Women of eSports

The number of female viewers has been growing in eSports, and in 2013 only 30% of eSports enthusiasts were female. This was an increase from 15% in the previous year. 

Despite the increase in female viewers, there still are very few female players in high level competitive eSports. The top female players in eSports mainly get exposure in female-only tournaments, most notably Counter-Strike, Dead or Alive 4, and StarCraft II. All-female eSports teams include the Frag Dolls and PMS Clan.

The first professional female StarCraft 2 player, Kim "Eve" Shee-yoon, was the subject of controversy in 2011 when her team manager stated that she had been selected for "her skills and looks."

Canadian StarCraft II Zerg player Sasha "Scarlett" Hostyn first gained notoriety in the open qualifiers of IGN ProLeague 4, where she defeated top-tier Korean players. She is well known for being one of the few non-Korean players who can play at the same skill level as male Korean players.

In December 2015, Kayla "Squizzay" Squires became the first female Call of Duty player to turn professional upon qualifying for the Call of Duty World League in the Australian region.

Team Siren, an all-female League of Legends team, was formed in June 2013. The announcement of the team was met with controversy, being dismissed as a "gimmick" to attract the attention of men. The team disbanded within a month, due to the negative publicity of their promotional video, as well as the poor attitude of the team captain towards her team-mates.

Team Unikrn, an all-female professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, was formed in October 2015. This came after Unikrn had been criticized for pledging to sponsor any League of Legends Championship Series team who picked up a female player, given that betting companies are prohibited from sponsoring such teams.

A team from Counter Logic Gaming, a large eSports company based in Los Angeles, California is known to be one of the major eSports companies with an all-female Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team.[140] The team is not very well known itself but with larger eSports organizations like Counter Logic Gaming, venturing into female eSports, it could grow with the teams being more mixed, or see a league just for women.

Accusations of sexism in professional eSports have been common; for example one Hearthstone tournament was open only to males, although the host of the tournament maintained that this was in accordance with the IeSF's guidelines as was only meant to avoid conflicts with the rules, then following the media coverage, the tournament was opened to females. In 2012, Street Fighter x Tekken player ArisBakhtanians commented on the lack of female players in the community, saying: 

"sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it's not the fighting game community." 

He later apologized for his comments.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESports