Do you think about gender on Twitter?
To mark the publication of her new book on contemporary gender roles and inequality,
The Public Woman, British writer and activist, Joan Smith, has teamed-up with Swedish equal opportunities organization, Crossing Boarders,
to bring Twee-Q (Twitter Equality Quotient) to the UK.
Gender equality is always a hot conversational topic on Twitter. Joan Smith is curious about how equal British social media conversation really is, and Crossing Boarders thought-provoking, interactive self-assessment tool – which proved popular when first launched in Sweden – promises to reveal the truth.
The process is simple: insert the Twitter handle you want analyzed (it can be your own or that of another person) and Twee-Q instantly tells you what proportion of that account’s recent retweets (made during the last 100 tweets) were of comments or opinions issued by men or by women. A 10 is the perfect Twee-Q. Dare you start with yourself?
What is Twee-Q?
Twee-Q, or Twitter Equality Quotient, is a simple score derived from how often you retweet men or women. We index the latest 100 tweets of a Twitter user and check the names and gender of those retweeted against our database (Swedish SCB, U.S Census 2010). Twee-Q is brought to you by Swedish organization Crossing Boarders, with support from Comviq. Crossing Boarders works to promote equal participation in associations, organizations and businesses. Based on successful experience from gender issues Crossing Borders has developed a practical guide that opens shut doors, introduces female role models and through robust methods, strengthens young women’s confidence and self-esteem. The goal is equal right to an active leisure.
Why Twee-Q?
Gender equality begins in the conversation, when people who have something to say communicate with people who are interested to listen, who are curious and attentive, and who are not afraid of change. When discussion and reflection leads to action. That's when the magic happens.
But how equal is a conversation? What if the core of the conversation is unequal? What if we rather listen to, acknowledge and pass on opinions or thoughts from a particular gender? Simply put: what if we generally evaluate the arguments of a particular sex higher, perhaps without even knowing it ourselves? Well, in that case the conversations are broken.
Twee-Q is a metod to examine just how equal every single one of us really act in conversations.
Our vision?
We want to change the world -by showing how each of us rank women's and men's contribution in a conversation. The ranking will be measurable and we base our experiment on the world's largest ongoing conversation - Twitter.
Only when we have to see how we act, and who we choose to listen to, who we choose to acknowledge, then we can take the first steps towards a truly equal society. It's easy to assume that gender equality is something that others need to improve on, but until we see our own roles in creating a truly equal society, we continue to tread water.
FAQ
How do you index names that are unisex, like Kim or Robin?
Our system automatically chooses the gender that are more common. This of course means we are sometimes wrong.
Some retweets are of companies and brands, how do you index these?
We don't. We only index names that are in our database.
Why do I get a low score when I act for equality by supporting and retweeting women?
In this test we chose to give a higher score when you're retweets are evenly distributed to men and women. We understand this is no form of science and it can be unfair to people using retweets to support women and equality, but we needed a simple and easily understandable formula for Twee-Q.
Why don't you analyze all of my tweets?
We would love to be able to do just that, but due to Twitters own limitations we can only index the latest 100 tweets.
I get a different Twee-Q when I try out the service again, why is this?
That's because we index your latest 100 tweets, every time you try out the service.
Is there any way that the results are a consequence of an over-representation of men or women on Twitter?
No. Recent stats show that there are an almost exactly equal amount of men and women on Twitter.
I'm having problems getting a Twee-Q for a specific account, what's
the problem?
It could be that the users name (not the twitter handle) is really unusual or made up (and not in our database), the user has
written name/surname without breaks in the twitter bio or have
retweeted too few users.
When I analyze an account, Twee-Q says that the account holder is of another sex than I know he/she really is.
Twee-Q is an experiment which originated in Sweden and the databases to determine gender from name still suffer from some extra "swedishness". For example: the name "Jan" is as common among women in North America as it is among men in Scandinavia - and in that case the original database has precedence.
Press
For further information about Twee-Q:
Press contact UK:
Benjamin Webb, managing director, Deliberate PR
DL – 020 7221 1540
M – 07930 408 224
E-mail: benjamin@deliberate-pr.com
Press contact Scandinavia:
Ida Östensson, founder of Crossing Boarders,
M – +46 70 544 07 98
E-mail: ida@crossingboarders.se
Also see www.crossingboarders.se (only in Swedish)