In which I have women's problems

[steepholm]

I was miffed by the GenderAnalyzer's conclusion that I was 99% male - based on certain 'strong indicators' that seem to be scattered through my LJ. Personally I can't see what these are - perhaps I'm the last to know - but I'm curious whether the analyzer works by looking at vocabulary alone, or collocations, or more nebulous things such as sentence structure. Or some combination of the three. Or, of course, something else entirely. (For what it's worth, it seemed to think quite a large proportion of my predominantly-female flist was male as well.)

Anyway, since it only looks at the latest page of one's blog in making its decisions, I should be able to sway it at least by a few percentage points, simply by including some vocabulary and phrases that seem more likely to appear in 'female' posts.

So, for the sake of testing the system, I'm dropping in the following:

My husband was in Miss Selfridge the other day, trying on make-up, when in came Victoria Beckham wearing a gorgeous ruched skirt. He's such a fangirl for David (squee!) that he didn't even notice. You know what men are like! If only I hadn't been at home with cramps, some knitting and the latest Stephanie Meyer I'd have been able ask for her autograph.

Results shortly...

ETA: Interesting - it wasn't swayed at all. Those strong indicators of maleness, whatever they are, seem to have overwhelmed everything else, and 99% likely to be a man I remain. Hmm.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

99% is impressive. I'm 70% likely to be a woman (the clue might be in the username, do you think?).

On the other hand, if you click through to the 'Did we get you right?' page, the vote is something like 52% yes, 48% no. Which isn't far off the accuracy you'd get by tosing a coin, is it?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Ha, you beat me to it...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The sad truth is that it took me a while to pick up the Rider Haggard reference in your name. I was reading it as 'shew' (the Jane Austen spelling!) for a bit, and wondering what 'homust' was.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Clearly you haven't read / watched enough Rumpole.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you confessed to that: I did the same thing. Even after I realised it breaks down differently I have to concentrate on not splitting it after the w.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I was 99% male, too (though I did eventually find one woman friend who was 100% female). I note that the poll on "Did GenderAnalyzer give the correct result for your blog?" is running at 52% correct, 48% incorrect. Without knowledge of likely gender bias in blogs, that sounds plausible for random results, doesn't it?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes it does - which is reassuring, I think. I wonder whether it might be the mention of Doctor Who that correlated so strongly with a Y-chromosome?

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I remember reading somewhere that the gender analyzer mainly looks for grammatical features. I don't remember which features matter, but I have a dreadful suspicion that formal prose with complex syntax is a sign of masculinity.

(If true, that's not problematic at all, is it?)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

It sounds horribly likely.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

If it works on grammatical features I'd be wondering whether those assumptions are pre-programmed, or whether it refines its algorithm as it goes, in the light of the results it gets. If - which I doubt - there really is a noticeable gender difference in writing styles it would more insidiously problematic than some programmer with bunch of stereotypes in his/her head.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that my "100% woman" friend mentions Doctor Who regularly!

It might be better on detecting sexual orientation, as I got something on the lines of "male at a guess but quite gender neutral" for a male gay friend, and "female at a guess but quite gender neutral" for a female gay friend. But that was a sample of two, so doesn't prove anything.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

That's interesting... I've just been back, and now they think I'm 100% woman.

So either they've worked out a much better method for analysing gender in the intervening four and a half hours, or the results are entirely random. Unless they logged the fact that I'd used the poll to tell them they were wrong, which would give them 100% certainty about the correct answer?

I'd be interested to know if you got the same answer on a later visit.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I now seem to be 100% woman as well, by St Tiresias! And I didn't tell them whether they were right or wrong before, so that can't be the reason. I've tried a few other people, and everyone now seems to be a woman of some description, though not all are as extreme in their womanliness as thee and me.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I'm quite gender neutral, but female at a guess.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

I got female - probably all my exclamation points and parentheses. I have to admit I was rather hoping for male, which just goes to show ... something, doesn't it?

Perhaps you need a Buffy icon rather than your rather solid looking island.

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

I'm 100% female too...very weird. Possibly your exclamation mark explanation is correct. Or the fact that half my entries say "happy" which might make me a chirpy female rather than a grumpy male.

Or the emma emma emma everywhere?

I wonder what the 1% female part of your blog is Steepholm?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the 1% female part of your blog is Steepholm?

I'd love to know! And I've written two books in the female first-person too...

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Woo Hoo! I just tried it again on my latest entry and it came up 51% male and the rest gender neutral. Go figure... but I have to say that for some bizarre reason, I'm chuffed.

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

Well, to be logical about this (seeing as the test is so precise), how much is 1% of a page? Two sentences? You just need to find the two sentences that have poor grammar or use exclamation marks and you're set!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you need a Buffy icon rather than your rather solid looking island.

On the other hand, no man is an island!

[intertext.livejournal.com]

heh. But then you could be Odysseus...

[sovay]

I dropped my livejournal in and got 84% male. Go know.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Muddle, or mystery? You decide.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I tried it on my public blog, and am 76% male. IIRC, it looks at the kinds of verbs you use first -- so people who write at all like academics tend to be seen as male :-)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Tipped off by kalypso_v, I found just now that my result has changed radically in the last few hours. And you, as of a minute ago, are 99% female.

I'm beginning to suspect the whole thing is kind of sucky!

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

My work blog it is 91% sure is written by a man.

My LJ, it is 100% sure is written by a woman.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"Your personality test results are rather confusing, Dr Jekyll..."

[gair.livejournal.com]

Me: work blog 65% woman; LJ 97% woman. (I wonder if this icon helped?)

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Seems to be doing the rounds: http://karinmollberg.livejournal.com/28233.html?thread=318025#t318025 I am 100% female as Karin Mollberg butt 99% male as http://community.livejournal.com/theboringclub/profile so who am I? Will I ever really get to know?