The e-sport of League of Legends is a pretty male-dominated field, especially at the highest levels. Even the moderator Sjokz knows the problem. Although she has been a well-known personality in e-sports for years, she still struggles with disrespectful comments.
Who is Sjokz? Anyone who occasionally watches an e-sport event in the LoL universe has probably come across the Belgian moderator Eefje Depoortere, better known as Sjokz. Even before her jobs in LoL, she played the legendary shooter Unreal Tournament (1999) professionally. According to an interview on team-dignitas.net (via web.archive.org), she claimed to have played Unreal Tournament as early as 2002. That was 7 years before the release of LoL.
In 2012, she started at SK Gaming as an editor and also worked on the Summoners Recap, a show that dealt with the scene. Since then, she has been a host, moderator, and caster for various e-sport projects, including major tournaments like the LEC in Europe or the LoL World Championship, the Worlds.
However, in a recent interview, she revealed that despite her presence and experience, she still faces prejudice.
You really had to have thick skin
What does Sjokz say about equality in e-sports? In an interview with Sheep Esports, Sjokz spoke about current projects for inclusion and the creation of safe spaces (which are secure environments where people should be free from discrimination) for women in e-sports. With LoL Game Changers
, Riot is also actively involved. This is a new women’s league in the EMEA region.
In the interview, she also talked about her experiences as a woman in e-sports. She explained that pro teams would likely need to change their way of leading the team. Just because women are different from men doesn’t mean they have less skill in video games. For men, having video games as a hobby is simply more accepted. She herself started in a group that consisted of only men apart from her. She said: You really had to have thick skin.
Just this year, a LoL pro made headlines for negatively commenting on women.
In this context, Sjokz also talks about experiences she still faces today, even though she has been around for so long:
Even today, I still face challenges as a woman. I had to shake off comments like “You’re only here because you’re a woman”, but some people still believe that. Sometimes the community still reflects this behavior, especially on platforms that are dear to us.
She mentions the women’s scene in the e-sport of Valorant. They do a good job, train just as much as men, and according to Sjokz, even produce better content. Projects like Game Changers would make such representations more visible.
While Sjokz does not believe that mixed teams will be a reality next year, she dreams of it and hopes that everyone supports these projects.
Even though male teams currently perform better than purely female teams, that doesn’t say anything about skill. As Sjokz mentioned in the interview, it’s also a matter of perspective. Women are less often promoted in e-sports and treated differently in the games themselves. Sexist insults are not uncommon. Editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski from MeinMMO also discussed this with the e-sport head of Valorant: It’s not about bad female players: Valorant’s e-sport head debunks a myth in the interview – ‘They just weren’t sufficiently promoted’
