Although it does add the caveat that my, "Weak emphasis could indicate European."
Oh. Right, then.
But then I noted that the site says you should remove any quotes from the sample content, as they will obviously be gendered according to their original author. "Aha," I thought - and stripped out the quoted comments from Obama's Facebook page.
With this, largely male-written, content removed my gender score was adjusted. To be slightly more male. And, apparently, a bit less European.
Lots of media commentators who wrote about my blog recently assumed that I was male. I ascribed the assumption to cultural bias (anyone whose gender you don't know is assumed to be male). But perhaps they were just subconsciously absorbing the science of gendered language use.
8 comments:
A few years ago, another of those gender tests was going around, and all my writer friends, all female, took it and it turned out they were boys too. We then submitted crappy unedited copy, and guess what? We were girls. So we assumed they judged good, professional, writing as male, sloppy writing as female.
Kathy, isn't it also possible that either deliberately or subconsciously, you were editing your rough drafts according to gendered standards? For example, it's quite common to edit for a certain terseness that is culturally associated with the masculine voice - removing descriptive adverbs and adjectives, shortening or breaking long or complex sentences, and so forth. Essentially, if most of us edit our rough drafts to sound more like EB White, wouldn't we expect the reader to hear the voice of EB White, a man, in the final text?
Scott - interesting point. The site itself says, "The content, knowledge of the material, age of the author, nationality, experience, occupation, and education level can all impact writing styles. For example, a woman who has spent 20 years working in a male-dominated field may write like her co-workers. Similarly, professional female writers (and experienced hobbyists) frequently use male writing styles. Gender Guesser does not take any of these factors into account."
I don't know if I count a professional writer, although I am both a professional and a writer.
But what accounts for the theory that "weak emphasis" is European?
I kinda think I'd come across "male" as well... Roaring female that I am, regardless...
Where might I find this gender determiner?
I thought I'd run my more recent post through it (http://prettywittyrant.blogspot.com/2011/01/country-song-cheetos-and-cookie-dough.html) since it was all political and shtuff...
Oh... Gender Guesser. I see it now.
D'oh.
Janae - So how did it go? Are you a pink or a blue in writerly terms?
Scott, since we were all women's fiction writers, I doubt that accounts for it. :)
Also, good writing means keeping the adjectives and adverbs to a minimum--it's something we're always reminding each other in crit group. I really don't think there's a program that can detect your gender based on your writing style. Good writing is good writing, regardless of the gender, yet these programs all seem to think good writing is male.
OTOH, I can often detect who wrote a piece based on the author's own style, which is almost as telling as a fingerprint!
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