"i'm a man---ewwww" (gender talk)

[fflo]

My journal says I'm 57% masculine.

What does your LJ writing style say about your gender? UsernameCommunity

LJ Gender Tool by hutta

anderyn, scroll down below the results to links about how the language in analyzed. I tend to be extremely skeptical towards these "objective" gender differentiation studies---not only because I think gender is a continuum/construct, but also because I question the whole premise of exploring how very very different we men and women are, must be our nature, i'm sure it's chemical, etc. etc. How can we begin to suggest that we can get at the "true biological nature of gender difference" when the influences of our VASTLY different socializations are so tremendous? Let's set aside the principle of the influence of the observer's presence (or gender experience or gender belief system) on the experiment---even if you believe you CAN be objective about things, or some things, how could you take out of the equation the most ingrained aspect of our identity training? And why set out to do such differentiation anyway? What are researchers hoping to show? What are they reinforcing?

I guess I'm happy to have spoiled their record with our gang a little. (Though the study cited claims only an 80% predictability.)

You kinda want to say "yeah, yeah, big news, min 'n' wimmin are different."

My absolute least favorite sort of forwarded e-mail joke to receive is the list-of-differences-between-men-and-women joke. Equally offensive when it slams men as when it slams women. To me that sort of humor is just trying to comfort conventional straight people about the straight-specific things about their relationships that SUCK, you know? (No offense, conventional straight people.) (I mean, at first I wrote "trying to comfort conventional straight people that their relationships SUCK," so I backed off a little.) Reminds me of women chatting in the workplace about how boarish their husbands are, communing over it, laughing and feeling better. Such is our lot, ha ha, men are so different, can't live without 'em though. Well, yeah, you can, I want to say. Or you can hold our for one that isn't a boar. There are some. Would be more, probably, if more of you refused to couple with the boarish ones.

Thankfully there's virtually none of that sort of talk at this job. Another reason to like MR!