Women have long been under-represented in the gaming community, but that's slowly changing, especially on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. More and more women are becoming programmers, designers, content creators and streamers. Although there’s still a long way to go, we’ve made great strides in recent years.
As the rise of female stars continues, it’s becoming ever more apparent that not all those in the industry are held to the same standards. So is it really more difficult for one sex over the other? Are women held more accountable for their actions than men, or do they get a free pass due to their gender?
Can Being A Woman Save You From A Ban For Animal Abuse?
One of the most recent big gaming scandals involving a woman is the controversy surrounding Twitch streamer Alinity. After her cat climbed over her keyboard during a stream, she quickly picked her up and threw her behind the chair. Footage of the incident has gone viral, and the internet is calling for Twitch to ban her for animal abuse. Almost 30,000 people now having signed a petition to that effect.
The incident occurred last week, and Twitch has imposed no sanctions as far as we can see - although Alinity seems to think they may start handing penalties to those who she says are harassing her over the incident. Calls of favoritism towards women have been fierce, as comparisons to men who have been banned for similar offences are made.
Internet provocateur Keemstar, creator of DramaAlert, was quick to find a direct comparison. In a post on Twitter, he shows a video of Alec Ludford, a streamer who was banned after he lifted a fish from a tank and it jumped out of his hands. Keem suggests that his offence is equal to Alinity’s, yet she remains untouched and Ludford was handed a ban. However, he’s not the only person to be banned for animal abuse, and the recipients of sanctions haven’t all been male.
Back in early 2016, female League of Legends streamer Kneecoleslaw was banned for animal abuse, after she got drunk and appeared to almost choke her cats on stream. While footage of the incident has long since been deleted, making it difficult to directly compare, Kneecoleslaw’s gender failed to save her from the sanction.
It seems that in terms of animal abuse, the standards Twitch are holding streamers accountable to are vague at best, regardless of the offenders gender.
Is Racism More Acceptable If It Comes From A Man?
There are also other examples of different reactions to similar behavior from male and female gamers.
Bocchi is a young Super Smash Bros. player, who rose to fame after beating top player Elliot Bastian “Ally” Carroza-Oyarce using Isabelle, a character mostly considered low-tier. After a video of her victory went viral, she made a name for herself in the community. But this quickly led to trouble. She began receiving harassment from the community almost immediately, something which drastically increased after it was uncovered that she had used racist language in a private Discord server.
The backlash has been so strong that Bocchi has issued multiple apologies on social media, and is currently removing herself from competitions and the Super Smash Bros. community as a whole.
While racism is in no way acceptable, the scale of the backlash against Bocchi is disproportional to the one against several prominent men in the industry who have made similar comments.
For instance, actor Jimmy Wong (jfwong) compiled a video last year showcasing several instances of controversial Twitch streamer Dr Disrespect mocking the Chinese.
Unlike comments about Bocchi’s use of language the comments of the tweet are full of people rushing to Doc’s defense. It seems that while, as expected, Doc himself sees no issue with his comments, his fans are inclined to agree. Over the last year, Doc has made no effort to change his behavior, and continues to make similar comments, seemingly with no come back.
Is it because he’s a man that he is immune to criticism, or simply because his whole persona is build on controversy, mockery and drama?
Men Vs Women
In many cases, it’s not as simple as a straight forward gender divide. We’ve also seen evidence of larger streamers facing far less harsh punishments than smaller ones, regardless of their sex. While many are crying favoritism towards women, they are forgetting that there are several high profile men who have behaved in totally unacceptable ways, with little to no consequences for their actions.
It seems that regardless of gender for some the criticism will never stop, while others continue to behave in unacceptable ways - without ever seeming to be required to change.
The online community can be a harsh and fickle place, and if your face doesn’t fit, then you’d better watch your back. However, for women in general, the chances of them “not fitting” are increased. There are far too many examples of women being harassed after revealing their gender online, with some even being harassed on stream, so their distress can be broadcast to others.
Different Standards
The question we are asking should not be “is there a bias towards women?” Rather, we need to ask “are we holding ALL those in the public eye accountable to the same standards?”
Until platforms like Twitch and YouTube set out and enforce clear and consistent rules, showing and enacting unvarying consequences for terms of service violations, we will continue to see the question of favoritism debated over and over again.