🔗 Share this article Professional Network Visibility Surge: Women Discover Success By Presenting as Men Are your LinkedIn followers recognizing you as a thought leader? Do numerous respondents praising your advice on growing your business? Do recruiters making contact to explore collaborations? Should that not be the case, the explanation might be your gender. The Experiment: Changing Gender Identity for Better Visibility Dozens of female professionals participated in a collective LinkedIn experiment recently following viral posts indicated that changing their profile gender to "man" boosted their network presence. Other testers rewrote their profiles to incorporate what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - adding results-driven professional jargon like "propel", "transform" and "expedite". Anecdotally, their visibility also improved. Systemic Preference Concerns Brought Up The engagement increase has led some to speculate whether a built-in gender bias in LinkedIn's algorithm prioritizes male users who use professional networking terminology. Similar to many large social media platforms, LinkedIn employs an algorithm to decide which posts are shown to which members - promoting some while suppressing others. Platform Response Through a company announcement, LinkedIn acknowledged the phenomenon but stated it does not factor in "personal characteristics" when deciding content distribution. Instead, the company mentioned that "hundreds of signals" affect how content are received. Modifying profile gender on your profile does not influence how your posts shows up in search or feed. Personal Experiences A social media consultant, who changed her pronouns to "he/him" and her profile name to "Simon E", reported remarkable results. "The numbers I'm seeing indicate a sixteen-fold rise in profile views and a thirteen-fold jump in content views," she commented. Megan Cornish, a communications strategist, began experimenting after noticing her reach decrease significantly. The Process Initially, she changed her gender to "man" Then, she used artificial intelligence to rewrite her professional summary using "male-coded" language Lastly, she repurposed previous content with comparable "assertive" style The result was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in reach within one week. The Downside Despite the success, Cornish voiced dissatisfaction with the approach. "Before, my content were softer - brief and clever, but also friendly and human," she explained. "Currently, the masculine version was assertive and self-assured - like a Caucasian man swaggering around." She discontinued the test after seven days, saying "Each day I persisted, and results improved, I became angrier." Varying Outcomes Some participants encountered positive results. One writer who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "Caucasian" described a decrease in visibility and interaction. "We know there's systemic preference, but it's extremely difficult to comprehend how it operates in specific cases or why," she remarked. Broader Implications These experiments coincide with ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's unique role as both a business platform and social space. Platform modifications in recent months have reportedly caused female creators experiencing significantly reduced exposure, resulting in informal experiments where identical content by men and women received dramatically unequal audience engagement. Technical Explanation Per LinkedIn, the network uses AI systems to classify and spread posts based on various elements, including post content and the user's professional identity. The company states it regularly evaluates its systems, including "checks for gender-related disparities." A spokesperson suggested that current reductions in some users' reach might stem from increased competition due to more content on the platform. Evolving Environment According to a tester observed, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the platform. "People often view LinkedIn as more businesslike and refined," she remarked. "This is evolving. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and less controlled."