• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Gender in Writing

246819733791

Finethankyouhowareyou
I like to play around with computational linguistics tools, and one such tool is Gender Guesser, which tries to infer the gender of an author based on samples of her/his writing. The tool claims to be 60-70% accurate, but I was wondering how that number might differ when the tool is applied to people on the Autism Spectrum.

Although I am a female, it consistently guesses that I am a male. I'd be interested in taking an informal survey here. I invite you to test some writing samples in the calculator and post your results here.
 
I'm very good at that also, maybe as good as the program anyway. From your sample I am pretty sure you are a female. Was I right?

:D
 
Last edited:
"......People write differently in different forums. For example, a single writing sample may appear MALE for informal writing but test as FEMALE for formal writing. Be sure to interpret the results based on the appropriate writing style. (These notes, for example, are more informal/blog than formal/non-fiction.)"

I don't quite get the idea of male informal and female formal. Perhaps you might explain it to me? I tested:

Total words: 403
Genre: Informal
Female = 349
Male = 615
Difference = 266; 63.79%
Verdict: MALE

Genre: Formal
Female = 643
Male = 310
Difference = -333; 32.52%
Verdict: FEMALE
 
Last edited:
From my profile page:

Total words: 739

Genre: Informal
Female = 975
Male = 1001
Difference = 26; 50.65%
Verdict: Weak MALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.

Genre: Formal
Female = 950
Male = 726
Difference = -224; 43.31%
Verdict: Weak FEMALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.


And recounting a trip to a community fair:

Total words: 1562

Genre: Informal
Female = 2491
Male = 2879
Difference = 388; 53.61%
Verdict: Weak MALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.

Genre: Formal
Female = 1511
Male = 1593
Difference = 82; 51.32%
Verdict: Weak MALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.


So I'm an effeminate man? o_O
 
"......People write differently in different forums. For example, a single writing sample may appear MALE for informal writing but test as FEMALE for formal writing. Be sure to interpret the results based on the appropriate writing style. (These notes, for example, are more informal/blog than formal/non-fiction.)"

I don't quite get the idea of male informal and female formal. Perhaps you might explain it to me? I tested:

Total words: 403
Genre: Informal
Female = 349
Male = 615
Difference = 266; 63.79%
Verdict: MALE

Genre: Formal
Female = 643
Male = 310
Difference = -333; 32.52%
Verdict: FEMALE

Used this example that I wrote years ago as the submission:

He used to shout at the television and his children at the end of a workday, “quiet with your homework, the game’s coming on”. She made him take off his oily smelling work clothes, dusted with metal shavings. I would use a tiny pair of child size tweezers to pull out the metal splinters embedded in his fingers. Blood trickled down and he would wipe it on his handkerchief. Shrugging as if he was impervious to pain.

I went to the factory once, on a school trip and the din of a hundred metal lathes and cutting machines made me cover my ears in shock and pain. Yet he went down the cinder path whistling and swinging his thermos of coffee, every day of the week.

He was out of bed at dawn in his pajamas, and went to stoke the coal furnace, the metallic sound of the shovel still echoes now. As he fed the furnace she padded down and made him breakfast; eggs and bacon and toast and coffee. They spent that early hour together, talking and sometimes holding hands. Once I peeked in the silence and saw them sitting side by side, his arm over her shoulders while eating breakfast with his left hand. Pushing egg onto the back of his fork as his black hair fell in his eyes and she brushed it away.

Friday evening was macaroni and cheese for supper, made with strong cheddar and crushed potato chips on top. She didn’t eat supper and spent that time fixing her hair and makeup and putting on her full skirted best dress. She and he would come down the stairs and he would make a low whistling sound and she would smile. She looked like a model, with her shiny hair and red lipstick and high heels. He would help her on with her coat. Put on his own scented with aqua velva and warm up the car.

She gave last minute instructions to the babysitter;
“Janice and Peter can stay up to see teen beat. The younger ones should be in bed by eight. You can have anything you like for supper Evie, either the macaroni or whatever is in the fridge or cupboards or breadbox.”

They went out dancing at the armory each Friday night and met their friends there, and came back flushed and laughing by ten o’clock.

I think the formal vs. informal distinction was made so that the model could divide the data that it took into account into 4 different categories and find the different specific patterns in each one, if that makes any sense. For example, the informal writing of males statistically tends to display different features from the formal writing of males, both of which tend to display different features from the formal writing of females, etc.
 
From my profile page:

Total words: 739

Genre: Informal
Female = 975
Male = 1001
Difference = 26; 50.65%
Verdict: Weak MALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.

Genre: Formal
Female = 950
Male = 726
Difference = -224; 43.31%
Verdict: Weak FEMALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.


And recounting a trip to a community fair:

Total words: 1562

Genre: Informal
Female = 2491
Male = 2879
Difference = 388; 53.61%
Verdict: Weak MALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.

Genre: Formal
Female = 1511
Male = 1593
Difference = 82; 51.32%
Verdict: Weak MALE
Weak emphasis could indicate European.


So I'm an effeminate man? o_O
I think that's a good example of why statistical correlations cannot be used to very accurately make individual predictions. :)
 
That's why I smother my posts in smilies. But doggone it if the trolls haven't made the smiley face a potentially sarcastic expression these days! :confused:
Using smiley faces always takes a lot of effort on my part; it seems so scandalously informal.

With that having been said: :)
 
Using smiley faces always takes a lot of effort on my part; it seems so scandalously informal.

With that having been said: :)
Aye, true that! I've had that argument with myself quite a few times about how informal it can be to use a smiley. And to some degree, there are those who will take you less seriously if you come across as a hyperactive school girl in all your posts.
 
I know. I was trying to joke, too. My goodness; I can never get that right.

Well it is funny I misundrstood. :D Although it basically ruins the effect I have found I have to use smilies to replace th missing visual or tone clues.

Like a laugh track I guess. :oops:
 
I did four 2000 word samples, one returned female, two male and one weak male. I am female but, yeah personally I really don't identify as either gender, sometimes I flaunt my female attributes, other times I am just one of the guys, mostly, i'm just me and, that's no gender.

Not exactly Aspie related but, it is interesting.
 
put in a couple writing samples, came up out male - female, weak male - weak male(indicating possibly being European lol), male - male, weak male-male

I'm a guy, interesting thing to play with
 
I tested as a male but I'm actually female. Maybe it's the lack of emotion/evocative language? I'm not really sure
 
Using smiley faces always takes a lot of effort on my part; it seems so scandalously informal.

I rarely smile when I'm actually talking with people, so using smilies seems fake to me, even though I do use smilies sometimes to indicate a light-hearted tone. :smirk: But it feels more like a teeny-bopper adolescent talking instead of myself talking. :hearteyecat: I guess it's better than inadvertently offending people. :screamcat:

I wonder if the gender-detection tool pays any attention to smilies in the text samples? LOL (although I'm not really laughing...just trying to indicate yet again that this is intended in a light-hearted way...lol...um...gonna stop now)
 
Not exactly Aspie related but, it is interesting.
Actually its a topic that regularly comes up when talking about Aspies. Many aspergirls were tomboys. Many asperguys tend to be less stereotypical masculine. And there seems also to be a lot of either 'gender confusion' or 'gender experimentation' depending on your perspective.
 

New Threads

Top Bottom