Professional Network Visibility Surge: Women Find Success By Presenting to be Men
Do your professional networking followers viewing you as a industry expert? Are hordes of commenters applauding your insights on growing your venture? Do recruiters reaching out to explore collaborations?
Should that not be the case, the explanation could be that you're not male.
The Experiment: Modifying Profile Gender for Increased Reach
Dozens of female professionals participated in a collective LinkedIn experiment this week after viral posts suggested that changing their gender to "male" enhanced their network presence.
Some participants rewrote their professional summaries to incorporate what they called "bro-coded" language - inserting action-focused business buzzwords like "drive", "transform" and "expedite". Based on reports, their visibility similarly increased.
Systemic Preference Concerns Raised
The improved metrics has led some to speculate whether an inherent sexism in the platform's system favors male users who employ online business jargon.
Like many large networking sites, LinkedIn employs an algorithm to determine which posts appear to which users - boosting some while reducing others.
Platform Response
Through a company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but claimed it does not factor in "personal characteristics" when deciding content distribution. Instead, the company mentioned that "hundreds of signals" influence how posts perform.
Changing gender in your settings does not affect how your content shows up in search or feed.
Individual Results
A social media consultant, who changed her gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "Simon E", reported extraordinary outcomes.
"The statistics I'm seeing indicate a sixteen-fold rise in visitor traffic and a thirteen-fold jump in impressions," she noted.
Another professional, a communications strategist, began experimenting after noticing her audience decline significantly.
The Process
- Initially, she modified her gender to "man"
- Subsequently, she used AI tools to rewrite her profile using "male-coded" wording
- Finally, she repurposed old posts with comparable "assertive" style
The outcome was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in visibility within one week.
The Negative Aspect
Despite the positive results, Cornish expressed dissatisfaction with the method.
"Previously, my content were more personal - concise and insightful, but also friendly and relatable," she stated. "Now, the bro-coded version was assertive and confident - similar to a white male being overly confident."
She abandoned the experiment after one week, saying "Every day I persisted, and results got better, I became angrier."
Mixed Results
Some participants experienced favorable outcomes. Cass Cooper who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "Caucasian" reported a reduction in reach and interaction.
"We know there's algorithmic bias, but it's very challenging to understand how it operates in particular situations or why," she commented.
Wider Consequences
These experiments coincide with ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive role as both a professional network and community site.
Recent changes in recent months have reportedly caused female creators experiencing markedly lower visibility, resulting in informal experiments where identical content by men and women received dramatically unequal reach.
Technical Explanation
Per LinkedIn, the network uses AI systems to classify and spread content based on multiple factors, including what's shared and the member's career profile.
The company claims it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "checks for gender-related disparities."
Company representative proposed that current reductions in some users' reach might stem from higher volume due to more content on the platform.
Changing Landscape
According to a tester observed, "bro-coding" appears to be growing on the network.
"People often view LinkedIn as more professional and refined," she remarked. "That's changing. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and less controlled."
