I spent the month of April without any cis-het, white, male voices in my Twitter timeline. What follows are my observations.

(Background: Last year–for about a week plus a few days–I muted all my cis-het, white, male Twitter friends. Why did I do it? Well, because I wanted to see what would happen to my timeline and my anxiety. (Minimizing the number of voices I was being exposed to, did help my anxiety, btw.) I didn’t get an opportunity to write anything about the experience because life got away from me. So, this year, as Sexual Assault Awareness Month (#SAAM) rolled around this year (April), I decided I’d do the mute again, but this time for a month (for the entire month of April). And this time I was going to document what I noticed about myself and my timeline. I chose cis-het, white, men to silence again because, in my own life, those are the voices that have been the most violent–specifically my most traumatic assault was accompanied by a cis-het, white, male, voice threatening my life and calling me a host of horrible names. What I couldn’t control then, I controlled now. Was it some sort of technological, intellectual retribution? Maybe. I hope not, but the subconscious is a powerful function. With that said, let me proceed to what I noticed…and none of what I’m saying below should be applied universally; as in: this may not be what you would experience. This is strictly my experience.)

1.  First, some data points that are interesting: at the time of the mute, I was following 526 accounts. 245 of them were muted. That’s almost half of my follows. Which says a lot about who I follow.
2.  The very first and most substantial thing that I noticed about my timeline was that by nearly halving the voices behind the accounts I follow it became significantly calmer. Makes sense. Cut out half the noise, things are quieter and calmer. There’s nothing earth-shattering about this fact.
3. However, what is interesting is that my timeline also had a significant dearth of theological discussions. This dearth contributed to the relatively quiet timeline. As the mute went, so did my exposure to heavy, charged, theological discussions. Now, mind you, it’s not that I didn’t see theology floating about, it’s that it was relatively calm: tweets about scripture and theology, some engagement in reply, but in general it was nothing but a thing. The heat in *my* timeline comes from my cis-het, white, male friends. (Fascinating!) They are the ones that stir up my timeline.
4. Concurrent with 3, whatever was going on in cis-het, white, male twitter rarely made it into my timeline via the people that overlap in following. As in, the LGBTQ and POC, and white women I was listening to were not retweeting or engaging all that much. Maybe once of twice I was I made aware of something occurring in muted twitter man land, but not often. So, to some extent, whatever happens in cis-het, white, male twitterverse, stays in cis-het, white, male twitterverse.  I even kept some key males (specifically, Juan Torres) that I knew would be good bridges between me and the muted, and those connections weren’t as productive as I thought they would be.
5. Also of note is this: way less storming. Not even joking. Of all the people I follow, my cis-het, white, male friends storm way more on twitter than my LGBTQ, POC, and white women I follow. I wonder if there is privilege working here. As in, if you are raised to think your voice should be heard, you may be more prone to express your opinion about things…and in like dozens of tweets. But if you are raised to, say, only speak when you are spoken to, you may even approach your twitter with the same reluctance to voice yourself. Also, the voice behind the tweets often came across less authoritarian than what I was exposed to when my cis-het, white, male friends were unmuted in my timeline. It was as if the tone was more: “hey, look what I found and am sharing with you…”; rather than: “This is how it is.”
6. Connected to 5, is this: I had more confidence. What’s the most interesting about this observation is that I didn’t block my cis-het, white, male friends; I only muted them. They could still see everything I was doing; I just couldn’t see them. And in not seeing them, I was more willing to share what I wanted without concern. Now, why is this? I think partly, some of my cis-het, white, male friends intimidate me, but this speaks to my own issues concerning men and their power over me (daddy issues, big brother issues, assault issues). I spent a good deal of my early adulthood having a what was close to a worship posture toward men, seeing them as smarter than me, better, stronger, etc. I’m sure that beast is in its death throes as I type this, but I’m also aware that that beast also dies hard. One other thing I think operating here is that I think men have no problem confronting each other (even aggressively so). Whether it’s because society tolerates and encourages such behavior or the old adage is actually true that men are just bolder with each other and women aren’t, the impact is significant. By removing the visual stimulus, I was less prone to be concerned with whether or not I would be dealt with as they deal with each other. Now, this has way more to do with me than them. I’m afraid because I have issues with feeling and presuming I’m being attacked. I have a tendency to read aggression into words (even of those I know love me).
7. There was very little engagement from the muted group with my tweets. A very consistent few would engage, but on the whole there was very little engagement. There’s a few things to say to this. The first is: clearly, I do not have to be worried about being engaged in an aggressive way (even if it’s my perception and not reality); that is a false fear (lol). The second is: the twitter algorithm probably weeded me out of their feeds because I wasn’t engaging with them. So, I actually wasn’t showing up or being featured as prominently. The less I engage with someone, the less likely I’m going to appear in their feed or “In Case You Missed It” section. The third (and last) could be: I don’t figure prominently enough to engage and cis-het, white, male twitter is a closed group. This isn’t my favorite option, and it’s the one that’s the furthest stretch. I do think there is a tendency to interact with a specific group of regulars, but I’m not sure “closed group” is fair. Yes, I know there is (at times) some what of a “broseph” (to quote my friend Kate Hanch) feel to boy twitter, but I’m not going to broad sweep and declare that because the boys wouldn’t always come play with me that it’s automatically explicit sexism. (It could be implicit and unknown, for sure.)
8.  I was the outsider among the LGBTQ and POC groups. I found myself (a few times) in significant and deep conversations with other people of the groups mentioned, and often found myself in the position of needing to be the one who was listening.  I realized that I have a privilege being a cis-het white female. When I realized this, I spent the rest of my time reading and listening to those speaking through my timeline. I learned *a lot* during this month. I have to say, for this result alone, I’m glad I did what I did.
9. So, I was able not only to listen and learn, but I was also able to bolster my exposure to those voices that are often submersed and muted because they are the minority voices. I was able to follow people I wouldn’t have been exposed to if I hadn’t muted about half of the people I follow. I hope that in doing so I’ve given more prominence to those other voices in order to balance out my daily exposure to a variety of voices.
10. I did miss my some of my male friends; specifically the ones who are working really hard to change themselves, ever ready to be challenged to do better, using their platform to promote people lacking the privilege that they have (and not just speaking for the voiceless, but actually giving them the mic). You know who you are, and I see you.

So, those are my experiences. It was a fascinating experiment and I learned a lot about myself mostly, but also about social dynamics and how important it is that we stay alert and always moving forward. We need not grow complacent and become lured back to sleep; we’ve had good change, but we need to keep pressing forward for more change. I explain to my students that in order to get change to become normal, we have to press forward long enough for that change to become normal, where going backward would feel weird. If we just take change as a one time achievement and forget that we need to hold ourselves accountable to maintain that change, we will eventually slip back to the way things were. It is easy to fool ourselves into thinking change has occurred while drifting back to sleep.

Before I go, I’d like to recommend some people to follow. The following are the people I learned a lot from during the past month (follow them if you aren’t already):

Saint Big Tina (@anarchistsaint7); The Professor is Out (@WilGafney); Kate Hanch (@katehanch); Juan Torres (@orthoheterodox1); h.e.kavanaugh (@HETillich); Rabbi Ruti Regan (@RutiRegan); Emily Cunningham (@EmC_Hammer); Sam Grewal (@samGrewal133); Mandy Nicole (@TenaciousMandy); Susan Vincent (@susanv); Ligand-gated Vibranium (@neurondidi); Rigadoonaroundyou (@DeLisaPerry_); Amanda Quraishi (@ImTheQ); Lisa Colon Delay (@LisaDelay); Jewels (@BlackBlocBoi); it’s Britney. (@sarcasmforChrist); Rachel Cohen (@pwstranger); Danielle Larson (@DanielleELarson); Sara Misgen (@saramisgen); Kelsey Lewis (@KelseyMLoo); Jes Kast (@JesKast); Sabrina (@sdrp_); she got up 10x (@haettinger)

Thank you for all that you say and all that you share.