The Through Their Eyes film documents a social experiment in which we used live voice-changing technology, to disguise two prominent Australian male gamers as female players in an online first-person shooter game. Within less than two hours of play they were bombarded with offensive language and aggressive behaviour. Throughout the filming two high-profile female gamers and Twitch streamers watched on to witness the all-too-familiar scenes.

All four gamers regroup afterwards to have a candid discussion about the events that just transpired, the real female gaming experience and what needs to be done to have an immediate and lasting positive impact. At the film’s conclusion, it was clear that the two male gamers had experienced what it was like to play through a woman’s eyes.

In Australia, 83% of female-identifying gamers have experienced offensive behaviour online. So most switch their microphones off to hide their identity, and game in silence.

With almost 50% of the gaming community now female, Maybelline New York wanted to ensure that all women feel confident to be seen, express themselves, create and play in this space. The brief was to change the game.

So we set out to show male gamers what it was like to play through a woman’s eyes. Two prominent Aussie male gamers had their real identities disguised with voice modification software and fake female profiles in an online first-person shooter game. They experienced first-hand the level of constant abuse and bullying experienced by the opposite sex. And we endeavoured to share this experience with as many gamers as we could.

In one week, the campaign landed more than 100 media features with 231.5M+ earned media reach, as well as being picked up by national news and radio. This extended to international media outlets and generated posts and live streams across Twitch, Tik Tok, Twitter, Instagram (10M+ views), creating broader public conversation, including support from UN Women across all their social platforms.

The campaign commenced with a national research survey to gauge the potential impact of negative behaviour on female players online. We’ll conduct a follow up survey 6 months after the campaign to monitor any significant impact the project might’ve had on the Australian gaming community. We know anecdotally that the campaign has sparked much public commentary with hundreds of thousands of comments, posts and reaction videos calling for change - from fathers showing the film to their sons to long-term male gamers exclaiming, “if you see something, say something!”.

A national survey was specifically commissioned into the level of discrimination across all genders in the Australian gaming space, which revealed 83% of female identifying and 50% of LGBTQIA+ identifying gamers have directly experienced and/or observed offensive behaviour or language while online gaming, with most female identifying and LGBTQIA+ identifying players admitting to turning off their microphone when playing to hide their gender and avoid harassment.