EXPRESS: Women Can’t Have It All: How Monetization Fuels Sexist Behavior on Livestreaming Platforms

Female streamers face disproportionate sexism on livestreaming platforms, yet the platform features that may drive such behaviors remain underexplored. Across three preregistered studies and a follow-up experiment, the authors show that monetization salience increases sexist behavior toward female creators. When monetization cues are salient, male viewers perceive female streamers as instrumentalizing their sexualization (Study 1), which in turn increases the expression of sexist messages (Study 2). Beyond individual perceptions, monetization signals also reshape social norms: sexist messages are judged as more acceptable by observers when streamers solicit financial support and when such messages are sent by paying (vs. non-paying) subscribers (Study 3 and the follow-up experiment). The authors introduce perceived instrumentalization of sexualization as a key mechanism linking platform monetization features to sexist user behavior. The findings reveal a critical tension in creator economies: mechanisms designed to empower creators financially increase their exposure to social harm. These findings contribute to interactive marketing research by showing how monetization structures shape user behavior and social norms, with implications for platform design and moderation.