Women and members of marginalised groups are still rarely found in eSports. The eSports Association of Germany wants to change that.
It’s 2022 and there are still many industries that are not exactly characterised by diversity – eSports is one of them.
Women, People of Colour and people from the LGBTIQ+ community in particular struggle with under-recognised prejudices. They are often underestimated and rarely seen as eligible. In drastic cases, they are structurally discriminated against, as the uncovered incidents at Activision Blizzard showed in 2021, for example.
“What I hear quite often is that companies tell you they would like to be more diverse, but women just don’t apply. If a woman applies, however, she is not taken because she is supposedly not good enough,” says Kristin Banse, Presidium Member for Diversity and Equality at the eSport-Bund Deutschland (ESBD) in an interview with eSport.
Together with the ESBD, Banse now wants to ensure that these people have access to eSports. With the Diversity Mentoring Programme, which was set up on a voluntary basis, the way into eSports is to be made easier, especially for people just starting out in their careers. Preference will therefore be given to women and socially disadvantaged groups.
Women and men entering the profession
Over six months, interested people will be able to exchange ideas with veterans in the sector.
“By concretely networking talents with eSports veterans, we want to make it easier for young women and marginalised groups in particular to enter eSports,” says Banse.
For the Diversity Mentoring Programme, young professionals are currently still being sought as “mentees”, i.e. those people who would like advice. On the mentoring side, there are already a large number of participants from different areas of eSports. The offer ranges from team management to marketing and graphic design to journalism.
eSportsmen and women are deliberately left out of this programme, as there is already an organisation with the eSport Player Foundation that takes care of the promotion of such talents with the corresponding know-how.
Consideration of personal needs
The meetings held between mentor and mentee can be tailored to personal needs such as regularity, face-to-face meetings or video calls. What is discussed is what will help the participants to move forward. Establishing contacts, building personal connections or even approaches to current problems can be tackled in a solution-oriented manner during the talks.
Anyone who doubts whether he or she should take advantage of this mentoring can express these concerns in the registration form or contact Kristin Banse directly.
The general tip: just register. The intensive matching programme is designed to bring together suitable people from a wide range of fields and match them to specific needs.
Should this not be the case, concerns, problems or even improvements can be discussed on an internal Discord server with the people accompanying the project. Here, too, Banse is personally available for all eventualities.
Visibility of diversity as a long-term task
Since 2020, the ESBD has established a permanent position for diversity and equality in the Presidium in the person of Kristin Banse. This is to ensure that eSports breaks down barriers to entry in the long term and sustainably, while at the same time creating visibility.
Currently, the ESBD’s diversity mentoring programme is in a two-week matching phase. On the mentoring side, experienced people from the most diverse areas of eSports are waiting.
If you want to exchange ideas with the veterans of the industry, you can sign up for the programme here.