To be (me) or not to be

I've just read a fascinating article by James Chartrand (Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants) outing "himself" as a woman. She discovered that she got more and better jobs and less hassle when she worked as a man than under her real name.



I'm wondering whether I ought to change my persona for online jobs. It obviously wouldn't work with live networking, but I could become Charley - which was my nickname when I was at college, as it happens. It would mean a cdrtain amount of hassle: changing my Elance profile, my website, my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter pages (or creating new ones) and finding a new image to represent me - and inevitably becoming "Charley" to a lot of people who currently know me as Charlotte.



It's not as straightforward as it sounds. I wouldn't be me any more. My Charley days were a long time ago and I was a different person then. It would be weird going back.



I haven't been around long enough yet to reach the glass ceiling that James encountered, so I don't know how necessary it would be to change. And even with the evidence she provides I'm still not sure I can cope with turning myself into someone else, as though I were on the witness programme.



Maybe I should double test it - apply for the same jobs under both names and see what happens? James did that and found the male "her" got more work than the female.



Maybe I should just go for it. The research has already been done, though admittedly only by one person: not a very large sample. (Though she did mention that she wrote about it because a "friend" threatened to out her - and the friend was also a woman who wrote as a man...)



Has anyone else out there discovered the same phenomenon? If so, I'd love to hear from you. You don't have to tell me your real name or go public: you can contact me direct at greatcopy@btinternet.com.



New Year, new persona? Watch this space!