What about sexism on Twitch and Co.?

Philipp Rüegg

8.8.2019

Translation: Eva Francis

A woman who’s breast-feeding her baby during a live stream has caused a huge outcry and her video to be blocked. This is only one of the most recent examples raising suspicion that Twitch and Co. have a problem with women.

Livestreams of games are gaining popularity every year. Twitch viewers alone live-streamed a total of over 2.72 billion hours in the second quarter of 2019. Unsurprisingly, everyone wants a piece of the cake, also women. But things haven’t been easy for women in the predominantly male gaming scene. The most recent example for this is Heather Kent. Besides producing Twitch and Youtube videos, she works as a model. When she decided to breastfeed her daughter during a conversation with a friend on her channel HeatherEffect, she caused an outcry. Numerous users accused Heather of using her child as an excuse to show her breasts. A few days later, Twitch took the clip offline.

Heather then posted the clip on Twitter and said: «We obviously have a long way to go in the fight to normalize breastfeeding». Talking to gaming blog Kotaku, Kent said she wasn’t a politically motivated person but felt like she couldn’t just stay quiet after the negative comments she received.

Breastfeeding is eating

Kent explained that she usually only streams when her daughter is sleeping, but with streaming as an important source of income and Twitch not offering maternity leave, she couldn’t afford being away for too long. Everyone who has children will know that your day adjusts to your baby, not the other way around. The accusation of «using children as an excuse to flash tit» has been quashed by many especially female gamers, saying breastfeeding isn’t a sexual act, but simply eating, which isn’t done in a few minutes, but can last up to an hour.

Meanwhile, has Twitch apologised to Heather and made it clear that breastfeeding doesn’t violate the site’s terms of service. However, the discussion is far from over. It shows that owners and many users are clearly struggling with the increase of women on gaming platforms.

The problem with cam girls

Around 35 percent of twitch streamers are women – but the top 10 channels are owned by men. The same distribution applies to users: over 80 percent of Twitch users are men. The most successful woman is Pokimane on 12th place. Despite or maybe because of this clear male dominance, it’s female streamers who cause controversies. In particular, so-called cam girls, also referred to with the derogatory term thots: female streamers whose entertainment value depends heavily on what or how much they’re wearing. Although Twitch tightened the rules years ago, there are still plenty of large cleavages to stare at for drooling spectators.

What’s the problem? If you don't like it, don't watch it. It’s everyone’s own choice how they present themselves. In the same way, it’s everyone’s right to enjoy this choice or not. Critical voices argue that these ladies are only interested in getting money off needy young men while not even playing games themselves but showing a recording. Others argue that it damages the image of «real» streamers. What is more likely to cause harm though are vigilantes such as the Boob Police, who troll women and accuse them of violating community guidelines.

It’s no surprise that certain men trying to tell women how to dress is badly received by streamers. Even more so as the other extreme seems to other people, too, as Pokimane experienced: when the «Fortnite» player streamed without wearing make-up for a day, many of her viewers went crazy. But Pokimane also received a lot of support from fans and other streamers who followed suit.

Social media stars such as Belle Delphine perpetuating the stereotype that more serious content creators are fighting against is not exactly helping the equality debate. Recently, the 19-year-old was even sold her used bath water. However, she doesn't hide her intentions of making money either.

Women must fit in

It looks like women have to fit into a tight scheme to please the audience on Twitch and Co. The rules defined by platform owners usually don't favour female content creators. The Microsoft's Mixer rules are just another example of this. How much bear skin is shown decides which of the three categories a streamer is put into: family-friendly, teen, or 18+. Almost no skin can be visible for the family-friendly category, this means tops up to the neck and no strapless shirts. If you're showing shoulders, you're put in the 18+ category. Does this also apply to men who produce topless workout streams such as TominationTime over on Twitch? Probably not. The strict clothing regulations are partly to do with the prudish American culture, but could also be Microsoft's answer to Cam Girls.

Dress codes aren't the only minefield for streamers. The tech portal The Verge wrote a lengthy article about how even relationship status can become an issue. As with celebrities in the film or music industry, there are also gaming fans who are obsessed with their idols. According to The Verge, this leads to viewers perceiving women’s kind gestures as romantic gestures. This, in turn, is seen by some as deliberate manipulation to make men donate more.

The same reaction occurs when a streamer doesn't turn out to be single, as Jessica Richey reports. When her husband appeared in a stream and massaged her shoulders, she was accused of leading the audience on, making it seem as if Jessica was in control of what her viewers hope for. Other streamers in the article on The Verge also confirmed that their relationship status has a huge influence on the way viewers interact with them or whether they watch their stream at all.

While male streamers are usually defined by their content, women are more often reduced to their looks. It didn't help that the formerly most popular twitch streamer Typer Blevins, better known as Ninja, declared in August last year that he no longer wanted to play with female gamers. His reasoning was that it created too many rumours. «Even if there’s a hint of flirting, that is going to be taken and going to be put on every single video and be clickbait forever,» Blevins told Polygon. If the only solution to this problem is not to stream with women, that's bad news.

Overreaction or deep-rooted problem?

What’s your opinion on this issue? Is it not as bad it seems? Are these incidents only exceptions? Do male gamers feel threatened by female gamers? Or do they worry that gaming will change with more women involved? Are they jealous because women get more clicks? Why doesn’t live and let live seem to work? Or are all critics altruistically motivated and all they want it justice? I look forward to reading what you think.

Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

Being the game and gadget geek that I am, working at digitec and Galaxus makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop – but it does take its toll on my wallet. I enjoy tinkering with my PC in Tim Taylor fashion and talking about games on my podcast http://www.onemorelevel.ch. To satisfy my need for speed, I get on my full suspension mountain bike and set out to find some nice trails. My thirst for culture is quenched by deep conversations over a couple of cold ones at the mostly frustrating games of FC Winterthur. more

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