You did not misread that. There is a supposed “retweet gap” between male and female Twitter users akin to the “wage gap” and, although it seems that way, this article is not a parody of the wage gap. Written by Alexa Kocinski, the article initially reads as a compilation of Kocinski’s previous platform pitfalls before succeeding on Twitter due to its approachable and user-friendly nature. Awkward relatables (statements, questions, images, memes, and any combination of the former that are designedrso that the audience identifies with them) is prevalent among the feminist content of today.
Let’s look at the statistics first. Kocinski and a friend, Stansell, surveyed 125 accounts and counted retweets from a two week window. They ignored accounts where the gender could not be determined and surveyed both frequent and infrequent retweeters. They also ignored birthday shoutouts, retweeted replies, and retweeted compliments. Kocinski also commented on the lack of representation of women of color on Twitter although neither person collected any race-related data.
Below are the graphs of Kocinski's and Stansell's findings. I’m not making any claims as to whether the gender retweet gap exists or not. That you should determine for yourself with the use this and other available datasets along with taking into account other factors. I just think it’s kind of absurd that someone would actually take the time to notice one and publish their findings on a major website, but, then again, someone could think it's absurd that I'm writing about it.
The last graph shows that people tend to retweet content from their gender and that men retweet more as a whole. This gap exists as a result of men and women as a whole experiencing different things and from people seeking out others who are alike in experience, worldview, and ideals, not from active discrimination. As much as we should strive to open ourselves to difference and diversity, most of us are going to seek out the company of like-minded (and sometimes bodied) people. The men who are actively prejudiced against women, racial and other minorities probably aren’t even on Twitter. They’re on Stormfront or Kiwifarms because Reddit banned r/incels.
I honestly don’t know what to make of this article because different platforms work for different people and thus those platforms have different demographics. Kocinski also stated that “it is okay to psychologically dismember and humiliate men”, which implies that women should actively antagonize men. She also called Internet trolls “mediocre men”, which implies that women cannot be Internet trolls, and talks about “female togetherness” and being “hazed into a witch’s cult where you are sworn to the Oath of the Coven of the Clit with a feminist agenda”. Considering that this person took time out of her day to write about the retweet gap, those statements are ironically sexist.
All in all, I expected this post to contain something about how disparities between men and women are inherently sexist, but I did not expect to feel so unsettled after reading this. I personally expected more statistics on the matter and less identity politics, especially since Kocinski pointed out the existence of a supposed gender retweet gap, but what can one expect from what journalism has become today?
Source Material: https://medium.com/@TheWoodenslurpy/where-are-the-funny-women-on-twitter-e05b32722569 DOA: Mar 2, 2018
