[Mark Allinson]

I see that Robin has a poem on TDE which suggests that there is a difference between male and female writing.

Do you believe there is a difference?

I found this site:

http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

"Inspired by an article and a test 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."

You just paste in a sample of text (about 500 words is required), and it tells you if the writer is male or female.

I tried four or five prose pieces of mine, and they all come back as "Male".

I tried a letter from Emily D. = "Female"

Another letter from Virginia W. = "Female"

Give it a try with your own samples, or just explain your opinion on the matter.

[Laura Heidy-Halberstein]

Whee, fun, Mark. Although it's a bit confusing.

I tried 3 poems, two blog entries and two prose pieces. Two of three poems came back male, both blog entries came back male and both prose peices came back female.

So my final score was 4 - male and 3 - female.

I'm pretty happy with that, to be honest. I couldn't tell you why, though, coz I don't know.

[Maryann Corbett]

I gave it a 600-word batch of blog entries. It thinks I'm male, but just barely (871 to 837).

The algorithm seems to be looking only at the uses of particular words, and its patterns look crazy to me. "Is" and "are" are feminine words, but "was" is masculine?? Articles are feminine?? It's way too simplistic. There may well be differences in men's and women's writing styles generally, but I have my doubts that this little tool gets at them.

[Mark Allinson]

Interesting results, Lo and Maryann.

I just tried a Catherine Mansfield short story = "Female"

Everything I put in of mine = "Male" (by a long way)

But a short story from Joseph Conrad = "Female"

Weird.

Maryann, I don't think that it's just the presence of those key words, but the frequency with which they are used that determines the gender.

Anyway, the site was just a way into the discussion.

[Allen Tice]

I saw this mentioned in a science magazine some time ago, and recall that the algorithm looks for words and phrases coded in English for interpersonal warmth, coziness, and casualness, and weights these as feminine. The male weighting is for less intimate locutions and 'drier' phraseology. Since reading that I have myself been guessing at the authorship of New York Times articles and other material. I've been right about 75% of the time I think, maybe better.

Allen

[Quincy Lehr]

Well, my prose seems to read as pretty strongly male. As for three long, relatively recent poems, two read as male, while the third, the most wistful and presumably "lyrical" of the lot, came back as "female."

[Mark Allinson]

... while the third, the most wistful and presumably "lyrical" of the lot, came back as "female."

Quincy, you'll have to get a hair-cut, you big Jessie!

Seriously, I have put quite a few poems in - I paste a handful together so the sample is big enough, the small word-counts might not be enough to go on.

Here is the latest response:

Words: 976
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 689
Male Score: 1500

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

That's a big differential!

I am so BUTCH!!!

[Mark Allinson]

Well, this result might be of interest to Mary.

I put in six sizable random slabs of text from each one of six Shakespeare plays - here's the result:

Coriolanus:

1273 female
1110 male

= "Female"

Antony and Cleopatra:

1540 female
594 male

= "Female"

Macbeth:

614 female
616 male

= "Male" (but only just)

Hamlet:

1093 female
955 male

= "Female"

Othello:

1541 female
1076 male

= "Female"

Love's Labour Lost:

1281 female
934 male

= "Female"

So Mary, the gender genie agrees with you that Shakespeare was a woman!

[Mary Meriam]

Of course Shakespeare was written by a woman: Mary Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke. Everyone knows that.

When I finished reading everything by Conrad, I said to myself, "Now, that's a man!" I think what I really meant, though, is that's a human. I loved his books.

[Mark Allinson]

Before you get too excited about the Shakespeare result, Mary, check this one:

Spenser's sonnets:

Female Score: 1137
Male Score: 283

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

VERY female indeed.

But I don't think anyone has claimed that a woman wrote the Amoretti.

Jeffers' writing, as Wendy once said, is very masculine, and the progam confirms this:

Robinson Jeffers

Female Score: 877
Male Score: 1212

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

But what about that great masculinist, sexist pig, Bertie Lawrence:

D.H. Lawrence

Female Score: 1741
Male Score: 1369

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

?????????????