music + moxie

I was surprised when I saw the recent Kotaku article on Sexism at Riot. To be clear, the contents didn’t surprise me, I just never really thought any of it would be addressed. I was excited that this might be breaking new grounds, but unfortunately I’ve been seeing arguments and denials tossed around online in the vein of “Oh these are disgruntled women who couldn’t hack it, got fired, and want revenge”. I’m normally a really private person, but I felt that my position as a woman who was pretty successful at Riot and left on good terms, will have weight in backing up the validity of their claims. I hope sharing my experiences will be constructive, and help Riot create a healthier, safer, and better place for women.

As a woman, I rolled 20s with most of my teams and leads. I was really lucky. My Art Directors all looked out for me and deeply cared about my career. I got to work with some really solid men who respected and supported me. Some of my favorite human beings are men that I met at Riot, however, my experience living in the ecosystem of Riot and interacting with random Rioters, made me realize that my luck was atypical, and even my incredible fortune didn’t completely protect me from how exhausting and perpetually insulting it is to exist as a woman in a sexist culture.

I’m not sure how to go about writing this, since I’ve never really done it before. How do you talk about 5 years of awful, painful, mosquito bites so that people who have never been bitten can understand? I don’t know, but I’ll try starting at the beginning. When I joined Riot I was almost religious about my devotion and love for League of Legends. This was my dream job, and also my first real non-freelance job. I was a baby drinking some strong kool-aide, there are things I put up with then, that I absolutely wouldn’t now.

I was a 20-something year old junior employee, and one of my first not-so-great experiences was at a company party where they were awarding a Rioter for his achievements. This senior leader who won the award later stumbled upon me trying to hide in a dark corner because I hate nightclubs. For context; he is way older than me, and he was very drunk. He started asking me questions and coming uncomfortably close. I can’t remember what brought it on, but he started aggressively asking me “Do you know who I AM?!” Then his friend found him, apologized, and dragged him away.

I’m sure a lot of women can relate to feeling completely safe one moment, and then the next moment something happens and you experience the crushing realization that you’re still just prey. That’s what Riot felt like from then on. It felt like I was a deer trying to thrive while constantly surrounded by wolves. This feeling was validated over and over again. I got pretty good at pretending to be a wolf though.

Not too long after I started at Riot, the topic of sexual harassment came up in a conversation among a few Rioters on the art team, I was there, just listening. They were talking about something that had happened to a woman there, and I had no context for it, but was surprised when one of the guys on the team claimed that “she liked the attention”. The subject was then laughed off. I later found out what actually happened, a female employee received super inappropriate texts from a lead. This group of dudebros laughed it off and made her the villain. I still think about that, and it still makes me sick to my stomach. Riot tells women to be brave and come forward. For what, though? For their male coworkers to snicker behind their backs and diminish their suffering? What kind of justice is that?

While on the job at Riot I generally felt pretty empowered, my Art Directors were really supportive and trusting, they acknowledged my work & potential, and they rewarded my achievements. They always took me seriously, genuinely listened to me, and answered every question I had. I can’t, however, ignore the fact that striving for those achievements was harder as a woman than if I was a man. I feel like the road would have been easier if I wasn’t interrupted, ignored, or spoken over much more than my peers. If men didn’t cut me off mid-sentence in meetings to mock the way I said “Sorry”. I was on a team full of people from diverse backgrounds, I didn’t see any of them get their thoughts kicked aside for the sake of entertainment the way that mine were. (Poking fun at Canadians seems like a bit of a sport for Americans, and when I expressed some of my frustrations to Canadian peers they were aghast at how nasty it gets if you’re a woman).

I also can’t help but think I would have felt more empowered if I wasn’t told by a male coworker that “Women don’t fit into a male hierarchy.” Maybe I would have been more inclined to strive for greatness if I wasn’t dismissively called a “pretty pretty princess” when my first champion, Jinx, did so well (among a bunch of other thinly veiled jealous verbal barbs). I actually went to a lead to express my frustration over this and he said “Yeah I can see why he’s acting like that, I mean I’m kind of jealous too.” What was that about women speaking up again?

I probably would have helped push the bar of quality if some of my male peers didn’t go behind my back to call me “vicious” when I gave them feedback on how to improve their craft, or have 1:1s to discuss how “intimidating” I am. Would I have burnt out so hard trying to improve champion reworks if a few male coworkers could handle their AD suggesting that they use my designs? Some of them couldn’t swallow that pill, and instead attempted to stir up rumors about how impossible I am to work with. What would I have done if I didn’t have a team of supportive men to deny those claims?

Not too long into my career one of my male coworkers might have thought he was giving me a compliment when he decided to tell me about how great some of the guys thought my breasts were. I had made the foolish mistake of going to a Riot pool party, wearing a swimsuit, and swimming. I hope I don’t have to explain how violating that felt, at any rate I learned my lesson, and I never attended another. Was I supposed to make noise about this when I was already finding it difficult to just do my job in peace?

My days might have been a bit easier to manage if I didn’t have to stifle my rage when a male coworker would explain to me how to make designs for women, and how to be a feminist. Realizing that they believe their opinion as a dude meant more than, I don’t know, my entire lifetime of experience as a woman?

Life probably would have felt a touch less exhausting if I didn’t have to also deal with unsolicited male shit-takes. There are too many to list, but here’s a fun one; I was chatting with my husband (who also worked at Riot) about how I didn’t like to go to the gym at lunch because I was too lazy to redo my makeup, a random Rioter felt the need to jump into our conversation and inform me that I should give men more credit that they’ll like me even without make-up. Oh right, my coworkers think I wear eyeliner so they think I’m fuckable. Cool. Glad I get to take those thoughts with me to my next meeting.

I remember venting about my grievances to some coworkers, and a lead took me aside and said it seemed like I was trying to spread rumors. This is what happens when you speak up, even a little, as a woman. You’re not raising awareness, you’re disturbing the peace.

Even the Riot Dames email group didn’t feel like a safe space, when we were discussing the lack of female characters in esports promos a senior lead decided to chime in and question whether women deserved to be represented, they haven’t really earned it yet, as pro LoL players were all male. Oh, and on the topic of men thinking women are inherently lesser and must prove otherwise, let’s discuss another gross habit: saying “you’re really good at _______ for a chick.” The “compliment” that allows men to feel like they’re being gracious, while reminding us that we’re fundamentally inferior. (I should have started a swear jar for this one.)

One of the final demoralizing experiences I had close to the end of my time at Riot was during a mandatory leadership training workshop. This was long past the point in my career where I had learned to adopt a faux-alpha personality, I could survive, and I did great in the workshop. I hated it, but I did great. There was another woman there who didn’t have an alpha-type personality, one who is incredibly thoughtful, smart, responsible, talented, and genuinely amazing. I heard advice given to her that was something along the lines of “She’s great and will be even better when she finds her voice!” Finds her voice? I couldn’t understand what they meant, because to me she had a voice, and I could hear her plainly whenever she spoke. I puzzled over it for a while. It wasn’t until much later, when another female colleague left Riot, and called me out to thank me for being someone who would listen to her. That was a painful realization, a fair amount of men at Riot just didn’t listen to women, and the solution wasn’t to teach men to listen, it was to teach women to overcome the unchangeable status quo of men ignoring them. The solution was to put the burden of being ignored on women and train them to shout and scream until they were heard, and willfully ignoring the fact that women face consequences for behaving in the very ways they’re being trained to act, just so that the men won’t have to do anything.

If you’re wondering what consequences I’m talking about, during an anonymous round of feedback my male coworkers decided to give me notes like “she lacks empathy” and “she seems like she’s only in it for herself.” That’s what women get for having a voice.

A lot of the realizations I’ve been able to have came to me after I left Riot. I look back on my own behavior, and hope that in my quest to succeed as a Rioter I wasn’t forced to unknowingly perpetuate a horrible environment for other women, women who aren’t like me, women who didn’t have the shields of protective and caring managers, and a handful of really supportive peers. I also look back and finally understand why I was so, so tired, why I found a safe R&D team to just hide on and pretended the rest of Riot didn’t exist.

I’m assuming I’ll get a lot of “why didn’t you speak up when you were there?!” comments (you know the ones that attempt to shift the blame of a toxic environment onto the victims). Honestly, at the time I didn’t know how deeply problematic a lot of this was. There was probably a healthy dose of stockholm syndrome required for me to be successful there. It took me a good two years after I left, and joined a studio where this behavior is non-existent to appreciate how messed up the first 5 years of my career was. My current coworkers immediately say “oh sorry I interrupted you” when they get excited and talk over me, and we actively weed out people who can’t deal with women in positions of authority while we interview them. In fact, I had to start un-learning some of the survival tactics I adopted at Riot because frankly, they’re just rude. It turns out you don’t need to bully people into listening to you when all of your coworkers respect and support you from the start.

Despite what I’ve detailed (and I could go on, but I’ll stop before this becomes a memoir) I am optimistic about Riot’s future. When people argue “oh the games industry is like this, it’s not just Riot” yes, that is true, and we should hold them all to higher standards. Riot is one of the most forward thinking studios, and one that I believe is incredibly capable of change. The resources and talent they have can move mountains, if they’re collectively willing to set aside their egos, to listen, learn, and make the sacrifices necessary to be better. This is a difficult task, and I don’t envy the work ahead to them. That studio is the size of a small town, and it’s going to take a lot of work to retroactively dig out the weeds that have been ignored and allowed to develop roots, but when has Riot ever shied away from difficult tasks?

Writing this has been therapeutic in a painful, anxious, embarrassing, and infuriating way. I’ve cried over the article, and over my female colleagues’ posts since the article. Five years of pain and insult that I tried my best to stifle and ignore for the sake of success are finally validated, and feeling all of the hurt at once is overwhelming. It’s simultaneously frustrating and empowering, and there is no way to properly thank the incredibly brave women who stepped up first. Thank you for shedding light on this problem, and inspiring other women with your courage.