“They’re a Girl So Don’t Expect Too Much”: The Marginalisation of Women in Esports Videogames

In this chapter we discuss and consider extant research on women working within the esports gaming sphere and draw on the personal views, experiences, and observations of the second author, who is a gamer and streamer within the team-based videogame ‘League of Legends’. We present the findings of a small-scale qualitative study, which explored the lived experiences of female League of Legend gamers. It was revealed, that despite increasing female participation in esports, patriarchal gendered stereotypes persist and are enabled by the anonymity afforded to online viewers. We call for further in-depth qualitative research to explore the views and experiences of female gamers and consider how, and in what ways, female gamers can empower themselves to challenge and counter the dominant masculine hegemony.