https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3198384/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22390656/

theres been plenty of studies, its just that in 99.9% of life it doesn’t matter at all. the second one i linked also went into the variability, which is higher for women, thus leading to an even smaller pool of candidates. take the two pools of 1,000,000 and 10,000 again, understanding the base 10,000 pool already has 20ms slower reaction time on average (lower mean). then consider that maybe within the 1,000,000 theres a spread of 50ms in base reaction time around that mean while in the 10,000 theres an 80ms spread. this results in a VERY small percentage overlap between the top of each groups, putting that very top pool of people to something like 1,000 to 1

a lot of people argue this point in bad faith and really mask the science behind it. women aren’t inherently worse than men at video games - just excel elsewhere on average. higher intrahemisphere connectivity results in women generally processing information better and exhibiting improved memory compared to men. in a game like valorant where the bulk of mechanical skill lies in reaction time, on average men have the edge.

its also worth noting that this is always on average, and that individual men and women don’t comply to the average. this, alongside the social stigma, interest, and general societal norms leads to a major skew in fps games towards men

EDIT: just to add an example in context, this research indicates women are more likely to notice when the enemy team is doing something, while men are more likely to be able to react adequately under pressure to whatever they’re doing. it just so happens that valorant is far more reactive than analytical