I'm going to be overly honest/vulnerable for a minute here because I think it's important, and I have a lot of positional power now (muahaha), etc. Leave now if that's not your jam tonight.

People often ask me about why so many of my papers are single author. (1/) https://twitter.com/millerjm86/status/1328765642372042753

Dudes: I LOVE collaborating. I have 67 people in my "recent / current collaborators" file that NSF uses to determine whether you're too close to someone for them to review you, and I need to add a bunch. (2/)

The truth is I have consciously or unconsciously tended to publish alone as proof that I can do the work. (3/)

I have a lot of lovely men collaborators and mentors that I very much appreciate. And I have had a lot of privilege to have found enough independent funding to publish alone without causing too much trouble (3/)

That said, there's a STRONG gendered pattern to who people assume did the work on my collaborative stuff. (There's literature on this, too, especially focused on econ) (4/)

I'm easing up on this fear a little in part because I know I have my own reputation now. But DESPITE having had excellent, supportive male collaborators--superstars, even--I have avoided publishing with them as much as I could have. I'm sure that hurts me in cite count. (5/)

Multiple someones I trust very much told me that one of my (kickass) papers with another young woman prob would have gotten a lot more attn if we'd added a nonspecific "graybeard" to it.

I think they're probably right but it pissed me off so much I didn't even consider it. (6/)

Cite count pain aside, I'm also pretty sure this protective strategy is why I have a job. Because again, people are more willing to believe I did my share of the work if I'm the only author, or I coauthored with another young woman. (7/)

Anyway this is EXTREMELY not a callout of my men collaborators/advisors. I collaborate(d) with them because they're good on stuff like this -- and obviously my supervisors let me get away with being stupidly independent, which I appreciate. (8/)

But as everyone is pointing out about That Paper -- maybe the answer is more complex than "women shouldn't mentor women because it hurts their citation indexes" (end)