Happy #InternationalWomensDay.
My social media life has improved greatly since moving here from the other place. Still worth thinking about how social media, as a whole, treats women and femme-identifying people though.
I'm reposting here a thread I tweeted 2 years ago. It was illuminating to me then and now.
Link: https://twitter.com/DrTCombs/status/1501302408881836033
Copied/pasted tweets below ⤵️
[Date: Mar 8, 2022] A few weeks ago I quietly changed my profile pic to show a nondescript white male, riding away on a bicycle. I also removed my she/her pronouns from my bio. Today on #InternationalWomensDay I changed it back. 🧵
Just about every time I demonstrate any sort of expertise in any of these topics, I can expect to need to follow up with multiple blocks and reports of accounts I’ve never heard of. Y’all, it sucks. 3/
4:02 PM · Mar 8, 2022
[the next day...]
I'm not surprised how many women this thread resonated with, but I'm pleased w/ how broadly it's spread & how many important convos it's sparked. If you want to do more, chheck out @JulieSLalonde's bystander intervention training https://twitter.com/JulieSLalonde/status/1500966252298317826… (h/t
@JonahGrahamKC
) 8/
...and follow, support, and cite the women doing amazing work in typically male-dominanted fields.
@UrbanDemog has started a great list for urban mobility, many of whom were new to me: https://twitter.com/UrbanDemog/status/1501371415337082883… 9/
...here: https://twitter.com/Osaabiikwe/status/1501548685095841793… and here: https://twitter.com/rebeccalsanders/status/1501472903832879115… 11/
Quote Rebecca Sanders
@rebeccalsanders
·
Mar 9, 2022
A deeply troubling account from a brilliant, thoughtful friend and colleague. Men, you may not ever mean to mansplain or worse, but patriarchy is the water in which you swim, as white supremacy is for us white folks. We must be more aware of how we affect others and do better. x.com/DrTCombs/statu…
OK, back to today.
I know the fediverse hasn't felt like home for a lot of people, but to me, it's indescribably more welcoming than that other place. I miss my friends in the old neighborhood, and the amazing connections I was able to make around the world, but those of you who are here, keeping this place safe and tolerant and affirming, more than make up for it.
thank you.
But when I removed the obvious female markers from my profile, everything instantly changed. One innocuous thread about interactions with drivers garnered 1148 likes and 133 retweets, a podcast invitation, and importantly only a single ‘well actually’ reply. 4/
4:02 PM · Mar 8, 2022