Posted on 8 April 2015

Matt Gemmell:

“I very much fell into the trap of only being exposed to the voices of men. My blog subscriptions were all to male writers. Those I followed on Twitter were almost all male. I spoke at many conferences, and in every case, the speaker line-up was either almost completely or exclusively male. Those men then amplified other male voices, perpetuating the effect.
“It’s vital, for all our sakes, that we make an effort to change that.”

I’d also make this recommendation for other voices. During #IdleNoMore, I made an effort to follow more indigenous voices, and during the initial events of Ferguson last year I added African-American voices.
I don’t know what my ratio is, but I do know having more diverse voices in my Twitter feed has helped make me more aware of and empathetic towards viewpoints that, pre-Twitter, I simply didn’t know about. One other tip I’d add: once you’re following those voices, don’t challenge, argue or question. Just listen.

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