How our project began

Our Project began with the simple phrase, “What would a man say?”

We are a mother-daughter duo who began asking ourselves this question as we reviewed everything we wrote in a non-social context (emails, cover letters, inter-office memos, etc.), where we felt the most held-back by our gender.

While searching for answers to this question we began to notice all the over-polite words and niceties we used - words and phrases that most men never use. Was this undermining our competency? Were we being perceived /understood as less capable than men? How could that be? After all, we considered (consider!) ourselves independent, strong, competent and capable.

We began to self-censor.

The differences we noticed between men's writing and women's writing were mind-blowing, so we turned to data to see what the experts were saying on the subject. What we found was a veritable treasure trove of studies, research, data and information. The more we read, the lower our jaws dropped.

After reading hundreds of academic papers and peer-reviewed research articles, we found that the way men express themselves is actually far, far different from the way women express themselves. And, it turns out, what men say is always more effective. (Big shocker there.)

Knowing this, we wanted to take away the pain of self-doubt and self-censoring. Applying the research on written communication to our own writing, we created WriteByMe™, a text-editing software that essentially asks, “What would a man say?”

It would take countless hours and massive spreadsheets for any one person to keep track of all the words and phrases that are proven to be most effective in communication, but that's what we're here for: We do it for you!

We are proud and excited about what we are creating and are driven by the mission to eliminate the likelihood of gender bias resulting from written communication. With your support and engagement, we can - we will - help people everywhere empower their writing.

What we know

At WriteByMe, we are driven by the mission to eliminate the possibility of implicit bias resulting from written communication. Often, we are not even aware of the bias that's unfolding as we write, but we do experience the effects and it puts women at a disadvantage. This is important to understand. Here's what we know:

Words matter

WriteByMe is built on the understanding that words matter. The words we use can, and do, affect how we are perceived by the listener (reader). Asking, “Can you pass me the pen?” and saying, “Please pass me the pen” will likely result in the same outcome (you get the pen), but the interaction is different, due to the word choice. One makes you appear passive (when you really just mean to be polite) while the other makes you seem confident and assertive. What matters is how our use of words and language makes us appear to others. So let's keep the content the same, but focus on creating effective written communication.

Socialization

From an early age, girls and boys are taught to act differently. Indeed, expectations of behavior are subtly engrained. This affects how we write (express ourselves), and how we write affects how we are perceived and treated. As a matter of fact, studies have found that people can accurately guess the gender of a person based on the way he/she writes and the words used. Research shows that because of this early socialization, men and women speak about their accomplishments differently. From a young age, boys are rewarded if they talk up their achievements, while girls are rewarded for playing theirs down. Thus, boys/men are perceived as more competent and capable, and as more effective leaders. As they say, perception is reality. A study found that when asking girls to predict their grades in a class, grade predictions were consistently higher when the girls were told the predictions would be private than when they were told they would be public. This phenomenon was not found in boys, who predicted the same grades regardless of whether the predictions were to be public or private. The different ways men and women have been socialized has created an implicit bias against women. This pattern needs to be broken.

Not good, not bad. Just different.

Research shows that people in powerful positions are likely to reward styles similar to their own. This means the social skills of a man are considered more desirable, simply because more men are already in positions of power. Their skills aren't really better, but they are the ones that have come to be valued. This means that as long as the CEO, CFO, and other top positions are filled by men, the qualities they look for to fill other positions of authority will be male dominated. One “quality” that we know can be identified as decidedly male is the writing style, which means a woman's traditional writing will be selected out as undesirable. WriteByMe takes steps to break this cycle.