On to the next thing - Answers to the "What Gender am I" exercise.

[featherynscale]

As promised, the results and answers to the first round of the "What Gender Am I?" game.

1. Courk. 95% of respondents thought that Courk was male, and they were wrong. Courk is female.
2. MeMe. 95% of respondents thought that MeMe was female, and they were right.
3. Jadesmar. Most people (80%) thought that Jadesmar was female, but they were also wrong. Jadesmar is a guy.
4. Sofis. 70% thought that Sofis was female, but they, too were wrong - Sofis is a beautiful and decadent boy.
5. Werebear 80% thought that Werebear was male, and indeed he is, and apparently quite furry.
6. JDTAY. 85% thought that JDTAY was male, and they were also right.
7. Hitchhiker. 80% thought that Hitchhiker was male, but she is, in fact, a girl.
8. Lepton. 90% thought that Lepton was male, which is true.
9. Pie_is_good. The populace was divided on the issue of Pie_is_good, with 50% choosing female and 45% choosing male. Pie_is_good lists himself as male.
10. The Critic. 90% thought that The Critic would be male, but no. She is female.
11. Serenity. 95% thought that Serenity was female, but they were wrong.
12. EEEM. 70% thought that EEEM was male, but they were also wrong. EEEM is a beautiful redheaded chick.
13. L'lanmal. Also a divider, not a uniter, 50% thought that L'lanmal was female, and 45% said male. L'lanmal is male.
14. IrishDrums04. 63.2% thought that IrishDrums04 was male, but she is a girl.
15. TANSTAAFL. 60% thought TANSTAAFL was male, but she is also a girl.

So here's the scoop. On 11 of 15 items, 70% or more of respondents chose the same option. (N=20, for those keeping score at home. Sample is small, but this is for personal amusement, not for publication.) On the 11 items that 70% or more agreed on, the crowd was correct 4 times, and incorrect 7 times. On the closer items, the majority was incorrect on all 4 items. The simple majority of respondents were able to correctly determine gender 4 times out of 15.

So now what I want to know is this: Why did you answer the way you did? What made you think that a name was male or female? You don't have to tell me about everybody, just the ones you're able to articulate a reason on (or just the ones you want to talk about).

Also, apologies to saberkitty, who knew everybody.

Comments

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

1. Courk. Male ("urk" looks male to me)
2. MeMe. Female (names ending in 'e' and repetitious names often seem female)
3. Jadesmar. Female (Jade is a fairly common female name, though I had to wonder if it was possessive (Jade's..)
4. Sofis. Male (Actually inverse logic to above - Sofi sounds female, therefore this could be "Sofi's man". Also, it sounds like something off of Star Trek)
5. Knew Werebear was male, but would have guessed it anyway.
6. JDTAY. Female (I worked with a guy named JD, and my own initials are the same. therefore metaknowledge says you wouldn't include the name unless it was supposed to be ambiguous)
7. Hitchhiker. Male (the old show The Hitchhiker biased me)
8. Lepton. Male (science name, plus -on ending)
9. Pie_is_good. Female (although you told me the answer to this one the other day, I had always had in mind that 'pie' was female)
10. The Critic. Male (definite article speaks of self-assuredness, men are socialized to be more critical than females)
11. Serenity. Female (common name/screen name for women)
12. EEEM. Male (reminded me of IEEE, the engineering association, which is composed of mostly men)
13. L'lanmal. Male (tough one - the apparent foreign language made it ambiguous, but the end looks like 'animal', which tends to be a masculine epithet)
14. IrishDrums04. Female (couldn't tell you why though, possibly the same as #6)
15. TANSTAAFL. Female (no idea why, you may have told me the answer one day a long time ago)

How's that?

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

My question is what made you choose the ones you did? I figured that most were not what they seemed (in effect trick questions) and almost reversed any of the ones I was "sure" of, which would have brought my correct score up. In the interest of science I stuck with my gut reaction. Many of my gut reactions related to whether the name had "tough" or "rough" connotations for male (hard consonant sounds predominant) and "soft" connotations for female.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Actually, these were chosen at random - I randomly pulled a load of names (about forty) from the mafiascum and grey labyrinth member lists, and eliminated those with explicit gender clues (including words like boy/girl, Mr., Miss, and first names). I then took the first fifteen on the list that remained. More than half had to be eliminated, which I thought was interesting. I wasn't intending them to be trick questions, just names without explicit cues.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it was the originator of the name who desired a level of confusion/annonimity. (I just hate being wrong about anything mostly)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Hard to say. "Why did you choose your screen name?" is perhaps a question for another day. :)

[kittenpants.livejournal.com]

1. Courk. I pondered and flipped back and forth on this one. Don't even remember what I ended up choosing.
2. MeMe. Sounds like "Mimi", which is a french poodle sort of name. I agree with triadruid and repetitive names with lots of e's -- female.
3. Jadesmar. Actually, I had this fellow down as male first, then changed to female later because of "Jade" -- a feminine name.
4. Sofis. What can I say? I was thinking it was a variant of the Greek name/noun Sophia.
5. Werebear -- most women don't like to think of themselves as large, hairy, and vicious. Especially the hairy part. But men can be proud of it.
6. JDTAY. -- JD is a fairly masculine set of initials, and it looks name-based. I guess I think more men use screennames based on real names, and women are more likely to use something more imaginative, as camouflage.
7. Hitchhiker. -- male, but just because I was thinking of Fear & Loathing...
8. Lepton. -- uber-geeky. :) Once you pass a certain degree of hard-science geekiness, I just assume male.
9. Pie_is_good. -- again, I flipped back and forth here.
10. The Critic. -- I was thinking of the TV show. :)
11. Serenity. -- It's a woman's name as well as a 'feminine' attribute.
12. EEEM. -- repetition of e's, so female.
13. L'lanmal. -- French-looking. Very few men wil admit to liking this language, so female.
14. IrishDrums04. -- I hesitated here, but based this on Carey's Frame Drum Theory™ -- Irish frame drums are played in the masculine style. But it's dead sexy when a woman does it... but that could just be me.
15. TANSTAAFL. -- Heinlein-based. Many women consider Heinlein to be a misogynist, and sci-fi still has more male fans than female, though that gap is closing. I played the odds.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad to know that I scored slightly better than the simple majority...

For most of mine I just went with gut instinct, which is demostrably wrong.

I remember thinking on TANSTAAFL that I always went with that, so that's why I picked female for that one.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Ack! I almost started reading your comments before responding - that would have skewed my responses terribly.

Anyway.

1. Courk. Sounds like 'cork.' Cork goes in the bottle.

2. MeMe. Similar in construction to 'Bebe' - which I associate with women's clothes, and hence women.

3. Jadesmar. One of the definitions of 'jade' is a particular type of woman.

4. Sofis. Looks like a term of endearment for 'Sofia.'

5. Werebear. Big. Hairy. Very masculine.

6. JDTAY. I have no idea.

7. Hitchhiker. Hitchhiking is commonly portrayed as dangerous for women, ergo a hitchhiker would be more likely male.

8. Lepton. Appears to be a masculine form, like 'Anton.' Feminine would be Leptonia, or Leptia.

9. Pie_is_good. I like pie.

10. The Critic. There's a male cartoon character named 'The Critic.'

11. Serenity. I know a woman named Serenity.

12. EEEM. I have no idea.

13. L'lanmal. Seems like it could be another masculine name in the same language (Arabic?) as Jamal.

14. IrishDrums04. When I visualize an Irish person playing drums, it's a man.

15. TANSTAAFL. GYSAKYAG.*



*Grab your socks and kiss your ass goodbye.

Re: what gender

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Sounds like much fun; wish I had time to look at it. I'll bookmark and and hopefully make it back to it later. But past experience says that I will never have enough time. Thank you for it anyway though...

Re: what gender

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I think there will be one more round of this game upcoming - you could catch in then, if you liked. I had 20 people respond to this one, including one person I didn't know had an LJ, and one random person from Paris who I didn't even know, so that wasn't too bad, really.