Woman changed her gender on LinkedIn as an experiment. It confirmed something she always suspected
Within a week or two, Cornish noted a 415% increase in her 'profile impressions.'
Gender based discrimination in workplaces is a story as old as time. However, the degree to which the bias runs through, even at this age, is not something many are ready to stomach. After facing multiple rejections and a lack of reach on LinkedIn, a woman named Megan Cornish decided to swap her gender to check her impressions, and the results stunned her. The story shared by @washingtonpost on December 30 outlines the female LinkedIn user's experience of invisible gender stereotypes and algorithmic bias.
Mental health professional Megan Cornish was often confused as to why her reach on LinkedIn was never high. Determined to take action, the LinkedIn user decided to conduct a test: she swapped her gender and made her profile appear more masculine, according to The Washington Post. The results left her stunned. Within a week, her LinkedIn impressions multiplied. The mental health professional used the help of ChatGPT to frame her profile as more "male-coded." In her Substack post titled "LinkedIn Likes Me Better as a Man," Cornish discusses the "wild week" she has had. "I was able to figure out when this dip [in viewership] occurred by pulling up my 46 best-performing posts from the past year and sorting them by when they were published," she writes, going on to talk about the experiment's details. She changed her "communication style," headlines, the tone of her posts, and a few other things, and within a week or two, she noted a 415% increase in "impressions" (viewership on her profile). Soon, the post gained greater traction online, with many women expressing their frustration with the bias. This bias outlines the notion of who must work harder to attain recognition in workplaces.
After the post gained many reactions, LinkedIn came forward to address the issue. In its news release, the social media platform claimed its usage of AI systems and algorithms is built on "hundreds of signals" to determine visibility. It also claimed that it refrains from using demographic information such as age, race, or gender for determining the reach online. Following Cornish's experiment, Trustable co-founder Rachel Maron hopped onto the experiment and also found similar shocking results. Maron, who had posted content before that had only reached fewer than 150 people, suddenly saw an influx of 30,000 impressions after she removed her pronouns and changed her gender to male.
Schein (1973) suggested the “think manager—think male” mental state in most corporate offices, where the default candidate for a job or promotion is predominantly imagined as male. A 2025 study published in the Journal of Current Psychology analyzed barriers faced by women when seeking promotions to managerial roles. These barriers are: the "double-day workload" of juggling domestic chores and office work, the unfair performance appraisal difference between male and female candidates, fewer possibilities of promotion, and unequal HR practices. A sample of 579 women from various financial organizations was selected, and using a path analysis model, these barriers to women's promotion were studied. The study found that having female supervisors lowers perceptions of unfair performance evaluations and biased HR practices in workplaces. This leadership model promotes hope, and the findings of this research point to a reality where women are deemed equal contributors. This reduces women's perceptions of male-dominated organizational culture as a barrier. By eliminating such practices, professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn can help in boosting visibility regardless of demographic information.
Soon after the post gained views, many users chimed in to share their thoughts. @soulroller1 wrote, "Are we surprised? Now, imagine being a woman and a minority." @lady808 shared, "The last time I went searching for a job, I changed my name in my résumé to Andy Martin instead of my name, Candi Martinez, and wow, child did I learn a lot." @annie.sweeney_ wrote, "Not surprised these platforms are not made to promote women. They are created and designed by men."
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