Gender Genie

[fileg]

vulgarweed was playing with the Gender Genie, so of course I had to as well...

Inspired by an article in The New York Times Magazine, the Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author.

I randomly ran some of my stories - everything I submitted came back male. Interesting. I think my writing is marked ny my use of triads and adjectives, and is all basically relationship oriented (not romantic relationships, but the interactions between people.) On the otherhand, I think my style is straightforward and simple. Hmmmm.



All of Them Together
Female Score: 1644
Male Score: 2433
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!


As Truly As The Arrow Flies
Female Score: 1372
Male Score: 2141
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!


Slouching Toward Gondolin
Female Score: 698
Male Score: 1323
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male

Breathe
Female Score: 1171
Male Score: 1867
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male

Comments

[22by7.livejournal.com]

three out of the nine fics i have on my ficjournal are 'male'.
what are triads?

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

More of my writing is male than female, both fic and blogs. And when I do score as female, it's usually a matter of a few points as opposed to the male scores which are all overwhelming.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

Well, I think the Gender Genie makes the assumption that women mainly write either about women or about themselves. Of the sixteen "female" words designated by the Genie, a quarter of them refer to women or the self: her, she, hers, me, myself. Then there are with, we, and and, which all imply togetherness or joining, as does your to a certain extent. And then there are not and should, which pass judgments.

The "male" words, on the other hand, are mainly just simple, effective bits of narrative, like said, the, a, at, to, and it. Men are supposed to be more spatially oriented, which explains why above, below, and around are considered "male" words; but as for the rest -- what, were, are, who, these, many -- most of them are bound to turn up in any decent story, aren't they?

Basically, I think the Genie can only identify women who write explicitly like women. Writing that comes up as "male" isn't really masculine, but rather genderless. Which explains why all the stories I like come up as male when I put them through the Genie. :)

[aspidites.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I entered four passages of my fic, and got "male" for three out of four - and the three "male" scores won by pretty wide margins, while the "female" score was a close decision.

I wonder if the poor thing has more trouble with fiction than, say, journal entries, especially with action narrative and dialogue? That would tend to have the "male", spatially-oriented words, regardless of the gender of the author.

[mrkinch.livejournal.com]

Turned out my "long" recent entry about gardens and food and birds was still under 500 words! And overwhelmingly male, which was a surprise, leading me to bet that TMI and whining come up female.

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

I tried my recent review of a political essay, and was told in no uncertain terms that I am male... then I submitted a part of one of my stories and my blog entry about my birthday dinner and was relieved to note that I am female after all.

However, when I put in a part of a story that a male friend wrote, he came up as a she...

*is getting worried*

;-)

I think that shows there's a certain bias somewhere in that algorhythm, if it's so easy to fool...

[meckinock.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's interesting; and your scores were pretty decisive, too. The pasages I tested came out a mix of male and female. Not sure this alogrithm would hold up in court!

[gookachu.livejournal.com]

those algorithms are based on amusing assumptions of how men and women supposedly communicate. like the poster said above, it picks out specific words, and calculates the number of times they are used. women supposedly don't use self-referential pronouns as much, but instead use other pronouns, like he, she, them, etc. women supposedly do not use the pronouns me, i, and myself as much as men. the assumption is that women are more socially aware of other people, and socialised to be less concerned with themselves.

it's a pretty retarded algorithm because it's based off assumptions that are not scientifically verifiable, and based on gender stereotypes.

[shebit.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Apparently my fanfiction - I tested one PotC and a handfull of LotR - is quite male, but I tested a few chapters from my novel and they all came out quite closely tied between male and female, but the female just edging into the lead.

[bell-witch.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that I came out female, although I'd like to see more ratios of various people. I have so few fics on this computer yet to pick from. The Harry Potter story "Whatever It Takes" came out 10,692 male and 12,768 female. That's the longest story I put in, though it holds true that the longer things are higher in the male words.

Since I am female, I shouldn't be surprised. But I wonder what the little fangirly stories turn up as, ratio-wise. First off, their 'chapters' are not likely to have 500+ words. Should look through ffn to see what I can come up with. It's amusing.