Digital Gender (and Unicorns)

[gcninja]

For example, when catching a bit of Naruto in passing, specifically Gaara, I've been known to remark, "Damn that is a hot girl!" only to have others try and convince me that he is, in fact, a dude. I guess right on the internet maybe half the time, and

Thats just japan for you

Whenever people on the net assume I'm a dude, I find it hilarious, no offense at all. I'll correct them if need be, but it is fun to watch as they come up against their own assumptions of how people behave and try to apply that to me. I am many things at once! SUCK IT, GENDER BINARY

I thought you were a dude, but it was the avatar, dont ask why. i think it was the gym topic that let me know

[Tapir12]

I am equally terrifird of you all *truth*

Sometimes I think that the females on forums will be more likely to understand my perspectives, but I think that's about it.

I also think that we have some really nice and intelligent guys here, which proves that they do exist out there somewhere.

In real life, I generally feel more comfortable hanging out with guys than girls, but of course it depends on the person more than anything.

Edit: Forgot the picture



And in case anyone was wondering... despite my avatar, I'm a girl.

[Evil Jim]

I agree that it would be handy to have a gender icon in a user's profile. Not that I'm going to treat people differently than I would otherwise but it helps me get a better picture of who I'm talking to. It can put certain viewpoints into greater perspective, & of course prevents the whole embarassing, "She said... Whups! I meant he said..." series of faux pas.

[Re'ozul]

I have found myself simply being too lazy to distinguish between male and female when talking to someone, they are simply "people" to me. Mostly this is because there are mainly women at my university.
I study math and english and the female:male ratios are 4:1 and 10:1 respectively.
Its far more difficult to decide on an approach concerning a topic like sci-fi as you have to discern wether the person in front of you actually has interest in that topic.

Also: Unicorn Infantry (WH40K?)

[ThrashJazzAssassin]

WIN!

I seem to recall one of the robots on the planet that gets eaten right at the beginning of the film also referred to him as Unicorn. Dyslexic and swallowed alive by a giant planet-eating transformer: some people just have no luck.

And now, a picture of an invisible unicorn:








Convincing, isn't it?

[Bob The Magic Camel]

I have nothing to add to this conversation, I just wanted to post a picture of a unicorn jumping over some fire.

[empath]

I agree that it would be handy to have a gender icon in a user's profile. Not that I'm going to treat people differently than I would otherwise but it helps me get a better picture of who I'm talking to. It can put certain viewpoints into greater perspective, & of course prevents the whole embarassing, "She said... Whups! I meant he said..." series of faux pas.

Well, we could do something that I noticed over on Giant In The Playground's fora - when posters there speak of someone of indefinite gender, they use the 'shorthand' terms "ze" (kinda short for 'he/she' or '(s)he', from my understanding), "zer" and the like.

Hmmm, English really could use a set of neuter pronouns, couldn't it? 'It' is just so de-humanizing, and 'they' is technically plural...

[Evil Jim]

"They" may be plural but for whatever reason it's often used in a sense of being so vague that the exact number of persons involved is unknown, be it one or more.

So they say.

[JesterJ.]

I'm a dude.

And I love unicorns.

[Master Gunner]

I generally treat both genders the same (which has gotten me in trouble before, especially combined with my own....oddness), especially on the internet (at least as far as I know). On the whole, I assume everybody on the internet is male at first appearance, unless they have an obviously female avatar, in which case I assume they're female. In most cases it doesn't take long for me to figure out who's which anyways.

Also, I've gotten mistaken for female on here before, due to undue hitting on Paul (One part of my aforementioned oddness is, despite being about as straight as is possible, I have absolutely no problem hitting on guys for comedic effect/my own amusement). I had no problem with that, I corrected them, but took no offense by it.

[Unclever title]

Evil Jim beat me to it!

I try to treat everyone I come across in real life with dignity and respect regardless of gender. I hold open doors for both sexes but usually not at increased inconvenience to myself. Sort of a "Fairweather Gentleman" perhaps.

That said I do feel better about helping a woman than when helping a man. It might be chauvanism but I tend to see it more as a sense of fulfilled "duty" than otherwise. Maybe that's because my Dad is just so much better at recognizing a person (including women) in need and going to help out.

However on the internet I see no such need as the most I could probably do for a person online is explain something they don't understand and that I don't associate with gender in the slightest.

However I too would appreciate gender identification if for nothing else than to avoid pronoun mistakes.

Fair warning to forum females:
Unless your avatar or username are distinctly female I'll initially assume you are male and refer to you as he. And Interruptor Jones, I'm probably going to forget your actual gender multiple times, glad you don't take offense to it.

However that's pretty much only in pronoun usage, otherwise I think I'm pretty neutral in how I react online.

Oh and if it wasn't already obvious, I'm a guy.


(This one is probably less obvious.)

[Brad]

HAH!

Archaeological puns ftw. Or is that technically a pun? Anyway, awesome.

Weird shaped P with an eye and mouth in it, three wavy horizontal lines over top of a downward facing triangle with bisecting line terminating at the midpoint.

[Timelady]

I tend to randomly assign gender subconsciously, and there's a few forum members around that I was surprised about, and a few I'm honestly still not sure about.

I used to be perfectly comfortable in real life around guys, but I've been going to a college that is about 80% girls, so I'm slowly getting out of practice.

I also hold open doors for guys--there's no reason chivalry can't go both ways

[CyberTractor]

I assume everyone's male until they say otherwise, simply because I tend to interact with more men online than women.

[ThrashJazzAssassin]

Watching an episode from season 7 of Friends the other day, I noticed the opening titles feature the guys doing all sorts of crazy stuff, and the girls sitting around smiling and looking pretty. Clearly, the message we're meant to take home is that men are incompetent, mentally unbalanced and/or accident prone, while women exist purely for decorative purposes. Fantastic. Perhaps I can use this to determine the gender of forum users.

Also, it recently ocurred to me that Pitch Black clearly thinks it's an anime or JRPG: there's a young girl in it, but all the characters refer to her as a boy until half-way through the film, when they suddenly discover, shock horror, that she is a girl. Well I never.

[Ergo]

Unless I know for certain, I tend to use people's names/handles in place of pronouns and generally try to dance around it. In a pinch I'll take a guess, but results can vary.

In any case; on the internet personally I don't think knowing a person's gender really affects the way I interact with them - at least in the vast majority of cases. It does serve to lessen the degree of impersonality a little though, I suppose.

Also:

[Joshua]

I do treat women different from men, not worse or better, I would say, I treat them, with a softer attitude, and I tend to be more willing to take insults from women without getting angry. I do open doors for women, and will offer to carry stuff for them. I also tend to not swear as much if a lady is in my presence. Call me sexist, or chauvinist if you must, but this is how I was raised by my mother so if I am those things I was made that way by a woman.

[tamaness]

I treat men and women differently online. I also tend to think of everyone, unless proven otherwise, as a male. I really don't have more to add except

Unicorns.

[OMGItsSarah]

I think it would be difficult for anyone to mix up my gender purely by my username. If someone did happen to, I wouldn't be offended, but I'd wonder about their intelligence and/or where in the world they live that ''Sarah'' is a male name.