I refer, of course, to thispiece of flapdoodle alleged to distinguish between male and female writers based on, I supposed, their auras. Just for yuks, I’ve submitted four pieces from four different works of mine–two non-fiction & two fiction–and each time it has declared me female.
Anybody know anything about this or have any experience with it you wish to share?
I know one thing about it (not from experience fortunately, but from reading piles and piles of short fantasy fiction):
Never give a genie an open invitation to determine any aspect of your identity.
What the hell were you thinking, asking the “Gender Genie” whether you’re male or female? Just accept it: you’re a girl.
I’ve heard that it detects what sort of underwear one is wearing. Boxers and it says male, but panties and…
peers at Skald
I didn’t have to put up with crap like this when I had satellite-mounted change-all-humans-into-orangutans cannons pointed at everybody.
Well, that was useless. Four pieces submitted. All fiction. Two came back as “male”, two came back as “female”.
I picked a few random pieces of nonfiction freelance jobs: 3/4 were adjudged male. (The one that said female was the shortest, under 300 words.)
I also ran two emails; one to a potential suitor (female – phew!) and the other to a former lover who’s now a pal (male).
So, I’m 2/3 male, more so professionally.
Pretty doggone scientific, sez I.
Of course it was useless. Look who started the thread: the most useless wanker in all of Christendom!
Damn, the Genie pronounces you female even when you’re talking about satellite-mounted orangutan cannons.
Do you actually have any evidence that you were ever a guy?
A little bit more seriously, there was a thread about a thing like this way back (not the Gender Genie, but similar software.) I put in dialog from my male and female characters and they came back male and female. So that actually made me quite happy, even if it was probably false positives.
I like to lift big weights with my big he-man muscles. Then I like to sweat like a pig and scarf down a bucket of ribs before letting out a huge honkin’ fart. You know, the kind of fart that lasts three minutes and makes the dog leave the room. Then I like to boink a few Hooters girls before heading out to play golf with the dudes. Then we head off to the bar to do some shots and hit on chicks. Later on, we’ll take a tour of some construction sites and boast about how we could build whatever it is even better.
Female Score: 144
Male Score: 91
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!
It thinks I’m a guy 3 times out of 4.
Apparently, the algorithm counts up instances of words associated with male versus female writers. What surprised me was what the words in question were:
Male words (strongest to weakest): around, what, more, are, as, who, below, is, these, the, a, at, it, many, said, above, to.
Female words (ditto): with, if, not, where, be, when, your, her, we, should, she, and, me, myself, hers, was.
Lots of “we” and “with” and “and”. Men talk about “who” and “it” and “to”. Supposedly.
OK, I admit it. I really enjoy spending time with the guys. The Hooters girls are just a front.
I submitted a column that I wrote in yesterday’s paper:
Female Score: 70
Male Score: 171
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
Oops. Well, it was a sports column! Dumb genie.
I got a 50/29 score against my gender so I’m off to look for a purse so I have something to swing at the creator of the program.
Female, 1691 to 1551
Female, 5873 to 5854
Male, 1912 to 2055
Male, 856 to 1045
Male, 1855 to 2297
Male, 1258 to 1365
Apparently my blog entries are all female and most of my fiction is male. Odd.
It correctly identified me as female. I only did one sample.
It looks like it’s doing it entirely by word choice. From the list (of words I used):
Feminine Keywords:
[with] [if] [not] [where] [be] [when] [your] [her] [we] [should] [she] [and] [me] [myself] [hers] [was]
Masculine Keywords:
[around] [what] [more] [are] [as] [who] [below] [is] [these] [the] [a] [at] [it] [many] [said] [above] [to]
So us girls get the feminine pronouns and the W prepositions (contextual perpositions?), and the guys get the articles and positional prepositions. How can anyone be labeled female if using ‘the’ or ‘a’ is masculine?
I submitted five samples of my writing.
Each was then declared to be male.
:smack::smack::smack:
What do I have to do, wear high heels and lipstick"?
I don’t have any writing samples that are large enough - it says it works best with samples over 500.
I took a few of my posts here and 3 out of 4 times it decided that I am a woman. (I am male.)
I did a couple of my blog entries, and it declared me female. Which I am, as you can probably tell from the slit.