Professional Network Visibility Surge: Women Find Success By Pretending as Male Users
Are your LinkedIn followers recognizing you as a industry expert? Are hordes of respondents applauding your insights on expanding your venture? Do recruiters making contact to discuss collaborations?
If not, the reason might be your gender.
The Test: Changing Profile Gender to achieve Better Visibility
Dozens of female professionals participated in a collective professional network test recently following viral posts indicated that changing their profile gender to "man" enhanced their network presence.
Some participants rewrote their professional summaries to incorporate what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - inserting action-focused professional jargon like "propel", "revolutionize" and "accelerate". Anecdotally, their visibility also improved.
Systemic Preference Questions Raised
The engagement increase has led some to speculate whether an inherent sexism in the platform's system favors men who use professional networking terminology.
Similar to many large networking sites, LinkedIn utilizes a computerized system to decide which posts appear to which members - promoting some while suppressing others.
Platform Response
Through a blog post, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but stated it does not consider "personal characteristics" when determining post visibility. Instead, the company mentioned that "hundreds of signals" influence how content perform.
Modifying profile gender in your settings does not affect how your content appears in results or timelines.
Personal Experiences
A social media consultant, who modified her pronouns to "he/him" and her name to "Simon E", reported remarkable outcomes.
"The statistics I'm seeing show a sixteen-fold rise in visitor traffic and a thirteen-fold jump in content views," she noted.
Another professional, a marketing expert, started testing after observing her reach decline significantly.
The Method
- Initially, she changed her profile gender to "male"
- Subsequently, she used AI tools to rephrase her profile using "male-coded" wording
- Lastly, she recycled previous content with similar "agentic" language
The outcome was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in reach within seven days.
The Negative Aspect
Despite the positive results, Cornish voiced unhappiness with the method.
"Previously, my content were more personal - brief and insightful, but also warm and relatable," she stated. "Now, the bro-coded version was forceful and self-assured - like a Caucasian man swaggering around."
She discontinued the experiment after seven days, saying "Each day I persisted, and outcomes improved, I became angrier."
Mixed Results
Some testers experienced favorable outcomes. Cass Cooper who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her race to "white" reported a reduction in reach and interaction.
"We understand there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to comprehend how it operates in specific cases or the reasons behind it," she commented.
Broader Implications
These tests coincide with ongoing conversations about LinkedIn's unique position as both a business platform and community site.
Platform modifications in the past few months have reportedly resulted in women professionals experiencing significantly reduced visibility, leading to informal experiments where identical content by men and women received dramatically unequal reach.
Technical Explanation
According to LinkedIn, the platform uses artificial intelligence to categorize and distribute posts based on various elements, including post content and the member's career profile.
The company states it regularly evaluates its systems, including "examinations of inequalities based on gender."
Company representative suggested that current reductions in some users' reach might stem from increased competition due to additional posts on the platform.
Changing Landscape
According to a tester observed, "masculine-oriented language" appears to be increasing on the network.
"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more professional and polished," she remarked. "This is evolving. It's becoming increasingly competitive and unpredictable."
