Gender

[flexibeast]

According to the Gender Genie, this blog entry of mine (the most recent to contain only my own writing) suggests that i'm female (Female Score: 996, Male Score: 699). Which is interesting, because several people have told me that they get that impression from my writing, despite me feeling that i probably sound male (and even though i don't make any particular effort to 'gender' my writing either way). But in any case, i haven't yet had a look at the theory underlying this little gadget, so i'm yet not putting much store in it beyond thinking "Heh". :-)
 

Comments

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Nope, you definitely friended me first, a few months ago

Oh, okay.

we're both on nonfluffypagans and nonfluffymagic as well

*nod* i suspect i friended you because you said something i liked in one of those comms. :-)

I've friended you within the past week or so. Hopefully that won't seem rude!

Not at all!

The "i" vs "I" I was thinking of in terms of trying to explain my own impressions, not the genie

Ah, sorry - thanks for the clarification.

And yes, I think the use of these things did change people's assumptions as to my gender, although this is probably combined with me signing my e-mails with my actual name and eschewing the whole going-by-the-internet-name thing.

*nod*

it changed how seriously my ideas were taken, whether they would be welcomed as interesting or resisted as being too critical, etc.

*sad nod* i observe this happening far too often. :-((

I'm currently trying to work out how to then change from a previously reactionary stance to one that is a bit more responsible.

Sorry, how was your previous stance reactionary?

People always say "oh, but we don't mean it in a literal way" when they're thinking about such things philisophically, but these aspects seem to creep into the daily thoughtless use of such concepts, the unspoken implications of them - these concepts of "male" and "female" seem far too powerful to just use as a convenient shorthand for the various other concepts that are associated with them.

*nod* Agreed, very much so!

"Fooish" and "barish" would certainly change things!

Heh. :-)

The next step, for me, is realising that such ideas do have a bit of power, and could perhaps even be used sometimes in a responsible manner. Hrm.

*nod* i suspect that pretty much any powerful tool can be used in both constructive and destructive ways; but it can be tricky to know when one is doing which. :-)