[turtles]

with the exception of voice chat most people won't even know if they are up against a woman. Although this shields them from harassement it makes it seem all the more unusual when someone who is identifiable as a woman comes on (whether from a feminine sounding name or just correcting gender specific pronouns).

I think the overall maturity of SC2 players is greater than most games. Some part of it may be that at the top we have players who are relatively mature with regards to race and gender (probably a mixture between their own maturity and the lynch mob that would happen if they said somethinig racist/mysoginistic) and some of that behaviour trickles down.

There is still a lot of objectification of any female in SC2 though.
about half the comments here for example http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/co...rview_heatmap/
or read comments on ANY interview by Rachel Quirico who does a lot of the interviews (and does a real good job of it)
SEA is better but I'm reminded of a thread on SEA forums of a masters girl looking for other diamond or higher girls to play with where a guy chimed in to tell her that women don't have what it takes to be good at computer games (he was in silver league! I just had to laugh at that one)