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

[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.