[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."

[Robin-Kemp]

Oh, Mark, you did have to go there...!

Results for the poem you mentioned, with lines by the following girlypoet dilettantes, artfully arranged into a rabid feminist poetics screed by yours truly:

E Bishop, Pink Dog (Rio de Janeiro): Naked, you trot across the avenue.
Suzanne Noguere, The Scribes: upon the page as if light filtered through

Mary Jo Salter, What Do Women Want?: stops short to raise two cones, one in each hand,
Carolyn Kizer, Three: In the expectation of glory: she writes like a man!


Suzanne Noguere, Whirling Round the Sun: Sometimes it seems almost beyond belief
Marilyn Hacker, Eight Days in April: I broke a glass, got bloodstains on the sheet.


Mary Kinzie, Ringing Words: "Forget," said the voice politic, "that place/
Suzanne Noguere, The Scribes: that is its usefulness. It is the space
Marilyn Taylor, II. Porter Powell's Wife: and slaps me, hard, three times across the face.

Carolyn Kizer, Two (from Pro Femina): Meanwhile, have you used your mind today?
Molly Peacock, Anger Sweetened: we caught and candied it so it would stay
Marilyn Taylor, How Aunt Eudora Became a Post-Modern Poet: Remember, you're a girl. So write that way.

The results?...

Words: 98
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 90
Male Score: 165

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

Q.E.D.
Robin

[Gail White]

I haven't played the genie game yet, but you can find all kinds of literature these days on the differences between male and female writing (Writing a Woman's Life, by Carolyn Heilbrun, is a good example).

I have always been reluctant to believe in such differences, being of Coleridge's opinion that great minds are androgynous, but what can you do when you're up against science and computers?

PS: I suggest that someone with more time on his hands than I have feed the genie some selections from detective novels by men & women & see what comes back.

[A. E. Stallings]

I am apparently "male". Guess that's why I go by my initials...

[Mark Allinson]

Sylvia Plath's Poetry

Female Score: 1139
Male Score: 1909

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


Donne's Poetry

Female Score: 2333
Male Score: 1292

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

Methinks the GG should shut up now and hop back into the lamp!