Recently, some LinkedIn users started complaining that their once well-performing posts no longer got as much engagement on the platform. After a few women experimented, changing their gender pronouns from She/Her to He/Him in LinkedIn, from woman to man, they found out that the algorithm suddenly prioritized their content more.
When someone changes their identity to better fit in with a group, they participate in what we call code switching. This practice often happens in the context of language, such as making your vocabulary more formal when you speak to a senior executive or using a more casual tone when you chat with your peers. We often think of this cultural practice as negative, especially when we consider why a person of color might feel they need to code switch to fit in better with their white friends or why a woman may feel she needs to speak more like a man to seem more confident or qualified.
Unfortunately, code switching exists in all fields but stands out as a problem in STEM. In science and engineering alone, 75% of people identify as men and nearly 66% identify as white. Not only do women and people of color face being underrepresented in these fields, but now they also have to battle algorithms to be seen.
People who spend time code switching can experience increased stress and burnout, a lower sense of job satisfaction, and a greater desire to leave STEM fields—further perpetuating the underrepresentation of women in science. Now women also have to consider code switching when they create a post on LinkedIn to ensure that they get as much visibility as they can in their network and beyond.
Back in June, Jane Evans, author and myth buster, and Cindy Gallop, business consultant and entrepreneur, conducted a gender test to see if their posts would perform as well as or better than that of their male colleague. Each of the three constructed a post that used all the same words, yet Evans’s reached 0.6% of the audience, Gallop’s reached 8%, and Lawton’s reached 143%.
More recently, some women noticed that their newer posts on LinkedIn did not perform as well as their older ones did. For example, one woman noted that she used to average 5 top-performing posts per month (29 posts across 6 months), but that number has dropped drastically to 1.5 top-performing posts (9 posts across six months). So, she first sought to perform an experiment with her own profile to try to improve her metrics, initially changing the gender field from identifying as a woman to identifying as a man. She then also code switched the language in her older posts to have a tone more typical of men. In only one week, she improved her impressions by 415%.
She was not the only person to notice this trend and to make herself a guinea pig to the algorithm. In fact, a man then stepped into the experiment, changed his name from Daniel to Daniela, and identified as a woman. After one day, his attention numbers dropped 26%, the next day by another 48% decrease, on the third day there was a 38% increase, and on the fourth day 37% decrease. Even with the slight fluctuations, the net decrease was still 73%. All these anecdotal experiments point to a bias against women in LinkedIn’s algorithm.
Many scientists use LinkedIn to promote their most recent paper, celebrate an award or promotion, or even help spread the word about a colleague looking for a new job. Personally, I use LinkedIn to show the parts of myself and my passions that may not be visible from just reading my résumé. In doing this, I hope that my posts will reach beyond my network so that I can continue to connect with others who share similar interests or to network for the future.
However, the biases in LinkedIn’s algorithm force women into a lose-lose situation: Now we might have to choose between using language that gets visibility and using language that authentically reflects ourselves and our work.
Discrimination has been engrained in history and perpetuated through the unconscious bias that women are not as good as men. We need to know how to fight its latest iterations.
To get advice on how women scientists should deal with code switching, I spoke to Dr. Minerva Carrasquillo, Associate Consultant II and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Carrasquillo advises women in STEM to always portray themselves as professionally as possible on social media like LinkedIn. By keeping your tone professional, you allow others to see what you bring to the table, rather than giving them the opportunity to misjudge or devalue you and your contributions. People in your field measure you largely by your achievements because they speak to your ability to succeed. So you must highlight all your accomplishments and not sell yourself short.
To Dr. Carrasquillo, perception does matter: If it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then it is a duck. She suggests that women showcase their achievements confidently and often, yet without sounding conceited. Women can find the odds already stacked against them when it comes to climbing the ladder or to achieving certain career goals. For example, starting a family can slow down their career progression and unfortunately open them up to criticism. So, Dr. Carrasquillo believes that code switching to confident language and attitude that men typically use might help women regain their footing toward accomplishing career goals.
Another piece of advice relates to always keeping your community close. “Finding a community in which you can be yourself: That’s very important. Otherwise, you lose yourself,” Dr. Carrasquillo says. She has found peace in surrounding herself with colleagues with whom she can talk about her kids or hobbies and then steer the conversation back to the task at hand.
It would be nice to live in a world where women did not have to code switch their language on social media posts. Unfortunately, we still must deal with unconscious bias as a human trait engrained deeply within us and therefore the algorithms we create.
So, keep striving to be professional on social media and in situations that require it. At the same time, don’t lose sight of yourself and don’t be afraid to let your true self shine through. To build your network and advance your career, prioritize finding a community of like-minded people, like AWIS, where you feel comfortable as your true self vs. relying on biased social media algorithms to gain visibility
Marissa Russo (she/her) obtained her BS in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, with minors in computational biology, Spanish, and psychology, from the University of Rochester in 2021. At the U of R, she played on the varsity softball team for four years. She is now a PhD candidate at the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Florida and studies glioblastoma extracellular vesicles and the tumor microenvironment. Russo recently participated in the 2025 AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, working as a science reporter with STAT News. She serves in the Leadership in PhD (LeaP) program and on the Neuroscience Equity Diversity and Inclusion (NEDI) committee, and she has a deep passion for patient advocacy and for increasing health literacy and trust in science in underrepresented populations.
This article was originally published in AWIS Magazine. Join AWIS to access the full issue of AWIS Magazine and more member benefits.