Gender

I picked this up from BW, who provides some relevant professional background. I stuck in two recent blog posts - All Change at the Top and La Fanciulla del West

I chose these as being the two of the most recent long posts consisting mainly of original thought and being about very different subject matter.

According to this analyser my political post is

Female Score: 872
Male Score: 1132
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

and  my opera post is:

Female Score: 3020
Male Score: 2731
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

Gordon comments on BW's that he and his tech writer chums got 'male' for professional writing and 'female' for leisure writing.

I don't know whether the algorithm designer set out with the premise that male and female brains are inherently different, and, if so, why. There used to be a feminist argument that women are no different from men, and thus should be doing exactly the same work. This has changed to a greater understanding that - in general - men and women have different strengths which they contribute differently to a workplace and that the tradition of only favouring 'male' skills has been to the detriment of the business, which would flourish better with a good mix of diverse strengths.

But even that doesn't fully address the flaws of a generalist approach, which is that while most stereotypes have an inkling of truth, that is not a universally applicable truth and is often (usually?) not relevant to specific individuals. BW refers to social conditioning, not a point I dispute, but I would also add that BW, Gordon, Gordon's tech writer colleagues and I have well above average use and understanding of language, and can tailor our writing to the specific circumstances - even within the same blog.

I am always very cautious of anything that ascribes certain characteristics to gender: ultimately, only physical characteristics are gender specific. A balanced  person tends to have a decent mix of 'male' and 'female' characteristics. A doctor needs technical know-how and bedside manner; an architect needs to understand structures and human behaviour.

I am quite pleased that two arbitrarily selected pieces of writing produce conflicting results, which I think demonstrates that, irrespective of my numerous weaknesses, I do have a good mix of seemingly conflicting characteristics.