Well, as everyone already knows… this year Shoryuken announced that they would be having an all female Super Street Fighter IV “Femme Fatale” Tournament at this years EVO. The responses have, not surprisingly, been very negative. From people being upset that Marvel was replaced with an all female tourney to people feeling that this is just WRONG to put females in a different group then males for SSF4… the overall community just really believes this is a horrible idea. I’m still a bit undecided about this whole situation.


Mid last year I competed in a tournament called the “Ladies of Street Fighter” tournament in Rowland Heights, CA. The turnout was pretty good and a couple of the girls really impressed me with their skills. A few of the girls were really taking SF4 seriously at the time and even AFTER the tournament was over a half dozen or so of the ladies who entered decided that they liked competing and continued to enter tournaments mostly dominated by men. Many of the girls used LOSF as a way to show people that they were serious about Street Fighter and they were recognized for their skills in a way that they wouldn’t have been if they had competed in an event as large as EVO for their first tournament. In short… LOSF was a great “welcome to the street fighter competitive scene” type of tournament. The tournament was less aggressive then your average tourney to a certain extent. There wasn’t as much crap talking, there was no entry fee so there wasn’t the thought of “I don’t want to lose all my money” and there were coaches by their side to help when the stress got too intense… the tournament was a very comfortable environment to start off in.

I believe all female tournaments are good when they are small and local. These tournaments are good for helping females to start in the competitive scene because, as everyone knows, males are very harsh and a lot of times are non-supportive of females being in the SF4 scene. While they SAY they want more females, a lot of them just want eye candy and don’t really encourage females to compete. It’s tough when competing with men having them say “everyone knows girls SUCK at SF4″ and a lot of times girls can’t handle the pressure. I’m not saying ALL girls can’t handle the pressure, I’m talking about girls who are new to Street Fighter, new to competitive gaming in general. Street Fighter 4 has the most rude community I’ve ever met, so having these little Female Only tournaments are definitely nice for not scaring them away, HOWEVER, I do NOT think that a large tournament like EVO is a good place to hold a Female Only SSF4 tourney.

I think that Jared said it best in his blog “But discouraging these women is exactly what the girls-only tournaments tend to do. While I can sort of understand the idea of nobility behind wanting to open the door to female Street Fighter players by giving them an accessible taste of what competitive play is all about, at the same time you’re essentially regulating them to a sideshow in the worse sense of the word. You’re saying that because they were born with a vagina, they’re clearly inferior and not competent enough to compete with the boys and this type of thinking — whether its intended or not — is bullshit and a slap to the face to all the women currently playing the game to even suggest this.”

I personally am leaning toward the side of not competing in EVOs all female tournament at this point in time. Basically with EVO being the LARGEST fighting game tournament in the US this is going to be an opportunity for these girls to be put in the spotlight for all of the SRK community to see and ridicule. Basically while many of the girls entering will not have been playing for very long… maybe even as little as a month or two since they could have heard about this last minute, there’s a very good chance that they could… well… “suck”. While they could be playing well for someone who has just recently picked up the game, the other players don’t know how long anyone has been playing… they don’t know how much time and dedication went into practice… all they see is “she can’t FADC into Ultra so she sucks” and that is a shame. I don’t think that any good will come out of this tournament. I’m being told that I should enter since there’s a very good chance I will place high, but I would rather play with the guys in the normal SSF4 tourney and go 0-2 then place top 3 in another female only tourney. Many of the guys competing in EVO are 2-10 year veterans of Street Fighter so beating any of them is a great accomplishment.

The last LOSF tournament also had some negative results. Yes, a good amount of the females who competed continued to compete but many also began ganging up on each other in a strive for attention. Rumors spread, alliances formed, people started turning on each other. What was supposed to be a tournament to bring together the female players ended up resulting in being the very thing that would prevent these people from becoming good friends. Jared writes, “The previous events were rife with high school-esque in-fighting amongst some of the competitors and brought out the worst amongst others, even those who weren’t even involved. Can anyone even remember who won the first “Ladies Night” tournament? Despite her being a very legit player, the internal trash talk ensured that it didn’t matter. “

I am still playing SF4 9 months later because I strive to be better. 2D fighting games were a weakness of mine and I’m working hard to level up in Street Fighter 4 specifically. I hope that the females who enter the SSF4 tourney at EVO are prepared to be put under a spotlight and a microscope and to deal with the negative comments that they most likely will receive. I also hope that some good comes of this tournament otherwise it’ll be a shame to lose the potential to have more females in the community. Best of luck to all of you girls who enter. Most likely I will just be entering the regular SSF4 tourney, but if you guys can convince me something good will come from entering this tourney I might do it. I’m still leaning toward no right now though.