Thesis Title
Investigating the Female Gaze in Chinese Male Beauty Influencers’ Livestreaming
E-commerce

Research Description

In China, a distinctive commercial trend has emerged in which young male celebrities and influencers are increasingly used to promote cosmetics, skincare, and even lingerie to female consumers. This growing reliance on male beauty influencers—often styled with soft, romanticised masculinity—has given rise to a new form of consumer engagement shaped by what is commonly referred to as the “female gaze.” In contrast to traditional marketing practices that objectify female bodies, this phenomenon reflects a shift in visual and affective attention toward the male body in commercial culture. The rise of male-led beauty livestreaming in China signals a significant transformation in how female desire and consumer participation are represented and enacted within digital marketplaces. Despite this shift, limited research has explored how the female gaze functions in non-Western digital contexts, particularly within the rapidly evolving ecosystem of Chinese livestreaming e-commerce. This research addresses this gap by examining how the female gaze is constructed, performed, and monetised in livestreaming environments. It draws on digital ethnographic methods—including walkthrough observations, screencast videography, social media analysis, and semi-structured interviews—and is structured around three peer-reviewed academic articles.

The first paper theorises the female gaze as an emerging commercial logic that reconfigures gender representation through soft masculinity and the Nan Se (男色) economy. The second paper investigates the backstage dynamics of livestreaming, focusing on female assistants who support male influencers. It conceptualises these relations among women as gendered human infrastructure whose contributions remain under-recognised, challenging simplified narratives of female empowerment. The third paper examines how female consumers engage with and co-create value in livestreaming communities, highlighting how status, loyalty, and emotional labour shape their participation. Together, these studies provide a nuanced account of how commercial gender performances are negotiated and consumed by women in digital China, offering new insights into evolving gender dynamics in global consumer culture.

Key words: The female gaze, gendered power dynamics, influencer culture, collaborative live-streaming e-commerce, non-Western consumer culture.

Supervisors
Professor Haiqing Yu, RMIT University
Professor Bernarfo Figueiredo, RMIT University