At its inception, Twitter implicitly promised to be a level-playing field for all types of comedians and writers. But that’s not the reason I joined. I was drawn to its simple user interface after a lifetime of stubbornly refusing to learn basic code to build my own site, trying and failing at Wordpress (once, and that was enough), and thinking I was just too good for Wix despite the fact that I was its prime demographic: an idiot.

Finally, I had found a place where I could workshop jokes and ideas and cultivate my own audience and hobnob with other comedy writers without having to build anything but my material. Best of all, Twitter didn’t allow underscoring, emboldened font, or italicization, which meant that even the simplest of code wasn’t encouraged. This was heaven. Twitter made my comfort zone even smaller, tightly wedging me in. Ahhh, the sweet embrace of the lazy person’s ultimate meritocracy.

After a rough first year comparing myself to the biggest (largely male) accounts, I finally found my audience and developed a reputation within the niche corner of Weird/Comedy Twitter. Although I didn’t come here to make friends, I did accidentally. First it was one friendship. No big deal. Then pretty soon two, then three, like a herpes breakout. Before I knew it, I was caring about lots of other people who lived thousands of miles away. That’s the thing about friends: they happen when you’re busy making plans that only include yourself.

My friend circle has always been proportionately 90% female because I identify biologically as a woman and sexually as a gay interior designer. But when your female friends are delivered to you via an online platform, two things can happen that don’t occur as often with meatspace friendship groups: you either fuse into a politically aware clique-force with a feminist agenda. Or you are hazed into a witch’s cult where you are sworn to the Oath of the Coven of the Clit with a feminist agenda. Either way, you become acutely feminist.

Covens in particular talk amongst themselves about their experiences as women online. When a mediocre man, affectionately known as a troll, mansplains a woman’s joke to her or tries his hand at a reply with his brand of comedically leaden sexist commentary, several powerful female witches will come to her aid and descend upon his soul publicly. This female togetherness born of female otherness keeps trolls in check, but it also empowers the woman by validating her personal experience of her own second-class treatment. Her female friends tell her that she’s not crazy, she’s right and that it’s ok to psychologically dismember and humiliate men. Also, it’s fun.

But there’s something more disheartening that Twitter women know in their bones: for every outwardly sexist “mediogre,” there are hundreds of influential funny men who ignore their accounts in favor of other men. Most women don’t gripe about this openly because they doubt their perceptions. After all, Twitter is largely a free market and people choose to retweet the funniest jokes, regardless of gender. Right? This is patently untrue when it comes to race. Most of Funny Twitter doesn’t adequately recognize or promote black comedy writers, and while I was collecting data on retweets and female representation, I could count on my fingers and toes how many times black accounts were retweeted. And I collected numbers on over 130 accounts.

So it’s fair to assume that women (most notably, Women of Color) are also underrepresented in this landscape. I brought this project up to some male friends who were openly dubious. They said that they loved their funny female counterparts and didn’t even notice gender. Many claimed they retweeted men and women equally. I believed none of them because if there’s one thing I know about men, it’s that when it comes to feminism, they’re wrong. Like pretty much always. It’s a consistent kind of wrongness that I have come to rely on, like a favorite cardigan that no longer fits but you keep it anyway because you don’t have the energy to overhaul your entire wardrobe.

I wanted my feelings quantified. My friends and I knew we didn’t receive the same accolades and attention as our equally funny male peers. And as I began counting retweets, it became clear that me and my lady friends were wrong about one thing: how right we were.

My friend Maddie Stansell, an amazingly clever writer (@whatmaddness on Twitter), and I accumulated data from roughly 125 accounts. We counted the number of retweets from a two-week window and also looked at the last 20 retweets separately. Both methods of counting allowed us to use data from accounts with varying patterns of retweeting: those that didn’t retweet often or accounts that retweeted generously. If an account’s “gender” couldn’t be determined, it was ignored. Also ignored: birthday shoutouts, #FF or any kind of follow hashtag, retweeted replies, and retweeted compliments.

Women RT other women ~42% of the time, while men RT women ~31%. You may also have balked at the information on women’s RT patterns, noting that women and men alike RT men more. This is true and a very unfortunate finding. But it shouldn’t surprise you.

The pool of Funny Twitter Women retweeted by men is small. Abysmally so. About 40. The pool of funny women retweeted by other women was much larger, around 80. In a similar vein, most men retweeted the same 2–4 women repeatedly. I couldn’t find similar patterns where they favored just a handful of men. So maybe men don’t notice gender, but their penises sure do. Don’t @ me.

Men RT more compliments from women than they do compliments from men. Men also RT more compliments from men about other men who aren’t themselves. I have yet to see a man retweet a compliment about a woman.

Women were never represented more than men (either over the span of 20 RTs or in two weeks) for 123 out of the 125 accounts.

Men RT more mediocre stuff from other men, but the quality of tweets from the women they promoted was exceptional (based on numbers), meaning their standards for retweeting women is markedly higher.

Big accounts are the worst offenders. A majority of the 25K+ accounts, easily considered the most influential and recognizable, are men. And those accounts retweeted men at a rate of 73%.

Not a single account who was close on the 50/50 male/female split ever leaned toward women. No women had a Congressional majority (51%).

Men RT more sexual innuendo or sexual humor by women than men. Some men have suggested that women’s humor regarding sex is more palatable, less crass and, therefore, funnier. But the sexual humor I saw retweeted by men written by women generally wasn’t of the female autonomy and body ownership narrative. It usually landed squarely within the domain of traditional sex roles.

There are so many kinds of conclusions to draw about the behavioral patterns of men on social media with regards to how they promote and treat women. But just look at the pie charts. And the bar graphs. That’s easy. Then ask yourself: who am I fooling when I say I don’t see gender? Who am I fooling if I say I represent women on par with men? Because I’m telling you — WE are telling you — we are SHOWING you— that you don’t. STOP second-guessing women when they explain how sexism permeates every aspect of their lives. START assuming you’re part of the problem.