Do men and women write differently?

Question

Let's say users on this forum did not display an avatar/pic and the username was non-gender based, would you be able to determine male or female based on the writing alone? This would exclude a specific question/answer which indicates a gender. Would our prose put us into a traditional gender role?

haria...do you care to elaborate?

Melimar: an experiment? I wonder...how would one conduct it? Pick some gender neutral topic and ask people to submit a short essay. Then take a poll to see how accurately people guess the gender. I'll have to think about that.

Answer 1

I write like I think. There are some issues where I “think like a girl”, if one can generalize about that.

So yes, I think that even if my avatar was gender-neutral, you might be able to tell I was female.

Answer 2

Thats a really good question, i sat here for a while and thought about it. :D

I suppose that men and women would write differently though it also depends on the person and their interests. For example, im of the female gender :P but i enjoy all the interests that my male friends have. I love going out and rolling in mud or running through the bush, whatever. So if the forum was talking about a subject unrelated to personal interests than it would probably be difficult to tell. :)

Unless the female is a teenager and talks like so;
"OMG! like no way! that guy was sooo hot today *giggle*"

yeah.

case closed :D

Answer 3

On this forum, it's possible in some cases. Those that write "WHY ARE WOMENZ SO STUPIDZ?!" are usually male. However, that may fall into your category of a revealing question.

I think that girls are more likely to use chatspeak than boys, but at the adult or teen level, it becomes more difficult to distinguish between the sexes.

Answer 4

Excluding subject matter being an indicator, I think it would actually be kind of hard to tell.

Unless of course you see words like "yo wassup?" (Probably indicates a male) OR, "like oh my god did you see that?" (Probably indicates a female.)

But there would be no real way to tell for absolute certain just by grammar or spelling.

Answer 5

I dont think i can make out just by the prose, but definetely by the content. Both can be witty, but men are more direct and usually condone promiscous behaviour whereas womens judgement is usually driven by reasoning tinged with morality

Answer 6

Most of them do, but there are some people who are exceptions. And you might need to see a large amount of their writing before you could determine their gender.

Answer 7

That is great question! Well, i think most of the time you can tell.Perhaps for example you aksed a question about how to wash clothes that have been stained by tar.XD
Who would anser this question...women.
Or say that you asked a question about who your favorite sports team was. The most of the time guys would answer this.
But,i get what your saying.How can we really tell their handwriting apart. I like to geuss at these kinds of things.
*Just pick a question and geuss who wrote a response to that person's question.
:]

Answer 8

Yes - men only discuss subjects they are interested in. For instance, most publishers know men won't read/buy a book with love in the title, or a novel or poetry by a woman, though men enjoyed one of the best women thriller writers of last century because they thought they were written by a Derby Winner. I didn't know when I collected Dick Francis's books, but but instead of shelving them with the men in the other room, I had all 'his' books in here with Virgina Woolf and Margaret Atwood because I was sure the novelist was a woman.

Men's prose has himself at the centre, he steers his subjects towards the bed. He is interested in money too and status and power. If he writes about a family he either sentimentalises (or brutalises) childred, and mostly manages to place women on the perifery. Or in bed; or dead.

On this forum, men are no different - they centralise themselves in the character they have chosen to adopt, and swing into the subject that interests them the most. You notice how frequestly they ask about 'Narcisim'? A subject they must be accused of very regularly.

Answer 9

There is a uncanny way to identify if the writer is male or female.

Answer 10

Interesting question. I really don't know. I would think I'd be able to tell.
Do I smell experiment? :)