Try the Gender Genie

[bridgeburner]

Okay, now I'm caught up and I have to say that the Gender Genie doesn't do much for me because I think the his/her pronoun thing is a HUGE flaw.

Oddly enough I read a very intriguing article about two years ago on the difference between male speech/writing versus female speech/writing. The indicators were quite a bit more complex than a word count algorithm so I doubt there's a hopper you can dump text into for it, but I found that it was generally an accurate description based on my own readings online of both male and female posters.

I'll try to find the article --- I've got a plea out currently to the friend who initially turned me onto the subject.

-B

 

[Boxlicker101]

Pure,

I think you are missing the point. If a woman writes like a man than she must be a "butch chick".

That is what ticks me off here.

Not the fact that my stories qualify as male smutt. So what.

Usually, I just note the results and say nothing more to GG. Once when I did indicate that I am a man, it told me that I write like a girl. LOL. I'm not a girl and I know it, and I don't care what they think. Since I try to write FOR women, I like the idea of being told I write LIKE a woman, and I will be editing myself to do it more in the future.

 

[Black Tulip]

Okay, gentleman.

I will try to clarify my point one more time.

I do not mind that my writing is labeled male.

What I do mind is the negative tab that is slapped on me because of it.

As a female who writes like a male I am called a butch chick.

You, Box, as a male writes like a female according to the program.
What are you called?
A girl.
Not a sissy man or a girlie johnie or whatever.

Notice the difference?
That says something about the people who developed the thing. Not the thing itself.

And yes Gary, that does get my knickers in a twist.

Major twist.

mega twist

But I still like you.

 

[bridgeburner]

Gary,

Thanks for starting this thread. I think it's been very interesting and will continue to be so.

For a couple of reasons, I don't think changing your writing according to the Gender Genie is the best course of action to make it more appealing to one gender or the other.

First, because the GG has not shown that it can adequately identify male writing v female writing. Second, because, while there probably are trends in word choice that divide along gender lines, subject, theme and structure are all more likely indicators as well as what I can only define as "focus".

An interesting experiment is to look at authors who have crossed into the other gender's genre. For instance men who write romantic fiction and women who write crime thrillers. Yes, it's a stereotype to assign gender to genres, but we're talking about general trends in writing here, not the works of any one particular author.

You'll find that the differences in these authors' voices is not attributable to how many times the pronoun "her" appears in their works, but rather to where they place focus - action or cogition, objective detail or personal detail. What's most important? The plot or how the characters feel about the plot?

If you want to appeal to a female audience, craft your style after authors that have a wide female readership.

I strongly believe that good readers make better writers and all the technical analysis in the world cannot help an author who does not like to read.


-B

 

[bridgeburner]

BT,

Gee, I didn't have any problem understanding you. Maybe it's a butch chick thing?

-B

 

[Pure]

Butch chick wrote,

And yes Gary, that does get my knickers in a twist.

You are making your fifth (or is it ninth?) posting about the automated feedback on a pop version of a computer algorithm.

If I send you some tight leather pants and black motorcycle boots, would it cure the obsession?

There's a building downtown I don't like because of the automatic voice in the elevator.

Do you often get into dialogues with these entities?

I'm not sure there's anything more to say if no one wants to read the original studies.

By the way, for the other lazy bones, I heard from Koppel and there are versions that avoid the pronoun problem (by avoiding them).

Perhaps another thread is in order (or not), on possible gender markers; yet I suppose there's not any interest in this topic (last time the main interest was in the perceived male conspiracy to take away women's rights, or some such.)

J.

 

[bridgeburner]

By the way, for the other lazy bones, I heard from Koppel and there are versions that avoid the pronoun problem

Hahaha, I'm the soul of lazy today, but as I mentioned in my post, when I change or discard the single pronoun "her" I turn up as male. When I submit my posts (I chose the "blog" categorey for them) I come up male four out of four times.

You've read the story I plugged into the GG. Would you agree with me that it's pretty obviously written by a female? Or should I maybe start taking the Viagra spam in my mailbox a little more seriously? ;->

I'm still waiting to hear back from my friend regarding male and female speech patterns. It was a fascinating article so I'm anxious to get my hands on it again.


-B

 

[Boxlicker101]

Okay, gentleman.

I will try to clarify my point one more time.

I do not mind that my writing is labeled male.

What I do mind is the negative tab that is slapped on me because of it.

As a female who writes like a male I am called a butch chick.

You, Box, as a male writes like a female according to the program.
What are you called?
A girl.
Not a sissy man or a girlie johnie or whatever.

Notice the difference?
That says something about the people who developed the thing. Not the thing itself.

.

And yes Gary, that does get my knickers in a twist.

Major twist.

mega twist

But I still like you.

I definitely see your point, BT. Saying I write like a girl is something of a compliment because I am actually tryuing to write like a woman. If they had said to me "You write like a queer", I would have been highly offended. That would have been about the same as "butch chick". If they want to say something negative like that, they should be less derogatory.

I do want to add, though, that when I was a lot younger, If somebody said "You (throw/run/play/shoot/etc.) like a girl, it was an insult, assuming that it was a reference to an athletic endeavor. This was before womens' and girls' sports were so widespread; this would probably not even be said now, since it would be such a trivial insult. Anyhow, that was the thought that occurred to me when I read it.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Butch chick wrote,

And yes Gary, that does get my knickers in a twist.

You are making your fifth (or is it ninth?) posting about the automated feedback on a pop version of a computer algorithm.

If I send you some tight leather pants and black motorcycle boots, would it cure the obsession?

There's a building downtown I don't like because of the automatic voice in the elevator.

Do you often get into dialogues with these entities?

I'm not sure there's anything more to say if no one wants to read the original studies.

By the way, for the other lazy bones, I heard from Koppel and there are versions that avoid the pronoun problem (by avoiding them).

Perhaps another thread is in order (or not), on possible gender markers; yet I suppose there's not any interest in this topic (last time the main interest was in the perceived male conspiracy to take away women's rights, or some such.)

J.

One problem I have with the Koppel program is that it can only handle a small amount of copy. My shortest story is 1300 and some words, and it did analyze that. My second shortest is just over 1,500 words and that is too long for the Koppel program to handle. The other problem is that they give very little detail as to how they arrived at a conclusion and the information they actually give is not accurate.

 

[Gary Chambers]

Okay, gentleman.

I will try to clarify my point one more time.

I do not mind that my writing is labeled male.

What I do mind is the negative tab that is slapped on me because of it.

As a female who writes like a male I am called a butch chick.

You, Box, as a male writes like a female according to the program.
What are you called?
A girl.
Not a sissy man or a girlie johnie or whatever.

Notice the difference?
That says something about the people who developed the thing. Not the thing itself.

And yes Gary, that does get my knickers in a twist.

Major twist.

mega twist

But I still like you.

Tulip, are you saying the Gender Genie actually calls you a 'butch chick', actually uses that term? I thought it just said the Gender Genie thinks the author of this piece is a male, or female, or some other benign words to that effect. When DirtySlut said it was all a male domination plot I just thought she was joking, yet Pure, are you saying a previous thread along these lines reached exactly that conclusion?

Tulip, if anyone called you a butch chick in anything but jest, then I could understand your anger, but for my part anyway, and knowing you only through your posts and submissions, I can't imagine myself assuming you are anything but feminine.

And Pure, you are right that the reliance on pronouns is a weakness, but I guess you have to consider how important the whole thing is; look at the big picture. Gender Genie showed up on another writer's group where debate and conversation is not as lively as here, so I thought I'd repost it here to see what people thought of it. I do aim a lot (not all) of my writing mainly at women, and yes, I thought Gender Genie might come in handy for that too, although you have revealed obvious flaws in that theory.

As for how many times I've posted on this thread, well that is suprising, but you see I'm astonished the thread took off this way anyway. I value the uninhibited feminine viewpoints I read here on various issues, and would not have wanted to insult anyone by sending them to a link that branded them a butch chick, unless that's what they really wanted to be.

And thanks for bothering to like me anyway, Tulip. If those twisted knickers are too uncomfortable, please feel free to mail them to me for ironing.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Tulip, are you saying the Gender Genie actually calls you a 'butch chick', actually uses that term? I thought it just said the Gender Genie thinks the author of this piece is a male, or female, or some other benign words to that effect. When DirtySlut said it was all a male domination plot I just thought she was joking, yet Pure, are you saying a previous thread along these lines reached exactly that conclusion?

Tulip, if anyone called you a butch chick in anything but jest, then I could understand your anger, but for my part anyway, and knowing you only through your posts and submissions, I can't imagine myself assuming you are anything but feminine.

And Pure, you are right that the reliance on pronouns is a weakness, but I guess you have to consider how important the whole thing is; look at the big picture. Gender Genie showed up on another writer's group where debate and conversation is not as lively as here, so I thought I'd repost it here to see what people thought of it. I do aim a lot (not all) of my writing mainly at women, and yes, I thought Gender Genie might come in handy for that too, although you have revealed obvious flaws in that theory.

As for how many times I've posted on this thread, well that is suprising, but you see I'm astonished the thread took off this way anyway. I value the uninhibited feminine viewpoints I read here on various issues, and would not have wanted to insult anyone by sending them to a link that branded them a butch chick, unless that's what they really wanted to be.

After you have run the text through, and it gives its judgement, there is a place to input whether it is right or not. If you input that it is wrong, it does make a disparaging remark. I am surprised that it would say something as nasty as "butch chick" though.

 

[Gary Chambers]

That surprises me too, Boxlicker. I may be a little jaded where this terminology is concerned, because I have a bisexual sister who often throws words like 'butch' and 'dyke' into her conversations. They don't carry such negative conotations for me anymore, but I can now understand why BT and Pure find it offensive. I did notice that Gender Genie gave a programmed response when you told it the result was wrong, but all I remembered from that response was the disclaimer that the Gender Genie was not intended to alter or question anyone's sexual orientation.

 

[raphy]

I tried this a few times, writing 500-600 word snippets as tests. It appears that I can't write like anyone but me, hehe... That said, I think there's a difference between writing like a person of the opposite gender to oneself, and getting inside the head of a person of that gender.

I'm always going to write like me, I think, regardless of how hard I try. However, my latest piece just got submitted, and (like everything else I've posted on lit) it was an exercise in writing for me, so please excuse my shamless plug here..

It's called 'What I Love', and it's not so much a story and more of a 1000-word (ish) scene. 1st person, female narrator. It reads like a Raph piece, obviously, but I was wondering if that's merely a style thing.

Oh, and it's my first ever 'H' story! Go me!

 

[bridgeburner]

I think the "butch chick" and "you write like a girl" lines are meant to be funny, but the very fact that the operators of the Gender Genie are making such a joke calls their project into question.

Especially since all the jokes are aimed at women. While some male authors may be trying to apear to be female authors in order to appeal to a female audience, the phrase "You write like a girl" isn't meant as a compliment any more than "You throw like a girl" is in baseball.

I'm not in the least offended because it's a stock answer having nothing at all to do with me personally. It can't be personal, it's an algorithm. I'm not offended as a woman or a person or an author. I am, however, less inclined to take the thing seriously because the operators have shown themselves to be juvenile.

I will go find the other test, though and see what turns up with that one.


-B

 

[bridgeburner]

Koppel didn't create and doesn't operate the Gender Genie site, did/does he? I was under the impression that somebody else had used his algorithm and just modified it.

Using the determiner at the Koppel link that Pure provided I got much more accurate results ---- even my non-fiction posts turned up female.


--B

 

[Pure]

Hi Bridge,

you said, //I am, however, less inclined to take the thing [Genie] seriously because the operators have shown themselves to be juvenile.//

The 'operators' of Gender Genie are not necesarily the authors (researchers) of the papers.

The "Genie" is a web implementation by persons I don't know, of PART of an algorithm (which has several versions) by certain researchers (professors, including one woman) at an Israeli university. I find its word counts useful, though results are skewed by the pronoun problems.

I puzzled why you say //all the jokes are aimed at women.// when you give the example of feedback "you [a male] write like a girl." But I don't want to discuss the 'jokes' of some unknown nerd any more, instead of the main issues. Do you? There have been 12-20 postings on that topic. Point taken. Some women are offended. I got it. Everyone knows it. OK?

 

[Pure]

Hi bridge,

Unfortunately (because of its jokes), "Genie" is the best embodiment of the algorithm on the web, afaik. The other is a *very rough sketch/implementation, with too few words to be very good, though it is pronoun free, which is a virtue.

I will post here what Koppel says about the remarks of Genie.

So far he's simply said it's by far the better mathematical implementation (you have to look at at least 8-10 words for each of the male and female categories, i.e, around 20+ altogether).

J.

PS: Since the "Genie" gives the breakdown by words, the she/her problem can at least be looked at, i.e., see how much 'her' weighting is contributing to the total 'female' score.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I think the "butch chick" and "you write like a girl" lines are meant to be funny, but the very fact that the operators of the Gender Genie are making such a joke calls their project into question.

Especially since all the jokes are aimed at women. While some male authors may be trying to apear to be female authors in order to appeal to a female audience, the phrase "You write like a girl" isn't meant as a compliment any more than "You throw like a girl" is in baseball.

I'm not in the least offended because it's a stock answer having nothing at all to do with me personally. It can't be personal, it's an algorithm. I'm not offended as a woman or a person or an author. I am, however, less inclined to take the thing seriously because the operators have shown themselves to be juvenile.

I will go find the other test, though and see what turns up with that one.

-B

I think the comments are meant to be funny in an insulting way, but I think the "butch chick" remark is going too far.

Although I am trying to write like a woman in order to appeal to women, I am not trying to pass myself off as a woman. I write in the first person as a male participant in the sex acts I describe and if I exchange PM's with somebody, I use my actual first name. I am aware that "You write like a girl" is intended as a mild insult, as I described in an earlier post, but, as I said, I take it as a compliment because that is about what I am trying to do.

 

[bridgeburner]

Pure,

Funny that. I got more accurate results from the more limited test.

I talked to my friend and she couldn't find the article either but said that it was what the algorithm was based from. That didn't ring a bell with me since the article I remember had more to do with the difference between the way men and women formulate arguments. ---Men are more inclined to make statements without qualifiers while women are more inclined to "suggestions" and "theories".

Frex:
Male: When A happens, B is the cause.
Fem: I think when A happens, it's probably because of B.

This is NOT a direct quote from the article since I can't find it, but this was the kind of thing that it was about. Not so much actual words used but the way in which ideas were expressed.


-B

 

[Black Tulip]

Pure,

You sure know how to kick were it hurts, don't you?

If it annoys you so much, you should have paid more attention
to what I really wrote in all those posts.
Or maybe you get the point from what Bridgeburner has said.

The Gender Genie, the popular version is 2 out 3 accurate but I don't trust it because of the way I get labelled if the program makes a wrong conclusion.
The scientific version from your thread is 2 out of 3 wrong.
Of course I only used my own filth to test.

Why has the more popular version a different verdict? That is really interesting here in my opinion.

Bridgeburner suggested, I suspect correctly, that there is more to the difference in writing than just a choice of words.


Stealing from another thread: I prefer bitch to butch.

 

[Pure]

Hi Black Tulip,

I read you loud and clear.

Happy New Year




and I hope to read more of your filth in that period.

J.

NOTE TO ALL: Koppel, by the way, disclaims any connection with the Genie site, apart from mathematical advice, though I have brought the matter to his attention. He believes it to be the better (than NYT), but still partial embodiment of the actual, larger and 'scientific' programs/algorithm whose results are reported in the journals cited.

 

[bridgeburner]

Pure,

I see I missed a post and I know you want to drop it but I think we're still posting past one another.

I'm not against the GG because it's misogynist or it offends me as a woman. I really couldn't care less. The problem I have is the same anyone would have if someone who appeared to be a juvenile buffoon wanted to make a scientific pronouncement ---- it's possible that the juvenile buffoon is correct or that his math works, but he has credibility problems because he's a juvenile buffoon. It makes his findings suspect.

So, while the original algorithm that the site is based on may be perfectly sound, the site itself is lacking in credibility because of the way they present the results.

Unless one attends the Clown College, receiving a diploma from Bozo the Clown is not very reassuring, if you catch my drift.

This isn't a gender and offense thing at all for me but a question of credible lack of bias in testing and that IS relevant to the main point of whether or not the algorithm actually works and when it might be faulty. (like when it's modified by juvenile buffoons)

I'm really not trying to pick nits here I just think it's important that you understand I'm leery of the testing method at the GG site because they have overt bias NOT because it's misogynistic but because it's unscientific.

I'd expect those kinds of remakrs from a test at TheSpark.com and I'd laugh and enjoy them there and take the test in the spirit of fun in which it's intended. I don't test my IQ at TheSpark and expect to get any kind of reliable result.

Okay, I've rambled enough and must now go prepare to party.

Hope you all have a Happy New Year (or are having for any of you on the other side of the international date line already)

-B

 

[Black Tulip]

Oh, what the heck. I had decided to keep my mouth shut.

Happy New Year.

 

[bridgeburner]

Happy New Year to you all!

 

[Boxlicker101]

Pure,

Funny that. I got more accurate results from the more limited test.

I talked to my friend and she couldn't find the article either but said that it was what the algorithm was based from. That didn't ring a bell with me since the article I remember had more to do with the difference between the way men and women formulate arguments. ---Men are more inclined to make statements without qualifiers while women are more inclined to "suggestions" and "theories".

Frex:
Male: When A happens, B is the cause.
Fem: I think when A happens, it's probably because of B.

This is NOT a direct quote from the article since I can't find it, but this was the kind of thing that it was about. Not so much actual words used but the way in which ideas were expressed.

.




-B

This is interesting, BB because I believe that I have a tendency to usually qualify things like I think you have the Fem doing. I think it was my late wife, as I recall, who accused me of being a "Libra". To the best of my knowledge, this is probably true that I am a Libra because I have been told by people who should know that is probably my birth sign. Not that I believe in Astrology but I think some people probably do.

Anyhow, I believe I have run some of my stories through GG and it has always found me to be a woman, as I recall. When I tell them they are wrong, one response seems to be "Well, you write like a girl", which, as I recall, is probably intended to be a mild insult, at least to me. The other one, I think, was "She just thinks she is a man", which seems to be saying that I am a lesbian. To me, that's just funny because I so clearly am not. I can say that without any qualifiers