Once mocked or dismissed, Israeli women gamers are building major audiences and communities, inspiring girls to enter the field and showing that gaming is not just for men, even as sexist comments and old stigmas remainMaya Bar|In a generation where screens are part of daily life and gaming is only becoming more mainstream, Israeli women gamers are claiming their place at the forefront, even outside the war games long seen as the industry’s default arena.“Once, I was embarrassed to say I was a girl who played computer games,” said Danielle Maman, who last year won the Children’s Channel’s “Gamer of the Year” title. “There were friends I avoided playing with because I was afraid they would find out I was a gamer.”4 View gallery Danielle Maman(Photo: Daniel Stravo)Maman, known online as Danielle Destiny, began gaming at a young age, long before YouTubers became familiar figures in every home. Today, she runs a channel with more than 168,000 followers and was the only woman featured at some of Israel’s biggest gaming events this year.“There aren’t many women content creators in Israel’s gaming scene, and sometimes it feels lonely,” she said. “I used to worry people would laugh at me for playing computer games, but I realized I could help challenge that stigma. Many still see gaming as a male profession, but my channel has brought many young girls closer to the field. They send me messages and comments.”“There are bad comments too. When I first started streaming, I got comments like, ‘Real gamers don’t look like you.’ That is why it is important for me, as a woman, to show that girls have a place in the gaming world, even though most of my audience is actually boys.“It wasn’t accepted back then, and even today you still feel there is a kind of glass ceiling, that the old prejudice hasn’t disappeared,” she said. “But at the same time, I’m managing to bring my audience with me. Today I get messages from mothers saying their daughters want to be like me, that they want to become gamers and love what I do.”Maman’s decision to share her gameplay live came from the children she once taught. “Being a gamer was my dream,” she said. “I discovered my first games when I was very young, around 5 or 6, and I played games people don’t even know anymore. Only later did that dream take shape, and I understood that this was the direction I wanted in life.“I used to teach and mentor children in schools, working with Minecraft, and they would tell me, ‘You’re going to be the coolest person on the internet,’” she said. “Today, I feel I create content out of a sense of mission and love for those children.”4 View gallery Fans of Danielle Maman at a Hanukkah performance(Photo: Daniel Stravo)“In the end, every child who plays brings something from that experience back to school. It stays with them,” she said. “That also puts the negative comments in perspective. I get so much love and admiration that it outweighs the bad comments.”For Shelly Katzav, who mostly plays simulation games such as The Sims 4 and Call of Duty, gaming is balanced with motherhood. Like Danielle Destiny, she runs a YouTube channel, WonderWoman. But she is also raising four children under 13 and lives in Shlomi in northern Israel, near the Lebanese border.“I was evacuated from my home in Shlomi during my third pregnancy. We were displaced for a year and then came back,” she said. “My older girls play with me on the computer. In the past, they also took part in the channel, but now I’m taking a bit of a break from live streams because of the security situation.”Katzav said today’s online world requires constant parental attention. “The internet today is open and exposed, and there is no filtering of content,” she said. “When my eldest is with me on the channel, I ask the moderators to block comments that could be unpleasant so she won’t be exposed to them. (Shelly Katzav, 'WonderWoman')“My daughters are less interested in shooting games, and that’s a good thing. They’re still too young for that,” she said. “If they want to play them later, they can. For now, when I include them on the channel, we do family-friendly streams. I always tell parents who watch: check what your children are following. Some content creators really can have added value.”Still, Katzav says gaming does not take over her home. Her daughters are allowed to play computer games, but only within clear time limits, whether on the computer, smartphone or tablet. “I don’t threaten them to get off the computer,” she said. “There is simply software that shuts it down when their time is up. You have to know how to balance gaming with real life.“A lot of parents talk to me about it online. I understand what children need, but there has to be balance.”“Parents who know I’m a gamer often ask me about games and content creators,” she said. “Through my children, I discovered many mothers who had been hiding that side of themselves, gamer women who let the hobby fade after becoming mothers.”“I don’t think we should do that,” she said. “We shouldn’t give up something we love just because we became mothers. It isn’t childish; it’s our hobby. Sometimes it even helps you connect with your children. I play games with my nephews, and my children’s friends have told me, ‘I have to play a game with you.’ They tell my kids, ‘So cool that you have a gamer mom.’”4 View gallery Shelly Katzav with her youngest son(Screenshot)Alongside the positive reactions from parents and people around her, Katzav also receives negative comments online, many of them focused on the fact that she is a woman and a mother. “I was told many times, ‘Go back to the kitchen,’ or ‘What are you doing on the computer?’” she said.“But there were also many more personal comments. A man wrote to me, ‘Your daughters are so miserable, you’re on the computer, so you’re not taking care of them.’ I’ve been a mother since I was 18. I am a mother first. My children are a red line for me.“I don’t care about the sexist comments,” she said. “What is hard for me is the idea that a mother is not allowed to have hobbies. Every time a woman writes to me that I gave her strength, it makes me happy and empowers me. That is how I knew I had to keep going. Very quickly, for every bad comment, I was getting at least 50 good ones.”Inbar Arousi, who mainly plays The Sims 4 and describes herself as an “outsider” in the gaming world, has also faced dismissive reactions. “There was a period when I tried to play Minecraft and make a short YouTube series, but I simply couldn’t connect to the game,” she said. “No matter how much I tried, the content wasn’t authentic, and I realized it wouldn’t work if I forced it.”“The first reactions were dismissive because I played The Sims,” she said. “People acted as if that didn’t count as gaming. And it didn’t stop there. Before I had my own channel, I hosted on a gaming channel. In one video, I wore a white tank top with an open button-down shirt because we were trying to make the channel feel less formal.”“But then someone commented that I was using my sexuality, just because I was wearing a tank top,” she said. “I was dressed completely normally, like any woman on the street. This urge to comment on what someone is wearing seems to appear only when there is a woman on screen. Why not focus on my content?”“But despite everything, it is an amazing hobby. You simply have to ignore anyone who dares to belittle your intelligence as a woman or as a gamer and keep going. Gaming is seen as a very male field, especially in Israel.4 View gallery Inbar Arousi(Photo: Yakir Shukrun)“During COVID, when we were all stuck at home, I started looking for content to watch and found only men. There were already women online sharing their gameplay, but I simply could not find them. Abroad, by contrast, there are far more women who share content, have huge followings and succeed. Here in Israel, it is much harder.”Arousi opened her channel, inbie, only in recent years, but gaming had been part of her life long before that. “I was always drawn to the idea of stepping into another world,” she said. “For a moment, you enter another place, a world you don’t know. A TV series can move you or make you think, but in a game, you take action. You become part of the story. That’s what makes it amazing.”