The topic chosen for this essay is cyborg in the context of feminine knowledge. This essay is separated into three parts: women in the online gaming world, spectating and gaming and women’s esports in Sri Lanka. These parts are made to further broaden the understanding of how being a cyborg affects the women’s gaming world specifically in Sri Lanka where it has known to be one of the first South Asian countries to recently accept esports as a legitimate sport.

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It is well known that a large majority of sports media is devoted to men. This leads to an unbalanced coverage of women’s sports and athletes and changes the perception that women’s sports play a less important role in the sports landscape. Esports or electronic sports is a sport In which electronic systems facilitate the main function of competitive games for either professionals or amateurs and remain to be a place heavily dominated by men. Women are rarely seen in gaming content and much less in the professional scene. Even with the rise of recent women taking on the professional arena of esports, it mostly happens in the Global North and in Asian first world countries such as South Korea or China. Sri Lankan professional female gamers stated that it depends on the culture of the country as Sri Lankan parents find gaming not to be productive (for both genders) and believe that it was still a ‘boy’s only’ past time (Khan, 2018). This then builds the culture that even if Sri Lankan girls love gaming, they are afraid to take part in them for fear of going against societal normativity (Khan, 2018, para. 14). However, times are changing, there are now new knowledge, better role models and safer technology, that could spell the new era of laying the foundations for future professional female esports players.

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As of now the boundary between physical and non-physical is very imprecise for us (Haraway, 1991). This is because there is no distinction between machines and humans since people use technology all the time. To the point where there is no true meaning of nature, no human is truly pure or innocent at this age. The digital age creates the environment of social change, it allows reign of free will with the added benefit of anonymity, but this anonymity has since proven to be a treacherous landscape to venture into. In the online world, identities are contradictory, partial, and strategic, nothing seems to be real (Haraway, 1991). This creates the perfect stage for cyberviolence because who can stop you if you might not even be real? More so against women in the online gaming world where the gender divide remains to be the most prominent of all. Ironically, the information age has been expected to benefit women due to the lack of requirement for the application of physical labour and strength which are usually masculine traits (Soh, 2014). However, the opposite seems to be created with women are needed to be “thick skin” and have a lot of confidence to be a girl gamer in a male-dominated arena (Khan, 2018, para. 8). Especially since the pandemic has had a huge impact on how gamers approach plays with esports becoming the fastest-growing sport over the last few years, especially within Sri Lanka (Rozais, 2021, para. 2).

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If there are no distinctions between the physical and non-physical, human and machine, then what is reality? These new technologies are transcending and compressing our experience of time and space, and even affecting our perception of reality (Soh, 2014). Being a cyborg does not dissolve the patriarchy it is reinforced with the internet strengthening the gender stereotypes and transforming gender discrimination and violence against women into cyborg forms (Brazal, 2014). For example, many women online rather not speak or use a voice changer when gaming to avoid being discriminated by other players (Rozais, 2021, para. 25). Online gaming proves that it is difficult to separate the physical from the virtual, especially with the introduction of virtual reality which creates a blurred perception of reality. As Sri Lankan professional female players stated that some Sri Lankan parents have started to allow their children to do what they want to but if they are using gaming as an excuse to dissociate themselves from reality like missing classes and neglecting personal hygiene then there is no one else to blame but themselves (Khan, 2018, para. 26).

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This indistinct perception of reality creates a material-spiritual continuum where it is a continuous sequence with no end, no starting point on how spirituality and materiality live (Brazal, 2014). Technology is an inanimate object that possesses spirituality, when humans use technology, they are projecting their spirituality upon the technology. Those who ‘lived’ are not the only ones who possess a spirit. When technology retains a spirit, the online world is embedded with also possesses a spirit. The spirit of people is projected when they interact with the internet when they play the games, these games themselves also possess the spirit because an identity needs to be coded in for the game to work. Since our world is known to have a spirit, then these multiple worlds created within the games likewise possess a spirit. It is common for gamers to feel like they enter a whole new different world every time they played a game (Khan, 209, para.12). In a way, women especially see this as another way of escapism, being able to dissociate themselves from the material world from time to time occasionally allowed them to remove themselves from the harsh gendered expectations created by society. Even though this cyborg civilization has placed women all around the world more in danger, we cannot deny the fact that it does benefit certain women by providing them with an anonymous safe space to escape to. This continuum further supplements the discourse of the gaming world and spirituality under our cyborg civilization.

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Nevertheless, the constant introduction of new technology creates the cyborgization of a system where absolutely everything is already or must be connected to technology (Soh, 2014). As of now, every system is already considered a cyborg. This ‘system’ refers to every working intersection and functionality of an organization, business or even humanity’s ‘system’. Since nothing can thrive without a system and a system does not exist without cyborgization in this era, it manifests as an interdependency and interconnectedness between humans and machines. Within the esports ‘system’ there is more to the game than playing. Just like normal competitive sports, viewership plays a large role in sports entertainment more so in the esports scene where most people are seen watching the game instead of participating in it. Both gameplay and esports viewing can contribute to the understanding of esports consumption.

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This creates an interdependence, interconnection, and harmonious co-existence of interaction within the cyborg world of gaming (Brazal, 2014).  Watching a game is not merely an extension of esports but it is part of the experience of what esports is, as with other professional physical sports. It could argue that that is the main reason why sports are broadcasted everywhere which is for people to watch. Gaming is significantly different compared to normal sports as it requires high-performing devices in constant need of upgrading (Rozais, 2021, para. 4). Girls often do not actively game because some have problems with acquiring necessary gaming components, time, and economic issues to even pursue gaming as a hobby (Khan, 2018, para. 21). This generates an availability issue with esports hence most people, especially women find viewing to be more accessible compared to investing in a professional career. Not to mention the early childhood gender stereotyping and parental influences of gaming being only a ‘boys’ activity’, further removes the availability of actually playing the game from girls, especially in Sri Lanka (Khan, 2018, para. 21).  As a matter of fact, studies have shown that men usually watched esports for fun whilst women watched esports to get away from life’s problems and duties, so they could do something they could not normally do in real life. However, professional women esports players from Sri Lanka believed that “girls can be encouraged should there be social groups and tournaments that represent games in all genres only for females, whether she’s a pro-gamer or non-gamer” (Khan, 2018, para. 22). That way there is a sense of community, and they will not feel left out and humiliated by others. Especially since most girls in Sri Lanka fear that gaming is masculine and that they would not be good enough to even try the game (Khan, 2018, para. 25).  Women’s participation in esports like others starts from the bottom and the simple act of creating a safe community for girls to be able to enjoy the experience spells a future with more women representation in this community.

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Esports has typically been a man’s world, with the old stereotype of gamers being young unemployed men holed up in their rooms with no desire to be financially independent or take on adult responsibilities (Rozais, 2021). Having said that, the image of esports players has since turned a 180 with professional players being able to earn up to millions in prize money after competitions. Regarding it being a “boy’s world”, “The Washington Post reported that 2019 data showed that in the US alone, women are just as likely as men to play video games, and it is a passion that spans generations; the average gamer is between the ages of 35 and 44, while 15% of gamers are 55 or older” (Rozais, 2021, para. 5). However, the esports industry is still dominated by males, where female esports players have to deal with insults, accusations of their gender as a disadvantage, misogynistic bullying and receiving more comments about their appearance as compared to their male counterparts receiving questions on gameplay or strategy. Although it may be a common perception of games being gendered for boys only in society, most girls in Sri Lanka could not care less that it is a ‘male-dominated’ industry, where there is an increase in girls just turning up and ‘kicking ass’ in games (Khan, 2018, para. 19). This brings towards the notion that despite esports being a de facto ‘male-dominated industry’ it does not stop women and girls from doing whatever they want regardless of gender stereotypes.

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In fact, it is important to note that women’s experience in esports cannot be dialled down towards examples taken from only one or two countries. There is no need for a natural matrix of unity and no construction is whole; there does not need to be a totalization of experience of women in the esports industry (Haraway, 1991). This is not to state that there is no gender discrimination in Sri Lanka regarding esports, but more towards the fact that the experience of being gender-conscious of women’s position in esports is not a sentiment all women share in the country. For example, Khan (2018) demonstrates that some professional esports women do not see the industry as being male-dominated because she was brought up in a household which supported gaming as a hobby; she believes that she is simply doing what she loves without it being connected to gender (para. 9). In addition, some adjusted themselves comfortably in the industry due to their personality suiting the supposed ‘atmosphere’ of a typical male gamer and those who rather dissociate their gender from being a gamer that “my perception has never been girls are not gamers but more like I am a girl who’s a gamer” (Khan, 2018). In fact, it is not so much a gender perspective but a community perspective where a player believed that it was harder to relate to non-gamers who could not understand the amount of time she spent in gaming and was looked down on (Khan, 2018, para. 19). Thus, it is crucial to understand the different perspectives and experiences encountered by different people, to make the effort to conceptualize the limits of identification and understand that not everything needs a universalizing definition.

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In this instance the ‘god’ is dead, and so is the ‘goddess’, or they are both revived as cyborgs and not in the pure state of a human being (Haraway, 1991). ‘God’ here refers to how deeply embedded the patriarchal dominations are within religion, but even if the idea of ‘goddess’ is included, it still goes back to the idea that human beings are pure. The world already has proven that humanity remains to be tainted in every way possible; we already are cyborgs and not creations of this ‘god’; we are no longer the organically the pure state of human. It washes away the gender binary ideas of man and woman through the introduction of technology and allows them to transgress each other and remove themselves from the narrow view of nature. As an example, female esports players believe that future female gamers shouldn’t label themselves as an all-girl clan, that their gender shouldn’t define their talent and all players should be treated equally because you don’t see male teams being labelled “all-boy” teams (Khan, 2019, para. 34). They stated that this should not just be “about girl power, it’s about equality and celebrating both sides” (Khan, 2018, para. 35). It has nothing to do with gender, but only the skills of the gamer, if one would be interested in gaming, one should not be afraid of the discrimination and just go for it (Khan, 2018, para. 79).  This demonstrates the integration of technology within our cyborg selves goes away from the natural coded things, it allows the binaries to be remade and repurposed to suit our growing cyborg civilization.

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In conclusion, the cyborg challenges the fundamentals of being woman and man, human and machine. It allows the interconnectedness of these concepts and breaks down the binaries of humans and machines. With the application of women in the gaming world, it creates a dichotomy between the limits of how the gaming world could push the cyborg connection and at the same time enhance the boundaries of the binary. These Sri Lankan professional esports players proved that gender has nothing to do with their passion for gaming; they prove themselves to be embracing the cyborg civilization, creating a world where their gaming passion runs the arena.