The sexualization of women on Twitch
The world of video games, much like the real world is mostly dominated by a male mentality. There is a stigma that video games are only for boys/men and whenever a woman is seen playing video games, there are often negative voices attempting to discourage the activity. While there are many positive things associated with Twitch.tv, Twitch chat from my own point of view can be extremely insulting and toxic. But it’s not just Twitch chat causing the chaos, women are routinely sexualized on Twitch. Some women streamers are constantly harassed by viewers to show private body parts, or viewers may have a preconceived notion that this gamer isn’t as good because “she’s a girl”. Other women streamers take advantage of their own sexuality to draw in viewers.
Twitch uses chatroom based communication during a stream. Viewers can join the chatroom by signing up for Twitch but can also private message one another outside of the chatrooms. But the usernames are completely anonymous and from this anonymity viewers have the ability to say whatever they want without fear of persecution. In the above picture, the broadcast was from a Dota 2 e-sports event. The women presented were simply cosplayers (the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga and anime) at the event being interviewed. During the interview of these women, Twitch chat began to fill with many inappropriate responses about these women, who were not the focus of the event but instead just fans being interviewed. Now the streamer has the ability to ban or timeout users from their stream when they feel the viewer is not following their stream rules or etiquette. But in this case, the account was owned by a company rather than an individual person. Therefore, trolls were free to type slurs and inappropriate comments filling up the feed.
There are those who are comfortable with their sexuality and use it to their advantage. A popular streamer named Kaceytron would often wear low-cut shirts to show her cleavage and attract viewers to her stream. She often portrayed the stereotype of the “girl gamer”. She did not play well in the games she streamed, she yelled at teammates for things out of their control. Although it could be argued about whether she invites objectification or not, Kaceytron is a perfect example of how women interact differently with their audiences than with men. In this study, the authors find that male streamers are more likely to receive comments about gameplay while women streamers are more likely to receive comments referencing physical appearance. This is similar to Lila Ellen Gray’s explanation of fado and it’s different representation through genders. Gray states, “On the level of symbolic representation in fado, female and male are cast in different cultural forms.” Gray also says “In fado practice at large, it is men who most overtly make the rules and to whom women often turn for the final word in an argument.”
Does this mean it is impossible to be successful as a woman streamer? Of course not, there are plenty of women streamers who display advanced skill and are breaking the mold. But this does mean that there will be more obstacles to climb and more work to make sure you’re sending the message you want. But I can’t help but wonder what steps could be done rid women of Twitch from this objectification?
