🔗 Share this article

Are your LinkedIn connections viewing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of commenters applauding your advice on growing your venture? Do recruiters making contact to discuss collaborations?

If not, the explanation might be your gender.

The Experiment: Changing Gender Identity to achieve Better Visibility

Dozens of female professionals participated in a collective professional network test this week after viral posts indicated that switching their profile gender to "man" enhanced their platform visibility.

Other testers rewrote their professional summaries to incorporate what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - adding action-focused professional jargon like "drive", "transform" and "accelerate". Anecdotally, their visibility also improved.

Systemic Preference Questions Raised

The improved metrics has caused some to wonder whether an inherent gender bias in the platform's system favors male users who employ professional networking terminology.

Like many large social media platforms, LinkedIn utilizes an algorithm to determine which posts are shown to which members - boosting some while suppressing others.

Company Statement

Through a company announcement, LinkedIn acknowledged the trend but claimed it does not consider "personal characteristics" when deciding post visibility. Rather, the company mentioned that "numerous factors" influence how posts perform.

Modifying profile gender in your settings does not influence how your posts shows up in results or timelines.

Individual Results

A social media consultant, who changed her pronouns to "male pronouns" and her name to "Simon E", described extraordinary results.

"The statistics I'm seeing indicate a sixteen-fold rise in profile views and a 1,300% increase in content views," she commented.

Another professional, a communications strategist, started testing after noticing her reach decline substantially.

The Process

• First, she modified her profile gender to "male"
• Then, she used artificial intelligence to rewrite her professional summary using "male-coded" language
• Finally, she recycled old posts with similar "assertive" language

The outcome was instantaneous: a more than fourfold rise in visibility within seven days.

The Downside

Although the success, Cornish expressed dissatisfaction with the method.

"Before, my posts were more personal - concise and insightful, but also warm and human," she explained. "Now, the masculine version was forceful and self-assured - like a white male being overly confident."

She discontinued the experiment after seven days, stating "Each day I persisted, and results improved, I became angrier."

Mixed Results

Some participants encountered favorable outcomes. Cass Cooper who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "Caucasian" reported a reduction in visibility and engagement.

"We know there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to comprehend how it functions in specific cases or why," she remarked.

Broader Implications

These tests occur alongside ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's unique role as both a business platform and community site.

Recent changes in the past few months have apparently resulted in women professionals experiencing significantly reduced visibility, leading to unofficial tests where identical content by men and women received dramatically unequal audience engagement.

System Details

According to LinkedIn, the network uses AI systems to categorize and spread content based on various elements, including what's shared and the member's career profile.

The company states it regularly evaluates its systems, including "checks for gender-related disparities."

A spokesperson suggested that recent declines in some users' reach might stem from higher volume due to more content on the platform.

Evolving Environment

According to a tester observed, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the network.

"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more professional and polished," she commented. "That's changing. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and less controlled."