The Gender Genie

[ToSeek]

The Gender Genie (http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php)

Inspired by an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/magazine/10WWLN.html?ex=1061784000&en=843e4c97d49a9f82&ei=5070) and a test (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/magazine/10wwln-test.html?ex=1168059600&en=a6ad778afcb6699a&ei=5070) in The New York Times Magazine, the Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm (http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/%7Ekoppel/papers/male-female-text-final.pdf) developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author. Read more at BookBlog (http://bookblog.net/bbarchives/categories/gender_genie.php), The New York Times (http://pam_oconnell.tripod.com/91103.txt), and The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1079265,00.html).

Simply type or paste your text in the box below. Choose a genre and click submit for the results.


Apparently I write nonfiction like a boy and fiction like a girl. Go figure.

[Tog_]

Mystery and Suspense I write mostly male.
Smut and Action I write mostly female.
Nonfiction was mostly male.
Blog was female.

Very few seemed to be more than a 25% difference either way

[Wolf-S]

Fiction: Mostly male, usually somewhere in between
Non-fiction: Strongly male

[Fazor]

Both Fiction and Non-Fiction was male for me (*whew!* ;)) Although my non-fiction was much closer (something like 1200pts female to 1400 male). I guess that makes sense, as I try to be as neutral as possible when writing non-fiction.

[Fraser]

I just put in a bunch of Universe Today articles.

Female Score: 640
Male Score: 1461

[tofu]

sheesh. I was just about to give up hope and turn gay, since it kept telling me I was female. Then I got the idea to paste people's BAUT posts, and I went back and found some long ones by JayUtah and it said he was female too. So now I take that as a compliment.

It appears that "and" is what is flagging me as a female.

this post was flagged as male btw ;-)

[LurchGS]

hrm - I must be on a different site - my scores (for all three text types) was flatly 160 F to 311 M

[Maksutov]

For non-fiction (I used a post from the CT forum), it was

Words: 172
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 116
Male Score: 322
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
http://bookblog.net/gender/male1.gif



Now to dig up some fiction from way back when...

[Tog_]

hrm - I must be on a different site - my scores (for all three text types) was flatly 160 F to 311 M

Were you using different text each time. In my case, I put up about 10 fiction stories in the different classes I listed. For non-fiction, I put up some explanations of the game I play and something I wrote several years ago on martial arts. For blog I used th the only one I had, but it covered three different entries. I think you need a larger sample size. Having the same numbers for all three means that all three times you used the same text from what I gathered on how it's supposed to work.

[Gillianren]

My review of The Magnificent Seven--the latest review in my journal, which I count as nonfiction rather than a blog--comes out as 490 male, 254 female. The chunk of short story I entered into it (from the perspective of a male character) came out 692 male, 431 female. My grammar text comes out 7712 male, 4134 female. And, finally, the chunk of book I fed it (from the perspective of several different characters) came out 3798 female, 3016 male. All four samples that I fed it were by me.

[LurchGS]

I think you need a larger sample size. Having the same numbers for all three means that all three times you used the same text from what I gathered on how it's supposed to work.

Ah - that would explain it. THey need a result "too darn lazy for this test to mean anything"

[mugaliens]

My review of The Magnificent Seven--the latest review in my journal, which I count as nonfiction rather than a blog--comes out as 490 male, 254 female. The chunk of short story I entered into it (from the perspective of a male character) came out 692 male, 431 female. My grammar text comes out 7712 male, 4134 female. And, finally, the chunk of book I fed it (from the perspective of several different characters) came out 3798 female, 3016 male. All four samples that I fed it were by me.

How do you feel about that, Gillianren?

I did it again, this time using a letter I'd written to be read at a friend of mine's retirement. With that letter, I scored about 11% more male than female.

[Gillianren]

How do you feel about that, Gillianren?

I did it again, this time using a letter I'd written to be read at a friend of mine's retirement. With that letter, I scored about 11% more male than female.

I feel it shows the concept to be flawed, frankly. My grammar text is not in my usual style, but it's awfully close. It's in my teaching style, which apparently comes across to the system as male. I feel it's a long-enough sample so that, if the system were valid, it would show my writing up as female. I've half a mind to feed it more lengthy samples by more authors, but if they're thinking this thing is all that accurate, I will have to disagree just based on this thread.

[tdvance]

oh no!!!!

Actually, all it means is the test is flawed.


Words: 1534
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 2164
Male Score: 2152

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

[Gemini]

Fiction:
Female Score: 1099
Male Score: 1899

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Nonfiction:
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

[cjl]

I fed mine a few things, and got a result of slightly male...

2 samples that I fed it registered male, and one registered as female, neither by an extremely large margin...

[mugaliens]

I feel it shows the concept to be flawed, frankly. My grammar text is not in my usual style, but it's awfully close. It's in my teaching style, which apparently comes across to the system as male. I feel it's a long-enough sample so that, if the system were valid, it would show my writing up as female. I've half a mind to feed it more lengthy samples by more authors, but if they're thinking this thing is all that accurate, I will have to disagree just based on this thread.

So your grammar text is your teaching text (male) but something like what you might put in a journal or a diary would come out as more female?

Funny, but I've always gotten the impression from reading your posts that you were female!

[Gillianren]

So your grammar text is your teaching text (male) but something like what you might put in a journal or a diary would come out as more female?

No, my fiction does--somewhat. My movie review came out male, too, as did one of my fiction pieces that was shorter and from a male perspective. Maybe I should feed the system more of my work and see what results I get.

Funny, but I've always gotten the impression from reading your posts that you were female!

There are those who have not. I think more females are called "Gillian" these days, though "Gillian" with the hard "g" is a male name.

[mugaliens]

No, my fiction does--somewhat. My movie review came out male, too, as did one of my fiction pieces that was shorter and from a male perspective. Maybe I should feed the system more of my work and see what results I get.

There are those who have not. I think more females are called "Gillian" these days, though "Gillian" with the hard "g" is a male name.

I tried it out a few more times, and discovered an interesting trend:

Technical writing, I'm about 50% more male than female.

Blog entries, I'm about 30% more male than female.

Discussing issues with an open mind, where I'm not trying to hammer a point home, but rather, trying to get more information, or merely considering the various issues, speculatively, I'm equally male/female.

Prose, where I'm marvelling at life's wonders, such as a recent post on sunsets, I'm almost always about 20% female.

Why is that? Is it merely the change of one's mind, one's perspective, required to achieve thoughts along different lines? Could it simply be that more introspective thought leads to a change in the way one pens those thoughts to paper, and that females tend to be more introspective or contemplative than males, while males tend to be more absolute in their thinking?

By the way, Gillianren, I wasn't aware that you pronounced your name with a soft "G." Even now, when I see it, it looks like a hard G, as in Gillian Anderson of the X files (or is her's pronounced with a soft G, too?)

[Gillianren]

Hers is a soft "G," too.

[Disinfo Agent]

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male! :)

I tried the same text both as non-fiction and as a blog entry. It was a post of mine here at the BAUT (Words: 219). Got the same result for both. My :mad: connection is so slow today that I've lost the patience to try it with longer posts. I'll leave you with my ranking. ;)

Female Score: 157
Male Score: 365

[Doodler]

I used the biography for my EVE Online character as a fiction example, nailed male 300, female 289.

According to my last post in this thread http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=59009&page=2 The rather long winded response to Noclevername, I'm a female blogger.:surprised::doh:

Female Score: 937
Male Score: 878


OK, I call bovine byproduct on this "test".

[mugaliens]

Hers is a soft "G," too.

(smile)

That sounds so much more appealing!

Glad to know that it's that and not the other, Gillianren.

[Gillianren]

(smile)

That sounds so much more appealing!

Glad to know that it's that and not the other, Gillianren.

Doesn't it, though?

I know someone who goes by "Gillian" with a hard "G"; I don't actually know what his real name is. But he's indeed male, and the only person I know or know of who uses the hard "G," so I've tended to assume it's a male/female difference.

[mickal555]

I'm all man


Female Score: 79
Male Score: 225

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

What a shame..

[mickal555]

Tried it around a bit, got a female reading- horray:

Words: 586
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 1375
Male Score: 657
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!


I was writing from a perpective of a female though.

[Nicolas]

I don't even *want* to know what a 19 year old guy (sorry if I'm a few years off, no offense) writes from a female perspective. ;)

[mickal555]

16 :p

[farmerjumperdon]

Sounds like something right out of Psychology Today; pop psych at it's pinnacle. Good for trivial entertainment, in a parlor games sort of way, but not to be confused as having any real meaning.

[Tobin Dax]

16 :p

You're not really helping yourself, mickal. ;)

[South East]

:doh: :hand: The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: unknown!

http://bookblog.net/gender/unknown1.gif



The Gender Genie is completely confounded. Try going back to the text box and entering a different text.

:whistle: