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about words
Apr. 3rd, 2007 12:38 pmLed thither by goodness-knows-what meanderings along LiveJournal paths, I've spent a few happy minutes playing with the Gender Genie, which is supposed to detect whether a piece was written by a male or a female. My essays (admittedly, I only tested two of them) are resoundingly masculine, apparently. My popslash varies, I picked several and got mixed results, but the sole original fic on my site tests as written-by-female, it seems, which is good since it is in a female pov.
What baffles me are the criteria! I mean, how can the use of words such as 'the', 'and', 'where', 'who', 'at', 'it' and 'to' possibly relate to the author's sex? These are crucial components of sentences, aren't they? I was expecting something a little more, hmm, I dunno, writerly - like, maybe, men using more verbs, women using more adjectives and adverbs? Sentence length? Amount of dialogue and length of dialogue sentences?
I have found, in recent years, that I prefer to read fiction written by women (and am still pleased with myself for identifying Julian May as female based on the writing) - because they seem generally to present a fuller world, a world in which there *are* proactive women. Julian May's 'Saga of the Exiles' had a whole world, a rich variety of characters male and female, and some of them were heroic and some of them were troubled, some were strong, some were weak, some smart, some stupid, and their characteristics were *what characterised them*, and not related to their sex. (On the other hand, JK Rowling started to annoy me quite early on, when I realised that although she told us of a wizarding world in which males and females had equal importance, what she showed us was a world in which the only active people were males. Hermione and Rita Skeeter were pretty much the only females who moved the story along - everyone else with an *active* role was male.)
Still, the 'preferring to read fiction written by women' thing has pretty well nothing to do with how often these authors use words like 'where' and 'it'. Though it may, I concede, have something to do with how often they use 'she'.
What baffles me are the criteria! I mean, how can the use of words such as 'the', 'and', 'where', 'who', 'at', 'it' and 'to' possibly relate to the author's sex? These are crucial components of sentences, aren't they? I was expecting something a little more, hmm, I dunno, writerly - like, maybe, men using more verbs, women using more adjectives and adverbs? Sentence length? Amount of dialogue and length of dialogue sentences?
I have found, in recent years, that I prefer to read fiction written by women (and am still pleased with myself for identifying Julian May as female based on the writing) - because they seem generally to present a fuller world, a world in which there *are* proactive women. Julian May's 'Saga of the Exiles' had a whole world, a rich variety of characters male and female, and some of them were heroic and some of them were troubled, some were strong, some were weak, some smart, some stupid, and their characteristics were *what characterised them*, and not related to their sex. (On the other hand, JK Rowling started to annoy me quite early on, when I realised that although she told us of a wizarding world in which males and females had equal importance, what she showed us was a world in which the only active people were males. Hermione and Rita Skeeter were pretty much the only females who moved the story along - everyone else with an *active* role was male.)
Still, the 'preferring to read fiction written by women' thing has pretty well nothing to do with how often these authors use words like 'where' and 'it'. Though it may, I concede, have something to do with how often they use 'she'.