Medium: We have a problem.

Dear Medium,

I like you. I do. But we have a problem. A woman problem.

I recently created a new Medium account. I selected my areas of interest: Art, Design, Politics and Technology.

Then your helpful bots pulled up 40 recommendations of accounts you thought I’d like to follow. Of the 40 recommended accounts to follow, 15 were organizations. 23 were men. 2 were women.

Then your helpful bots pulled up 40 recommendations of accounts you thought I’d like to follow. Of the 40 recommended accounts to follow, 15 were organizations. 23 were men. 2 were women.

Do you see where this is going?

You have power. You say you want to create “a different place to read and write for the web.” But you’re falling into the same old traps by recommending a majority of male voices to new users.

If you truly want to be different, you’ll fix this. You’ll recognize that users want to follow men and women who have interesting things to say. You will help raise up those voices so they are easy to find.

Let’s be honest: This fight is old. Women have been calling out this type of systemic sexism for years now. Frankly, we’re sick of having to do it.

We’ve gotten used to see this play out in the conference circuit. Year after year, panel after panel, women are speaking out against panels devoid of gender or racial equality.

We’ve called it out in stock photography. LeanIn.org created a entire collection of photography with Getty to address the problem of the lack of representation there.

It’s a regular topic of conversation anytime a “X under X” or “X People to Watch” listicle is published.

You can do better. Your bots can do better. Women are writing incredible, interesting things every day on Medium. Help us find them from the start.

Thanks,

Tracy.