du gender "undeclared".

[seabeyond]

over the years i have observed that females tend to use undeclared with gender in their profiles more than males. i am curious about the numbers. thanks for playing.

and i would be interested in why a person chooses to be gender neutral.

[Skink]

1. I knew I should have checked something there.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. There is safety in anonymity...(nt)

[seabeyond]

9. i dont consider that much. but i agree.

hadnt thought of it exactly in that manner. makes sense.

[Tindalos]

3. Does it matter?

Would knowing the gender of a person change your opinion of what they say?

[seabeyond]

6. sure. you betcha. of course gender is relevant on many issues.

though i would imagine that perceived and relevant ascertain is a reason for undeclared.

[Tindalos]

71. It's too often used to attack or dismiss women

Too many use the anonymity of the internet to attack or belittle women. There are some, probably in the minority but they exist, that will automatically discount a woman's opinion no matter how valid it is. I think that's changing as women become more prevalent on the internet (or maybe just more open and outspoken about their presence).

Edit: Also, I agree with other posters that gender isn't binary and I don't think we should have to declare it anymore than we declare skin colour or other physical attributes. It should be our choice how we define ourselves.

[CreekDog]

60. No, but it would make it easier to refer to their post

:shrug:

[Tindalos]

70. Maybe but it's a minor inconvenience

I generally use their name or the generic "they" instead of he/she even though it's not grammatically correct.

[undergroundpanther]

4. my gender IS neutral,both&neither

And it is on the physical level. Some people are born intersex or they are transitioning gender or they don't want a gender label.

Gendering people carries alot of stupid social baggage.I myself would like the hubbub over what kind of sexual plumbing someone has that does affect how others treat them socially to go away.

[seabeyond]

8. excellent. a perspective i had not consider. and absolutely valid

and factual. thank you. also though, this reality of yours flavors you perspective as well. i agree totally with you conclusion. i think it goes beyond the "plumbing" though. reception, nature, burture, conditioning, reaction, ect....

[iris27]

62. +100000

[LWolf]

5. I declared my gender,

but people who don't look at the profile inevitably think I'm male. Why?

[Evasporque]

64. My gender is tied up in customs

I even declared it...but I guess it was the penis that caused the confusion..

[Brickbat]

7. I find I get taken a lot more seriously when people don't know my gender.

[seabeyond]

10. i do find it a barrier at times.

makes it more of a struggle and challenge to be heard or to be seen as balanced, ect....

[Mother Smuckers]

11. No offense, but may I ask how you made the observation?

Did you just ask posters? Maybe I am missing something here...
;-)

[seabeyond]

13. when i read a post, often i like to understand more about a person

to i can absorb more of where they are coming from. i would love age to be a part of profile too. the more i know and understand, the better i can see what a person is saying.

so often i will go into a profile when a person leaves me wanting/needing more

[Mother Smuckers]

21. Yes, I get that, what I meant was how did you figure out the gender of those who didn't

specify...you indicated your observations showed more females than males, I just wondered how you knew that. :D

[seabeyond]

29. being here for so many years, over time, i have asked or something else in their post

indicates their gender. or they make reference to their gender in a post.

[Mother Smuckers]

57. Ah! Got it...now I understand thanks

:-)
\

[lunatica]

12. Maybe it's because I'm older and a long time feminist

That I make sure that everyone knows I'm a smart, strong woman. That's my personal choice.

[seabeyond]

15. we all get choices. i think it is nifty the choice is allowed. nt

[supernova]

14. It can be a way to focus on your writing... the early days of AOL

I remember being on the very early days of AOL in the late 80s. I was one of maybe 100 people who had AOL Beta. They didn't have a lot of special interest rooms then. Most people played in the general interest "lobbies."

AOL did have IM capability, but not a blocker. I remember signing on and filling out my profile as what I was, a married female. I didn't even think about the idea that this might be a problem. I was IMed SO MUCH, our little 286 PC clone could not keep up. I could not get out to type in the forum! And this wasn't me chatting back and forth in IMS. I was simply trying to clear IM popups! :grr: :grr:

The number of people who were online to play. and play around was probably about 10:1. AOL Beta wasn't squeaky clean at all.

I finally got smart, changed my ID to a gender neutral name and removed my gender from my profile. I didn't have a problem participating in the forums after that. Ever since then, I've chosen sex-neutral screen names. But I've become better about asserting myself online, so it's not a big trauma to say I'm a woman and I am opinionated. I also tend to frequent forums with a special interest: politics, cooking and so forth. People who chat about a certain thing tend to have their minds more er... focused.

[hayu_lol]

16. I chose the same disclaimer when I joined DU back at the beginning...

was on AOL at the time. Just never got around to changing it and won't now.

[uppityperson]

17. I was neutral as wanted my posts to be taken as they were, without prejudging due to sex

Many posters replied to me with "him" "dude" etc, finally changed it to female which I am.

[supernova]

18. DU was the first place

I was ever on the net where I got told I argue like a man.

lol

[seabeyond]

31. that is funny. many refer to me as male when not obvious in subject. i think

my username indicates female, but surprisingly a lot of people dont see it. and it is on my profile.

[CTyankee]

19. I wasn't on the Internet that much until 1998 but it was well established by then

that if it was discerned thatyou were female you got targeted for a LOT of crap that males didn't encounter. On an earlier political website, called Political Wag, I used the moniker Liberty and was mistaken for a male lots of times. I tried very hard to disguise my gender and went esoteric more times than not to do so. Mostly I succeeded but I think my ruse was over when I started getting pissed about the erosian of abortion rights...

[seabeyond]

33. lol. i started on a chat board

and approached it agender. was an interesting interaction. different

[Blue_In_AK]

20. A lot of people have thought I was a male

even though I have my gender listed in my profile. I'm not sure why.

[Blue-Jay]

23. I almost never click on anyone's profile.

I doubt that I'm alone in not really caring to know any details about the people I'm typing at.

[Blue_In_AK]

26. Sometimes I like to know where people live

or what their interests are just out of curiosity about their perspective on a particular subject.

I'm sure we all have our little groups of friends here to whom we feel particularly drawn -- especially if we've been here for a while -- and in the course of many conversations we come to know all kinds of personal information about each other. Profiles are just a tiny bit of information, that may or may not be true.

[Blue-Jay]

34. Yeah, if I catch some regional flavor that's interesting, I'll look.

But other than that, I just don't really bother. Maybe if the DU profile pages were a little more customizable I'd find them more interesting.

[seabeyond]

35. as in real life, there are those of us that enjoy the more indepth perspective and others

that want little to no indepth concept of another. life. we approach differently.

i agree

[Withywindle]

22. I actually had to look - I didn't remember.

(On my profile, not in my pants). I never look at my own profile.

Looks like I'm female and declared. I'm OK with that but I'm pretty sure I dithered when making that choice. I try to be gender-neutral online as much as possible until I get to know people a little. I just don't want to have to deal with the gender-based threats and insults and harassment that women online still get in some places.

"Undeclared" absolutely should be an option for anyone who wants it. So should "Other," "Transitioning," and "It's Complicated" (like relationship status on Facebook). Gender is not binary and we need to get beyond pink-and-blue-booties as such an important way of classifying people.

[Codeine]

25. It's interesting

that even undeclared there would be no doubt as to your gender -- the username and avatar both very strongly suggest a female poster. Odd that such things have such a strong gender identification.

[Withywindle]

27. Well, yeah, I suppose so.

But "Withywindle" comes from a river in 'The Lord of the Rings' (a part that wasn't in the movie), so even if sounds girly it has serious nerd roots. Which is fitting as I'm a female SF/F nerd, a rather large group of people whom pop culture would have has believe don't exist.

Your avatar implies 'female' to me too but I don't think that really means anything even though we do tend to associate people with their avatars. Or else there'd be a lot of women running around who look like Obama and Kerry and Kennedy and Kucinich!

[CTyankee]

42. Yeah, I'm getting nervous that "undeclared" is a code for female.

Of course, it could work like a "double agent" for some guy who was looking for god knows what...

[seabeyond]

45. that is kinda what i concluded. nt

[Withywindle]

50. Or intersexed, or genderqueer, or questioning, or trans, or

just thinks it's none of random strangers' business.

All of which are perfectly valid reasons.

[Codeine]

24. I declared my gender

simply because I always use female avatars and people kept assuming, which made conversations very confusing until I realized what they were on about.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. XKCD says all that needs to be said about the subject:

[seabeyond]

36. commie. i like. that is funny. nt

[BlooInBloo]

38. In a similar vein, though first-person, this has been my fav on the topic for awhile...

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20030526

[seabeyond]

41. that is so funny.

what a hoot. thanks

[RandomThoughts]

56. And she is kinda hot with that hair and all.

Funny thought, when I first decided that the entire Republican party had to be removed years ago, I knew doing that was impossible for any person. So I thought, at least I can do is make them send resources at me, so someone else might make some progress.

Unfortunately many of the reasons I decided the Republicans needed to be removed are still part of the system, so it is like fighting against more and more deeper levels of corruption finding that it is still pretty bad, and there is so much still to do.


But honestly, many years ago, that was the only thing I could think of to fight back, that kind of notion from that cartoon although without the crassness or superficial stuff in that cartoon, many years ago that was.

heh, how things change over time...

[BlooInBloo]

30. Uh... girls catch like 1 brazillion times more crap on teh intertubez than boys do?

Durr.

[seabeyond]

37. have i told you

i am not hugh!!1!!! in net knowledge?????

that is what i am picking up. i was thinking more in real life interaction, not so much with the reality of net. but i am hearing.

[BlooInBloo]

39. Wow. It's gonna take me awhile to craft a theory explaining how anyone could *not* know that.

But I like a challenge, so it's all good. :)

[Liberal_in_LA]

32. When the 'world wide web' was new female names attracted a lot of sexual

requests. It was ridiculous!

[noamnety]

40. Some women choose gender neutral because men threaten them.

For example, a post about me and a few other women on DU from some dude's blog:

according to their dem underground postings, the feminist women (who should be executed with three shots to the stomach each (this is a slow and painful way to die)) ...

I hope God takes vengance upon these women and inflicts upon them a terrible and slow demise... which is captured on a highdefinition video camera... which is connected to the internet. I hope it surpasses the muslim snuff videos in brutallity."

A longer old post of mine about the types of threats women get because they openly identify themselves as women online: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1002424

[seabeyond]

43. wow. that poster has mommy issues. hm. nt

[noamnety]

46. That comment was made

about half a year after my linked post talking about how women are harassed online. I think that says something about the frequency, if you are a woman who is outspoken. When I read his post, I don't think "one bad apple with issues" - I think "systemic reaction to women." That's not to say that all or most men are like that ... but rather that the odds of eventually being threatened by a man if you are an outspoken woman are astronomical.

[seabeyond]

47. i dont know that i was ever threatened, actually, as i typed

i remember one time and not too long ago. i was like.... ya, and what, you gonna beat me up. i mean, puter. not RL. so once, in all the years. BUT, there is a certain talk i see automatically thrown at women

[BlooInBloo]

48. I threaten people with excessive mockery.

Mostly they just laugh at me. (shrug)

[seabeyond]

44. ah man....

there are a lot of posters on that thread i miss.

and a few

lol, not so much.

[noamnety]

49. ha, same here.

Quite a collection of the best and worst of what DU has had to offer. :)

[EFerrari]

53. That was a great thead.

[Loudmxr]

51. I am surprized no one linked to Monty Paython's famous song that sums up my position on the issue.

The Penis Song


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htv7uLU_s88

[Quantess]

52. I don't trust "undeclared" gender.

But at least it's better than a hidden profile.

[BlueIris]

54. You can hide your profile here?

Goes to check settings...

[Quantess]

59. Yes, but what's the point? It just makes you seem shady.

The only thing that hidden profile does, that you can't do on your own, is to hide how many points over 1000 you have, and hide what date you joined DU. What's the point of hiding that information?

[iris27]

69. Nowhere I've ever seen...a CTRL-F for "hide" under

the Help link doesn't turn it up either.

[Withywindle]

55. I said it before and I'll say it again: GENDER IS NOT BINARY.

The world is not divided into pink vs blue/innies vs outies.

There are MANY people for whom those two very limited options do not apply.

[Quantess]

63. It's naive to believe that everyone who claims "undeclared" gender on DU profile

is of ambiguous gender in real life.

[Withywindle]

65. I didn't say that, at all.

I think a lot of people, well, just don't want to declare it. Which is fine - why should they have to?

[ismnotwasm]

58. I use to do the 'undeclared'

Then I decided it doesn't matter. Not a whole lot on my profile anyway.

[LaydeeBug]

61. I am female, but have posted on other sites as a male...

it is AMAZING how differently you are treated. Even in cyberspace.

[iris27]

66. I choose it anywhere I have that option, because the whole idea of gender feels alien to me.

When I have only two options, I pick the one that fits "better"...in that it matches my driver's license and the box society drops me into. But it still feels "off".

I appreciate the few places that let me opt out.

Obviously, my choice of username means people are led to certain assumptions and that's fine. I do the same thing to other posters. I tend to assume everyone is male until evidence points otherwise...I'm sure there's a good discussion of "male as default human" in there somewhere.

[Xenotime]

67. gender depends on my mood.

[libodem]

68. Women will be taken more seriously

if other posters believe they are men. Most of the time I can't tell and I feel stupid addressing them incorrectly as she or he or it. What personal pronoun do you use? On the other hand I grew up in the 60's and 70's and androgyny was a theme of the times. Men grew their hair long and we quit shaving under our arms and our legs. We did a bit of trading off of gender identification roles.

I believe in the largest scope of who 'we' are has nothing to do with any physical identification. In the smallest scope, 'sexing' ones counterparts seems preprogrammed in, as a reproductive survival instinct.


All that being said before I get deleted and alerted on for offending all the Feminists I have wondered from time to time what gender people were and have been slaughtered for asking. Maybe I'm just an idiot but here in my podunk state sometimes, men who are dressed as women, are refereed to as 'Queens' and having that as part of your screen name and an undeclared gender might mean gay, transgendered or transsexual. Just sayin'.

[madinmaryland]

72. I've declared my gender, but some DU'ers still get my gender wrong.

:mad:

[Blue-Jay]

73. That's because people see your login and think "Maid Marion".

Or maybe that's just me.

[madinmaryland]

74. Squirrel???

:mad: