“For a long time, I was against women’s leagues,” says esports player Jaime “Karma” Bickford, which might be surprising to hear from the mouth of the captain of G2 Luna, an all-women Rocket League team. But as the longtime pro shared her story with Refinery29 Entertainment Director and Twitch host Melissah Yang during Thursday’s stream, it’s easy to understand why she initially felt that way.
Karma’s pro gaming career started in 2009 with Call of Duty. In 2014, she switched to Hearthstone before discovering Rocket League in 2017, becoming super passionate about the arcade-style car-soccer hybrid game. The one thing that had been pretty much constant in her professional career regardless of what she was playing? “I wasn’t getting any chances,” Karma says. “For Hearthstone, I knew it was because I was a girl — I got told [that] many times.”
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Rocket League was a bit different. She felt much more supported by that gaming community, but still noticed she wasn’t getting as many pro-level opportunities as men were. Still, she kept at it and worked her way up, playing in what “must have been thousands of tournaments” before she won one. Eventually, her talent was undeniable, and Karma became the first woman to compete in the Rocket League Championship Series in 2019 as a member of Splyce’s mixed team.
But as she got more and more attention in the esports scene, Karma noticed something else kept happening. “I was really annoyed by the fact that I was a woman being brought up all the time,” she says, adding she intentionally never mentioned it herself. “I didn’t want anyone to think that my gender had any factor into what I was doing — playing-wise, decision-wise, teammate-wise … I literally just wanted to be a pro player. I wanted to be on stage. I wanted to travel around the world. I wanted to prove that I could be the best, just like everyone else.”
That’s why, earlier in her career, Karma admits she was against women’s esports leagues. She faced disrespect from others in the scene, who she chooses not to name, but still built her way up. Nothing stopped her from being good, she thought, so what was stopping other women from doing the same and reaching her level? Why couldn’t they just do what she had done?
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She believes now that’s the completely wrong way to think about women’s esports. “To be honest, I wouldn’t want to do what I did again — it was brutal,” she says. “Taking a path less traveled, you’re going to get hurt more.” Karma — who appeared at this year’s inaugural Olympic Esports Series in Singapore — points to women’s tennis as an example. Decades ago, women like Billie Jean King fought for better opportunities in the sport, and today, there’s arguably no difference in talent on the men’s and women’s sides. Women have had time to develop and compete, and can now reach GOAT status like Serena Williams has. Women in esports need — and deserve — the same.
“I always say that the women aren’t professional in gaming for social reasons. I’ve talked to men — or boys — who have told me they were uncomfortable with me being on their team even though things went well,” she says, adding that men have also noted they didn’t want the extra attention. “But those reasons are why I’m for women’s leagues now — [they] allow women a space to be competitive. Although, at first, there’s going to be a large skill gap, over time that should fade.”
Time to develop their skill and talent is not the only challenge women face in esports — or anywhere, really. “Guys don’t face any resistance when they play games, mostly,” Karma says. “[As] a woman, you face resistance in all kinds of ways: voice, appearance, gender expectations, friendliness. Everything is under a microscope.” Add in a hyper-competitive environment where money and careers are on the line, you’ve got a near impossible situation.
That’s why Karma says she’s done “a total 180” on her stance towards women esports leagues. Today, she hopes that women who are coming up in the scene have what she didn’t early on: a space where they can be comfortable, share community, and show that they are more than capable of competing and winning. As a member of G2 Esports, who she says has been taking great strides to support both women gamers and esports in general, Karma is hopeful about the future. “The things that we’re facing in esports are not just esports issues, they are societal, global issues,” she says. “The more perspectives you can have, the better overall your community is going to be.”
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