Shooters like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II are notorious for sexist abuse of women. In some cases, when a player identifies as a woman, she is met with hostility. Classics are “Go to the kitchen” or “Make me a sandwich” – a Twitch streamer has set herself the task of teaching men who say something like that a lesson.
What is it with “Make me a sandwich”: The phrase “make me a sandwich” comes from a 1995 sketch on the US show “Saturday Night Live”. It’s a way of saying that women are subordinate to men and belong in the kitchen.
In gaming, the phrase is thrown at women to tell them in a sexist way: “You have no business here. Your place is in the kitchen.”
Even big influencers are more conspicuous in shooters due to their extremely hostile behavior towards women.
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Twitch streamer wants to break “fragile” male egos
This is the streamer’s mission: Twitch streamer SteffyEvans is an excellent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 player.
Her goal is to expose sexist men in the game. She publishes clips of her actions on TikTok.
The streamer likes to identify herself as a woman via voice chat and is amused that men attack and insult her – then she shoots the players. She repeatedly calls the men “fragile” – thus pointing to a fragile, damaged ego.
@steffyevans Today I’m listening to what the COD boys tell me? #callofduty #sandwich #kitchen #steffyevans #snd #mw2 #fragilemen ♬ original sound – SteffyEvans
In a special challenge, the streamer identified herself as a woman via voice chat. If someone told her “make me a sandwich” or “go to the kitchen,” she actually did it:
After that she went back to the computer and in many cases still won the round while telling the men: “Of course I just left, but I had to make you a sandwich”.
Twitch streamer gave sandwiches to the homeless
This was behind the campaign: Speaking to site Kotaku, she says they lost a round or two because of the sandwich action, but won most.
I tried to rush the sandwiches, they took a minute and a half to two minutes: I made turkey or ham sandwiches or cheese sandwiches. Then I added chips and 2 bottles of water and put it in a package, finally putting everything in the fridge.
The streamer distributed the food packages to the homeless at the end of the stream.
@steffyevans Whatever they tell me to do, I actually do it? #sandwichmaking #snd #steffyevans #fragilemen #callofduty #sameenergy #mw2 ♬ original sound – SteffyEvans
Why is this serious? The streamer says people yell at her to make a sandwich is the most harmless thing to happen to her as a woman in Call of Duty. There were also death threats or sexually abusive comments.
The streamer says she’s doing this to raise awareness of what’s being said in video games. That should have consequences in the real world as well.
She also wants to speak up for people who are afraid of playing a shooter because of the toxic nature of multiplayer games.
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Does she succeed? The streamer has had little success on Twitch, with 60 viewers in the last 365 days. But it’s slowly increasing: in the last 14 days there have been an average of 164 viewers.
Her great success comes from TikTok: She reached 5.2 million viewers with her most successful video.
Women in gaming are repeatedly confronted with sexist slogans. When they hit back, men often don’t look very good doing it:
“What color is your thong?” – Twitch streamer responds perfectly