 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, the show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today, my guest is Madeline Gilbert. She's the founder and president of Women of University of Hawaii eSports. Today, we're going to be talking about women in games, University of Hawaii and beyond. Welcome, Madeline. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. It's always lovely to talk to people about eSports, and especially women in gaming. Fantastic. So what is Women of University of Hawaii eSports? What do you do and why did you start it? That's, yeah, it's kind of a hard question to answer because there's so many components that are involved with it. But I actually work at University of Hawaii eSports as a player support coordinator. So right now, I'm managing all of our teams, our players, and basically just making sure everything functions well. And I've been doing that for about two years. So only a year ago did I really come up with the idea to create Women of University alongside one of my other colleagues, Allie, who runs the iLab. And it just kind of felt right. I felt like that space was needed, especially at the University, because there were a lot of women and marginalized genders that play video games, but weren't necessarily active in the University of Hawaii eSports space. And so creating a space that they felt safe in felt needed to kind of, I guess, create more awareness of women in gaming to make people feel safer to join and kind of increase the amount of women in gaming. So it's a really long answer, but after starting it about a year ago, I think everything has kind of happened that I wanted to happen, where we do have more women in gaming. Our program has about over a hundred people in it, and we've been able to succeed at doing different events about creating a competitive Valorant team and also just raising more awareness for treating people equally to creating a kinder space in gaming. So what was the fundamental problem that has led to this? There's quite a few. I think it boils down to that women in gaming and especially women in eSports is quite rare. And there are a lot of reasons that that is how it is. And a lot of it is just comes down to there's quite a sexist culture in gaming and in eSports where people are quite negative and actively attack women when they try and play games or they show interest in playing games or they say that they want to play competitively or even just want to compete against their friends. There isn't really a good environment that has supported women through that. And even personally, I've experienced a lot of sexism playing various games I have over the past few years and even working in eSports. And so this kind of issue of just really generalised sexism that there's no real reason it needs to exist is quite frustrating and is the reason I created the program. There's a lot of smaller issues in there of women tending to be actively ignored, especially in the eSports scene, that their opinions and thoughts aren't seen as valid or they're not listened to. I've experienced myself where people haven't listened to me or haven't respected me even when I've done nothing to prove otherwise. And that's frustrating because it's not right and you know it's not right and people should be supporting each other and should be uplifting each other and feeling inspired to create and to be in such an amazing kind of environment because eSports and gaming is really cool and it is something that's really inspiring to me. It holds a lot of opportunities and involves a lot of creativity. But to have this part of it is not helpful and is only dragging it down. So let me ask you a fundamental question. Are women and men, who's better at eSports? Are they the same or is there a gender difference? When it comes to playing games, obviously when we talk about sports, there are physical attributes that men might have the advantage in when playing certain games and you'd really have to focus on like more scientific specific studies. So I can only guess, but because there is a lack of women in games, because we haven't supported girls, younger girls playing games up until like older women, that there are just less women in games. And when there's less women, there's less of a chance to have higher ranking or like better gamers because there are so many men that play games. There is a bigger pool of men that are just extremely talented or have practiced for enough time. And so there's a significantly larger amount of them than there are women. Not necessarily that men are better than games, but I don't think women have had the opportunity yet to really prove that they could be good at games, too. And there are quite a lot of talented and very high ranking women in competitive games. But considering the large pool of like men that are in competitive games, it feels like there's barely any. Is this kind of like socialization when girls and boys are growing up and the girls are given Barbies and that boys might be given games to play? Video games to play or encouraged more? And maybe girls are not encouraged as much to play games? I'm kind of wondering if it starts like in childhood. I really strongly believe it does. I think one of the only reasons that I personally got into games was because of my brother, because my brother was the one who had a Nintendo DS or who even had like a Game Boy or something. And I saw him playing games all the time. And that made me feel inspired to myself. It wasn't because of my girlfriends or friends that I had growing up. No, like I think I had like one girl, at least when I like before 10 years old that played like a game, but we only played it because a big group of guys played the same game with us. And so the main reason that I have played games and competitive games over the year over the years is because of these like big groups of guy friends. And I haven't ever had a big group of girlfriends that I could play with. And so it isn't as inspiring or like appealing to kind of pick up a game when most of my friends aren't doing it. So I had to find a different space to play games, a different group of people. You know, it's kind of interesting when I talk to people about, you know, people that are in their 40s and 50s who have children and possibly grandchildren. They do talk about their daughters playing games. And I'm wondering if there's that if it's changing and that maybe, like especially like maybe COVID, maybe girls became more involved in playing games. What do you think? Is that is that something that is changing over time? I feel like it is. The amount of women that I've seen in competitive games and the amount of just people that I've seen playing games that identify as women or marginalized genders has definitely felt like it's increased. I can't say for sure, but it's just one of those like deep feelings where from being in the scene for so long and from being involved in gaming, you just start to notice things. And so I do believe that it has increased. And I think it will continue to increase because the more women that are being actively seen as playing games, the more people are going to be inspired by them to play games as well. So when you when you look at University of Hawaii and it's, you know, how they have embraced women in games, are there any rules to protect women or marginalized people in the gaming environment in collegiate eSports? There are as many women in collegiate eSports. I think the best way that I can represent that is as I'm managing all of our teams, we have about 120 players in UHE and out of 120 people every year, only one to three identifiers women. So that's a significantly small group. And then within that, there aren't really anything that we can do or we need to do to protect them because they are resilient. They've obviously proved that they are good players, that they can try out and make our team that they're worthy, that they can belong alongside everyone else on that team that are usually other men. And so for them, there are no like rules or stuff in place to kind of protect them because usually it's fine. And fortunately in UHE, it's quite a supportive community where we have been able to create a good environment for women to uplift and support them. I think that answers your question. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I have this show I've had since July of 2020 and I have struggled to find women in gaming to be on my show because there aren't as many. And and actually a number of the shows have addressed women in gaming because that's, you know, the women that I see that are involved in gaming, they're involved in women in gaming and promoting women in gaming. Now at UHE, you mentioned, I mean, you're kind of in a supporting position with the teams. Are there other women that are, you know, make up, I mean, are women in those supporting roles or is that predominantly men as well? I would say that most of our programs like leadership is predominantly men. It's quite rare to me for me to be in this position and to also have another woman alongside me in a leadership position. Because as I'm running all of our teams and our players, my friend Ali, she's running our entire iLab, our competitive arena and open space for people to just play games in. And so for the fact that there are two of us in this space feels quite significant, and I think it's proven that by since we've been in these positions, more women have come out and felt comfortable to kind of be involved with UHE or to be supported by us because we're in leadership positions because we can kind of show them, you know, you can do this too. This is possible. It's not just men dominating the scene. When you're looking at eSports in Hawaii, is scholastic eSports or, you know, like other eSports environments, are they different? Do they have more girls involved? Or does it continue to be mostly boys and men? I think the collegiate scene is quite special because of how university kind of functions as quite a progressive institution where people are studying they're researching, they're learning. They're more open to different ideas and to have more kind of equal spaces. So over most of the programs in the U.S. that I personally witnessed, there are a decent amount of women that are leading, that are involved or have some kind of connection there. So I can't say for sure if University of Hawaii is special or different. I think we are unique in that because we're in Hawaii, we have quite a disadvantage where all of the servers that we play off of to play our games are on the mainland. And so we have kind of a lag when playing competitive games. So we're special in that sense in that that we are playing with a disadvantage and we're already kind of like everything's propped up against us. So we have a bigger determination here to kind of prove people wrong and to succeed even with these kind of difficulties. But when it comes to women in the program and women in other programs in the U.S. I think it's been quite nice to see a wide range of different people leading programs. Sure, sure. And, you know, I do run into a lot of female teachers in e-sports programs in like middle schools and high schools. And are you seeing that in Hawaii as well that you see people in middle school and in high school, you know, that girls and women are involved? I think in my personal position, because I'm leading a women in the e-sports program, I just have the tendency to attract other women or marginalized genders towards me. So I'm not sure if I have the best understanding of what the general scene here in Hawaii looks like because I'm kind of finding all of these underground people, these people that you wouldn't necessarily have seen before and talking to them or bringing them to the front line or stuff like that. So I think of my position, I'm quite lucky to be able to talk to all of these different people that might not have really showed up before or been in the public eye. When they come to you, do they tell you a story of discrimination or do they tell you their feelings about how they aren't comfortable but hopefully you and your organization can make them more comfortable? I think what has hurt me personally the most is when younger girls have come up to me and talked to me about the discrimination they've faced and the sexism that they've faced at such a young age and especially even some parents have talked to me about what their daughter is going through and what they've experienced. And that kind of stuff definitely hurts the most and impacts the most because to see these younger generations already being impacted by things that I'm still dealing with today is something that motivates me to change things even more that I have to change this because these younger girls shouldn't be dealing with that right now. So I have had experiences with that and unfortunately it just makes me feel sad but still like even more fired up to change things because there are the reason that I want to do this every woman and girl on the island and every marginalized gender I want to make this a better space for them. Sure. Now are there games that you believe are more kind of focused towards women and girls or do you think it's kind of gender or neutral? Well, in the end every game is gender neutral and even though most games that have been designed by men will attend to appeal more to men because they've been designed by men but there are still many games that even though are gender neutral you can see that there's a tendency for women to feel more comfortable playing them especially more casual games like Animal Crossing or every game has like left my brain but there's also like Legend of Zelda a lot of like Switch kind of console games and then recently Valorant as well has been a major game for women to play and that's why we were able to create a competitive team for only marginalized gender Valorant players because there was this large player base of female only players of female players and so there are like some games that I feel like have a stronger pull towards women or that they feel safer to play and obviously the larger number the more women will play in them but in the end every game is neutral anyone can play any game and they should feel comfortable to play every game Yeah, you know I thought you were going to say Valorant I'm just, I knew it What are your games that you play? I used to be a big Valorant player unfortunately the more that I've spent time like working in esports and actively working in my job and then also running women of UHE less time I have to play games So right now I'm kind of more focused on animal crossing ironically That's why it came to mind What do you hope for the future of women in esports? There is so much I hope for I've said this a few times before but my end goal is that this program doesn't need to exist because this is something that is created in the space of like a marginalized gender because women have been marginalized and because other like people in the LGBTQIA group have been marginalized as well as others this program had to be created to create a safe place but that shouldn't happen there should be more kindness in the community there should be more respect towards each other this program really shouldn't exist and though I'm thrilled to run it I'm so happy to create this environment for people my end goal is that it can disappear that we can have more equal gaming that people can respect each other that we can have more kindness Sure now just moving on to esports in Hawaii generally What's going on with UHE esports? How are things going right now in terms of growth and tournaments and performances? Honestly we've been having a really great year I think since I've joined the program two years ago one of the major competitive professional leagues the Overwatch League hosted one of their biggest tournaments here on campus and since we got that media attention we've been able to like have more opportunities for our students and to be able to kind of promote our program more get more students into it and it's just been fantastic we've sent a group of students to Korea last summer and we're going to be doing it again this summer to participate in an internship with Gen.G which is a major in esports organization in Korea and then on the team side of things our Apex team has absolutely smashed the scene they've like made everyone well known that they exist and our other teams equally have just been doing fantastic and in the end I feel so proud of them because they put in so much effort they work so hard and they're working at a disadvantage of not always having sponsorships or scholarships or being called a student athlete and yet they're still working this hard and they're still proving themselves and showing up to tournaments even with this kind of these hurdles Sir now you mentioned the Overwatch tournament I think was that played twice at UH and will they continue to have that at UH or is that done? So the Overwatch League came two years in a row I believe in 2020 and 2021 currently the esports scene is changing really dramatically quite quickly and so Overwatch League doesn't actually exist anymore it's being changed into something else and so what is happening behind the scenes there is something that I'm not entirely familiar with but we do hope that they're going to come back to us obviously it's always an option and it's always a possibility of something that can happen but anytime soon I'm not entirely sure we kind of just hope for the best and take the experiences as we can get them You know you mentioned the issue of lag or ping or latency that UH students or players have because the servers are on the mainland and you're not going to be able to react as fast or as people who are closer to the servers Now that's a challenge for people in Hawaii Another challenge that Hawaii sports has is travel and you know is there a travel budget for esports UH esports and are they able to travel or you know how is that working? As everything is it's quite complicated we have been able to send out teams and we probably still will be able to in the future it's always a sensitive subject and something that we can we have to discuss a lot as it's not as if we're taking a plane from like Texas to California it's from Hawaii to California and that's a considerable price jump so it's something that we are always facing the challenges of but we're constantly finding ways to figure out our options to find different ways that we can get them there So what are you planning a career in esports or is this something you're doing for fun while you're in college? This is something that I'm passionate about I think I found that I do have skills and just like the ability to do this kind of job in a way that I find is pretty satisfactory so I'm hoping that I can find a career afterwards in some kind of esports gaming space the esports world right now is quite uncertain so I'm never entirely sure what I want to do after I graduate but I tend to stay open to any opportunity which I think every student should do because you never know what's going to happen and if you just take everything that you can get and keep finding new opportunities then you'll get to where you want to go Do you know if there's any opportunity in esports in Hawaii in terms of careers? I think there starting to be because so many people leave Hawaii to go to the mainland to find jobs we really want to find solutions to keep them in Hawaii and to find more tech jobs for people here so I think that's something definitely we can see in the future as we start to kind of problem solve that issue there's definitely a space for collegiate esports in Hawaii and that is way easier to be a part of and then when it comes to the competitive scene I'm hoping we start to see more experiences and opportunities here So are you hearing from other people in esports at UH that they're planning careers in esports or they're hoping to have careers in esports? Absolutely I think one of our major jobs here and it's quite ironic because I'm also still a student but is to promote our students to be able to get a job in esports and that is through the connections that we can provide them the internship opportunities the just coaching and support that we can give them to apply for jobs when they leave and there are quite a few students interested in it and fortunately esports and stuff that they can learn in our program is stuff that you can apply to almost any job it just is useful skills useful tools that doesn't just make you only on this path for esports but for any company If someone is interested in your organization will we as you have called it women in UH esports how can they contact you or find you? So all of our socials are women of UHE so we also have a link tree that has all of our socials linked but you should be able to find those through that and any UHE esports is also the same just all of our tags are UHE esports Fantastic Well Madeline thank you very much we've learned a lot about women in esports Thank you so much All right and thank you to our viewers today my guest in two weeks will be Ed Lalier of Vanta Esports See you then