The Gender Wars of TikTok Science Educators
Anyone who’s spent any length of time on TikTok knows how easy it is to fall down a rabbit hole of incredibly niche content. Content creators with knowledge about a topic can quickly reach thousands of people due to the intense virality of the app. This gives more people than ever the opportunity to grow their audiences online.
Naturally, this has opened the door for science educators to use the platform to educate people about their particular interests. From space content to discussions on sustainability, there is content for everyone. Yet despite the variety of content, not all science educators are treated equally on TikTok.
Charlotte Moore, or @cavatica on TikTok, makes regular videos on a wide range of topics, including scientific fun facts. She started to see a common trend occurring, where male content creators were tagged in her science videos. These commenters would ask other men if the facts that Moore was making were true.
Moore addressed her audience directly in a video, after science content creator Hank Green was tagged in the comments of one of her videos about the difference between venoms and poisons.
“Please don’t do this,” Moore said. “I check all of my facts before I post. I watch videos, I read articles, I ask experts if I know experts. If you want to check my facts, please do that … But please do not summon the men, especially ones that already follow me.”
Moore referenced a specific case where science educator Forrest Valkai, or @renegadescienceteacher, was asked to fact-check her video on venoms and poisons. He responded by stitching with Moore’s original video, confirming all her original facts.
Valkai closed his video by saying: “I don’t have to explain this. The lady’s last video was a perfect explanation of all of this.” He seemed confused as to why he had even been asked to fact-check in the first place.
Alongside Moore’s experience, prominent TikTok creators like @onlyjayus, who creates psychology videos, and even Hank Green have spoken out against calling in men to fact-check women. Women not being taken seriously on TikTok is a symptom of a wider problem in which male science creators are somehow seen as more knowledgeable or more reliable. According to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics (UIS), less than 30 percent of the world’s researchers in 2019 were female. What is happening on TikTok perpetuates a damaging stereotype in STEM fields that continues to leave women at a disadvantage in already male-dominated areas.
What’s more, it’s not a problem that is isolated to social media. Chartered psychologist Josephine Perry spent 15 years as a communications director and currently trains people to communicate effectively, while protecting their mental health. She referenced a study that shed light on how women in academic fields are often judged more harshly than their male counterparts.
The study took place in the U.S., where a female teaching assistant used her real name while communicating with one half the students and a male-presenting name in communications with the other half of the students. The information she gave and the language she used was exactly the same in both groups.
When it came to the students reviewing the teaching staff at the end of the course, the ‘male’ teaching assistant was ranked far more positively than the ‘female’ one.
“This level of unconscious bias isn’t hidden behind social media,” Perry points out in an interview with Lady Science. “It is everywhere.”
Nonetheless, it’s important to consider why people feel more able to call in men to fact-check women on social media. Perry explains that communicating via social media offers people more confidence than they might have when speaking face-to-face.
“These biases get replicated online because it can feel easier to let our guard down and behave as we really are,” Perry says. “We worry less about the consequences of showing the less savory parts of our personality.
“Additionally, when with someone in real life, we are often alone and so question our views when faced with their opposing views. Online, you find your tribe. You feel as though there are others thinking the same as you. It’s much easier to pile onto someone and not think of the repercussions—either to your relationship or your own reputation.”
With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing everyone online for their social interactions, it’s perhaps no wonder that more women are experiencing this kind of behavior. Indeed, Charlotte wasn’t alone in her experience, and it’s also not restricted to TikTok.
Student Lucy Arron runs monthly Twitch live streams on environmental and animal sciences, alongside a male colleague. While sitting beside a man on the stream, she’s noticed that some audience members display a preference for information coming from him, rather than her.
“It’ll often be someone new coming into my streams [who] may not listen to something I say, or will only listen to my partner,” Lucy explains. “It’s never overtly sexist, rather a clear preference for a source of information.”
Her partner will often laugh it off and jokingly rebuke the audience member for not listening to Lucy properly. But no matter how offhand the comment was, Lucy always notices when it happens.
“It never feels great,” Lucy says. “I’m lucky that the majority of people who tune in are happy to listen to me as a source of information, so the exceptions, despite how minor the moments may seem, definitely stick out to me.”
No matter how innocuous these examples may seem to the commenters themselves, it all contributes to a culture in STEM that marginalizes women and discourages them from joining or staying in the field. In 2021, as we’ve seen in the examples of male reactions to being called in to fact-check women, men in STEM seem more prepared to back up their female colleagues than in previous decades. Even when Charlotte herself called out her audience members for their behavior, she noted that the fact-checking soon stopped.
Whether conscious or not, this gendered fact-checking needs to stop if women are going to enjoy a hospitable environment in STEM. Wherever possible, people of all genders need to call out misogynistic stereotypes in male-dominated areas and reinforce the message that facts from a female are every bit as reliable as ones that come from men.
Image credit: Tik Tok splash screen (Wikimedia Commons | CC BY-SA 2.0)
