"#PoleDancer #WAP - With a #PhD"
On the topic of Dr. Carolina Are and combining smart with sexy.
Being a woman in academia means facing gender bias, whether it’s because others overlook your brilliance, or your research is perceived as “feminized”, or just because you’re a woman. Being a woman in academia who pole dances makes things, well… a little more interesting.
When Dr. Carolina Are began her MA in Criminology, she became a student in another field she would excel in: pole dancing. She uploaded photos and videos of herself engaging with her craft on her Instagram page as a means of sharing her passion and being part of the growing community. But then, she noticed her and other dancers’ content facing shadowbans and their accounts being deleted, while abusive content she had reported, like violent messages, was missed or just plain ignored. This was the impartial hammer of justice wielded by the overlords of Instagram content moderation. Wondering just how this contrast existed under the same enforced community guidelines, she decided to shift the focus of her research to what she was experiencing: the moderation and censorship of nudity and sexual content online.
Are, a.k.a. Blogger On Pole, has been blogging since 2011, first venturing into lifestyle content in her native Italian, then documenting couchsurfing reviews. As her love for pole dance grew stronger, she shifted gears, writing about topics ranging from travel guides and dating experiences, to tips for performances and at-home practice.
While pursuing her PhD, it was recommended that Are separate her online academic and pole accounts to avoid facing discrimination in academia. While this worked for a while, she could no longer keep these two fundamental sides of her divided; and why should she? The day Are passed her PhD, she consolidated her social media accounts and, as she put it, “brought Batman and Bruce Wayne together.”
But just as Bruce Wayne struggled with his public identity as Batman, Are faced challenges of her own. “The reality of my life as a pole dancing academic is less Get Ready With Me To Slay the Patriarchy in 8inch Heels and more Girl, So Confusing,” wrote Are. Her hunt for anyone that would hire her for her postdoc was long and arduous, and managing each of her audiences became a difficult task. But this union of her two personae also led to something greater; the online documentation of her passion gave her a primary source for her research on content moderation, and the use of her blog made this research more impactful by allowing her to reach an even larger audience. “I’m a better researcher because I’m a pole dancer.”
Now, Are is an Innovation Fellow at Northumbria University Centre for Digital Citizens, researching the intersection between online abuse and censorship, and the flagging of content that teeters on the edge of compliance to community guidelines on platforms like Instagram and Tiktok. This work means big things for pole dancers online, who routinely face reprimands for unclear violations of community guidelines. With her deep understanding of the ins and outs of the algorithmic moderation and appeal systems, as well as their inadequacies, Are has been designated as the bridge to connect deleted users to online platforms to restore unjustly removed accounts. She’s helped pole dancers, and also business owners, activists, and creators whose content has been flagged as breaching community guidelines.
Dr. Carolina Are is an academic researcher, focusing on online censorship, deplatforming, and the moderation of content. She is Blogger On Pole, writing posts about her current life and experiences. She is a speaker, sharing her knowledge with those interested in listening. And she is a pole dancer, continuing to explore her love for her craft through practice and performance.
Are has proven to herself and to all those who doubted her that these two forces once deemed incompatible—academia and pole dance—are for her, complementary to one another. More than this, they are both necessary to make Are the person she is, each side empowering the other. Being a pole dancer doesn’t make Are, or anyone else, less of an academic, less of a professional, less worthy of respect; she just gets to shake some ass and have more fun.
It’s fascinating to see how Dr. Carolina Are’s personal experiences have shaped her academic career. By constantly being shadow-banned and moderated, she brings a more authentic and deeply informed perspective to her research in these fields. As she says herself, “I’m a better researcher because I’m a pole dancer”... I hope that her struggles not only advance her work but also pave the way for other academics in the future who may face discrimination too.