty mostly about historical accuracy. It makes sense that CS would not be met with as much annoyance for female SWAT officers, etc. Good video, I agree with you and wish people could just be cool.
You can also see where the goofy skins from BFV led to with the latest iteration of the game. Character customization was an awful addition to the battlefield series.
The one female character from the trailer that particularly displeased people wasn't even SWAT. She was some girl with a claw arm, handling her weapon with some rather impressive dexterity for the 1940's prosthetics.
I assure you most people complaining about historical accuracy have never, ever cared about historical accuracy anywhere else. Hell, they're not even right, there's a whole Wikipedia article about women in WWII. But even so, why would women be an eyesore in a game where you can 360 noscope somebody across the map with a WWI sniper rifle while jumping off of an airplane? There are all sorts of goofy shit in modern Battlefield games.
@@magma.admin.courtney Yeah, I never got this "it's about historical accuracy" argument. Battlefield is such a goofy fucking franchise, a woman existing somewhere shouldn't affect your immersion nearly as much as a guy slapping C4 to their truck to suicide dive into a tank.
@@magma.admin.courtney How many of those women in WWII wore blue makeup and sported a metal claw for an arm? The argument was never about women being in Battlefield, but rather it was about pushing a stupid agenda. Had EA done a story about a female sniper in the Russian forces, it would have been cool and historically accurate. Instead, we got Claw Girl who benefits no one and is a caricature of female representation. Not only that, but for a company that shrieked about wanting to be on the right side of history and all that nonsense, they thought it was a good idea to actually include a mission where you play as a Nazi who is killing Americans.
Good video, this goes far beyond counter strike and even happens in non-competitive games
Well said. Thanks for using your platform to bring this to attention. Blatant sexism has definitely been "normal" in online gaming since the beginning, but it's time for us to actively put an end to it by calling out perpetrators and cleaning up our own communities (not just CS). It's disgusting how women are treated in these spaces and I can only hope the younger generation is more sensible and inclusive towards all groups. Love you Philip, happy holidays from NYC.
sexism in competetive community of counter strike will exist as long as reddit exists
@@PolishPsycho2704 says reddit Wehraboo
It just really sucks when you're trying to make a couple calls or something, and get flamed or griefed for not being a man.
There's no simple answer imho, people that want to bother you will just use whatever tools they have. I've received a shit tonne of abuse solely from sounding really Scottish for example. That being said targeted harassment is different and would need to be solved. I really hate the character model section bit tho, also find it kinda pathetic. I've played games for years with characters that don't even slightly resemble me and it's not an issue. A generic female character shouldn't be related to because they are female and seems very dishonest.
Yeah that was a bit of a reach. Imagine preferring to play foocking Battlefield 5 just for the player customisation..
Thanks for talking about this. It is an important topic in Gaming.
the final post showed made me cry both of emotion because of her play and frustration because of the comment mentioned
shed a tear on this vid, the things that i never new existed, makes me support the initiative even more
same
Thank you so much for this video. It is time to talk about manners in CS. In Denmark we are in general discussing CSGO manners, especially the last 2 months. We havent gone far yet, people are really not aligned, both on how to behave in game and at events. But the open discussion is nice, kind and great, and the waves has started. I hope the discussion will continue for the better in the general CS communities.
This is a great video I wish more people would watch. Thanks philip
Great initiative. Thank you
So. Damn. Glad. You talk about this. I have thought a lot about this BIG fucking problem cs has. Crazy how these guys talk to women like they're not even human.
"As a man I am always treated very respectfully in csgo" - said no csgo player ever
@@screew708 well atleast you dont get thrown shit your way for just revealing your gender
@@screew708 except men don't get harrassed because they are men.
I am a female csgo player with over 2800 hours. I'm silver 2, have been my whole gaming time. 1:2 matches i get harrassed, the muting thing is very useful.
A good friend of mine is Global Elite. She obviously has a similar experience.
2800 and you’re still silver 2….
@@gameranger7957 what of it? The ranks are fucked. I get novas and i cant rank up.
@@gameranger7957 2021 is ending and you're still toxic...
I am a male csgo player with over 400 hours. I'm (jumped from GN4 to silver elite no idea where i actually lay now). 1:2 matches i get harrassed, the muting thing is very useful. .......... TELL ME, WHERE EXACTLY IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY EXPERIENCE (MALE) AND YOUR EXPERIENCE, (FEMALE) ?
Met my ex while trash talking each other over voice chat on CS 1.6 xD we couldn't decide who was better after 3 full rounds ending on a draw, most skilled girl i've ever played against. i miss those times.
Epico
@@vladimirgolosin4699 En efecto
This is such a good explanation video though
Raising awareness is a good first step. I respect you for doing it!
Thank you 3kliks. It’s a shame this even needs to be said, but after the last few days it’s nice to see someone supportive and lay it out so eloquently.
Your existent are so important to the cs scene, well done mate, very well done
The end clip with the one armed girl really had me in shock. So much talent.
"Get in the kitchen" can be a funny joke but when you get it 100x times it's not funny anymore It's a bite like the guy in Disneyland who get asked "Where are the toilet" 100x a day.
"Get back and clean the toilets" can be a funny joke but when you get it 100x times its not funny anymore 2 CAN PLAY THE SAME GAME, WHERE ARE THE CRIES OVER TOXICITY TWORDS POLISH PEOPLE ? oh no POOR WOMEN
I'm glad you've made this video, philip. You articulated a lot of the issues that have existed for a long time for women in CS:GO and many other online games. I hope that the message having come from you, an established (and male, because unfortunately that matters when it comes to the people who most need to hear this) voice in Counter-Strike will get the reality of the situation across to more and more people.
I agree with this video. I have seen this situation many times in the games I played
Great vid man. This issue deserves actual attention and should stop being brushed off