Kaye introduced me to The Gender Genie a while back and I thought some visitors here might be interested in my results.
I tested my novel (the opening chapters at least) and they came back accurately guessed to be written by a female. So, as there was a “blog post” catigory, I started playing with random posts to check the genie’s continued accuracy.
I found the results interesting, and possibly inflammatory, depending on who wants to interpret them.
The personal story/relational ones I checked came back with the guess they were written by a female:
- “Is Homemaking enough or isn’t it?” part 2 and part 3
- My last morning with Grandma
- “Helping my husband help me”
And my analytical/practical advice stuff came back with the guess it was written by a male:
- “Is Homemaking enough or isn’t it?” part 1 and part 4
- The article on wedding-night advice (I thought this result was *too* funny)
ETA: I checked a number of my male-centered Tuesday Tales and these also came back as male-written.
I find this somewhat gratifying, maybe for the same reason no woman wants to hear “You throw like a girl,” when playing a sport with men.
Going beyond basic politeness, I like to be able to hold my own and prove myself a reasonably competent participant on the neutral terms (i.e., by the rules) even if they might be a bit skewed to begin with (we all know that the strongest man will always be stronger than the strongest woman).
And I’m speaking literally here, so, please, nobody pick a fight. I’ll ignore it. ;)
Submitted part of The Misericorde–thought I was a male. I thought their criteria was interesting, didn’t you?
Oh, yes, very.
It could be argued that the “female” words are largely relational (her, me, should, with) while the “male” words are more neutral and/or descriptors (as, are, above, what).
Interesting! I played around with it just a little, and put a few “narrative” posts in – all came back as female. Then I put in the text of my Right to Life speech, and it read it as overwhelmingly male.