For next week, you have two things due:
Your Case study #2 proposals, the requirements of which I handed out to you all in class (but can also be accessed online).
Readings/Viewing (to respond to in blog):
- “Differences,” p. 157-191, TT
- “There is No Unmarked Woman,” p. 499-504, SOL
- View: Ben Sharpa’s “Hegemony” (below)
Instead of asking you specific questions about the reading, I’m presenting a few image and text exercises below that I want you to consider, in relationship to what the texts and viewing talks about. Choose one out of the following three exercises and then respond to ALL of the prompt questions for each exercise:
1. First, go to one of your lengthier blog posts (should be at least two to three full paragraphs long) and copy your post. THEN, go to the following website: Gender Guesser, and where prompted, paste your blog response into the Gender Guesser and hit “ANALYZE”. What were your results? Were they correct or incorrect? (My sample, which I shall show you in class next time gave a very high probability that I was male AND European). Now — consider the following questions:
a) Thinking about the readings and how language is often “marked;” in what ways might this program have read your own writing and come up with the results that it did (whether correct or not)?
b) What do you imagine are certain “female” or “male” qualities within your use of language that made the program respond the way it did?
c) What does this program suggest about language and gender? How does this exemplify some of the arguments made by Deborah Tannen in “There is No Unmarked Woman”? Is language engendered?
2. Take a look at the following images, considering them in relationship to the readings.
a) What does each image suggest or communicate about gender, race, sexuality, and class? Why? How? Be sure to discuss each image and what it communicates in reference to the readings!
3. Consider Ben Sharpa’s video on Hegemony. In what ways does the video communicate race, gender, sexuality, and class? And how do these speak to the audience? How does the representations of any (gender, race, class, etc) seem to be utilized to make the message in the video stronger or more effective? Be sure to reference the readings when discussing the video.
October 30, 2007 at 7:11 pm
looked through all the entries that I have submitted for the longest, and what I thought as to me, my most deep and to the point comments that I am most proud of and put them into the gender guesser. I didnt know what to expect at first after reading the comments you had written about how I guess your a European Male. After hitting submit I was surprised to see that my informality caused me to appear like a man to the guesser, but at the same time they were fairly close, I am about 55% male. On the other hand with my formality on ethnicity I was almost clearly, 75% to be exact am a European. The results on one hand were not as shocking and off as the teachers was, but then again European was wrong but the ethnicity was closely matched so it could have gone either way. This is just one ideological fact that we have to prove that in society today even computers see good grammer and formality to be either female and European. As stated in the theory toolbox, “is there, we might ask, a difference between men and woman, some sort of essential split, or are there a series of differences. Are these differences something to be mourned as an impossible bridge to cross.” Woman and men differ, because of the obvious reasons as well as the psycheological conclusions we reach when interacting with a male or female. This does not help our stereotypical views that we as
a society maintain today to put people in their “catagories” by saying, oh your a female your good at writing and oh your writing is very formal, your European. This is just one example of course, the idea of females begining and being more scholarly and understanding than most men, I of course am just stating one of my opinions that differes from males to females. On one side it hurts to be called a male on that standpoint but i cannot argue due to my obvious spelling and grammer mistakes present in all my writings to be called a male. And European, well I find it common that people have the misconception that Europeans are all formal and well spoken. they might be to an extent but it is still non the less a ideological perception we have of other cultures. I am not sure how accurate this guesser is because in the two cases i know of people using it, it has been off but i can tell that the program is using human ideological thinking to make its guesses, and that is a kind of thinking and bias that computers should not have.
October 31, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Hi folks — just to clarify, if you are going to discuss the images I posted, please do not simply try to guess their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. There would be no point to that.
What I want you to discuss is this: what signs are present within those images that then “communicate” something to us? This is very specific to the readings, so I expect a critical discussion that highlights how what you learned in the reading either informs or reflects what you perceive as signs of communication (clothing, facial expressions, body language, etc.). How do we tend to read and/or perceive certain signs that elicit certain assumptions within our culture? Discuss more how the readings helped inform or reflect HOW you perceive what you perceive. What is the cultural relevance to your personal observations? How might they be challenged?
November 1, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I found this gender guesser really interesting. I had taken my blog from the 5th responses and it guessed I was a male. I was quite surprised. I think it had guessed this because of the response I had chosen. this particular blog had a strong voice, so I decided to have my 4th response be tested and still it had guessed I was male however this time my ‘weak emphasis could indicate European’. I think maybe a female voice would have to be less argumentative and the tone may have to be less strong. I can only imagine the program being extremely stereotyping to the individual. I did not really understand what the whole European thing meant however that was the only correct guess. I think that language can have a lot to do with gender and it is to some extent ‘marked’. I would think that the way females are brought up they are told to be less aggressive (for the lack of a better word). I believe that more and more women are being told to pursue a career before starting a family, however, there is a great deal of females who are still being brought up in the 18th century mind set. Women obey the men. I do feel that language is engendered since the english language has all the rules of endings. i also do not view this as a negative thing.
November 1, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I was surprised that my result in the Gender Genie was a European male. Obviously they were incorrect lol. It was surprising because in the text I used I was talking about bras and how women have moved from the corset to the bra for added freedom. Maybe if I had used the word brassiere my result would have been different. My language was marked.
I related to what was mentioned that endings like ess and ette mark female words. For instance, a guy friend of mine once called me dudette instead of dude. My instant reaction was “Don’t call me dudette, I don’t like it! Call me dude.” Did I, out of pure instinct mark myself of being called a dude as something that is more direct, speaks more to me and does not have that playful dudette sound to it? Language is engendered.
I greatly understood Deborah Tannen’s There Is No Unmarked Woman. I tent to do what she was doing in the meeting. When I am in class or on train I look at the people around me, especially the women. I ask myself questions like “How did she settle with that hairstyle?” or “Did she choose that blouse because it complements her body?” If I see a woman with a very well coordinated outfit, hair done, make up done, accessories I perceive her as maybe I girly girl, a woman who likes being marked. Also, a tomboy is a woman who hides behind the boyish features. One might even say that these women don’t want to be marked as having womanly features but indeed she does by steering away from that and marking herself as a tomboy.
November 1, 2007 at 3:48 pm
As I was reading “There Is NO Unmarked Women” I found it very dificult to understand what Deborah Tannen was saying. She went on and on about this women looked this way and this man looked this way and how the women was marked and the men unmarked. I could not understand or grasp what she was trying to say. Are men better then women? Do men have to worry about the same things that women do? Because I didn’t fully comprehen what Deborah was saying im just going to talk about gener rolls because I feel that maybe she was heading in that direction.
I am a firm believer in th Bible and if the Bible says it then it must be true (well in some aspects). The Bible say the Eve came from Adam’s rib so that means that women are men in a way. on that note why do some women hate the fact that they have to take the mans last name? When Deborah was talking about how the women takes on then mans last name it made me wonder where did that come from, why is so custom for a women to do that? I’m not a feminist being that I a man, but somtimes it does seem like women get the short end of the stick. They have to do way more then men, because they have to be presentable, but why? This is a question that I can’t anwser I have thought hard about it. This situation is very simular to race, why as an African American i have to do so much to prove myself or to get that job. If Deborah is seen as a feminist for what she says am i seen as racist for what I say about how we are treated as a race? are African Americans marked or unmarked?
November 1, 2007 at 4:10 pm
My Gender Guesser results read that I was indeed male with a weak emphasis pointing towards european. As you may have been able to guess, these are both very true so kudos to your useless invention Illinios University. Very nice work.
I suppose the point of having us test our own writing is to show that there are stereotypes that can point to indication of “differences” and that most people will fall into atleast one of those stereotypes accordingly. In respect to this, the TT states that “sexual preference, ethnicity, and class are nevertheless not inherently or ‘naturally’ meaningful; having brown skin does not inherently mean aything”(160). This is very true, my being white doesn’t mean anything special, but it does mean I’ve had different experiences in my life than those of a blck woman
That being said, I have no idea what makes my writing male as opposed to female. Though I’m glad no one is telling me I write like a woman, that still doesn’t really mean much. How would I write like a woman anyway? I would talk about my feelings too much and break into illogical emotional rants? Be less direct? Guilt the reader for not paying attention to me when I talk and then bring up some irrelevant fact that happened years ago between us? All I have to go on is generalities that have built up in my head over the years on the difference between men and women and I suppose that is how the Gender Genie does it as well only perhaps a little less cynically.
November 1, 2007 at 4:27 pm
First off I have to say that I had never heard of Ralph fasold. I cannot wait to read his book. He seemed to be a genious and his deep thoughts and intellectual questions were very thought provoking. I loved when he described the y chromosome as being nothing without the X chromosome. I also loved the example of men having nipples, and explaining that males are females with added parts. Deborah Tannen as well was an amazing person to pick for the SOL piece.
When I submitted my writing the site said that i was a man on both the informal and formal analysis. In the informal I was a weak man. In the formal I was male. I wasn’t surprised by the results, i have always leaned more towards what society expects from a male then a female.
I don’t think that my writing is specifically unmarked but unlike a lot of female writers I try to stay away from the senstive bias that we as women sometimes put in our writing. I am not attesting sensitivity I am simply saying that that was probably a big marker that the guesser could have read.
I also don’t have a certain writing style, I used to be a considerably passive writer which my english teacher always thought was a weak writing style and therefore I changed my style to be more blunt and to the point.
When Tannen was talking about there being no “unmarked woman” she was right. Although I might have been looked at as a man; which in her case would make me an unmarked woman because I was considered a man therefore i snuck by unmarked. They website didn’t see me as a whole. There are some qualities in women that will go by unmarked but with looking at a woman as a whole being, she is marked.
The whole Mr., Mrs., Ms. concept was fascinating. It is amazing how much people can look passed routine. Women are so used to it that we don’t question the tedious things that women have to do instead of men completing the things women have to do.
It sucks that our society has been able to skew the roles of gender. Although coming up in the world gender is fucked up. When thinking in depth, what is gender, why is a woman the way she is and a man the way he is, if we were to strictly base gender on science there would be a different understanding on everything, sexuality, religious ideologies, government etc. Language is the key to solving gender. Transgendered people are a great example. They have found ways to use non specific gender pronouns, they have made up words or combined words in order to speak to people. They use Ze, Se, Sie, Hir, S/he. There is hope that our culture, a mainly patriarchal could combine both patriarchy and matriarchy so instead of coexisting they will just be one thing.
November 1, 2007 at 4:30 pm
First off, I would like to direct a comment at Dwight’s post: I’m not cutting you down, dude, but you said “I’m not a feminist being that I am a man” and I just have to take issue with that. A feminist is not always a woman. A feminist is anyone who believes that men and women should have equal rights. Do you believe that women should be allowed to vote? Do you believe that we should be able to hold the same jobs as men? Do you believe that we are equal citizens? If so, then you are a feminist. Period. People have turned the word “feminist” into a slur, when it really is a title of empowerment given to anyone who does not encourage the sex-class system. Don’t let society make you think badly of the word “feminism” because of the often-harped-on slang “femi-Nazi.” Dwight, you are not a femi-Nazi. You’re just a feminist, a male one, and that’s FINE.
Now onward to actually answering the question…
The Gender Guesser analyzed all of my posts as 70% (and up) male; the outlier was one where I was a European male, which seems to suggest a little more femininity. Does this mean that my writing is less “marked” than a typical woman? What women was this study based off of? My English teacher my senior year of high school told my class constantly that words like “so” and “really” were to be eliminated from our essays because not only were they weak, they were “girly.” After reading the chapter by Tannen, I think that by “girly,” Ms. White meant “marked.” Perhaps because I eliminate such flimsy words from my writing the Guesser identifies me as male. In this way I am marked by my own sexism…why did I feel as if I was being commended when the Gender Guesser marked me as male? “Female” writing seems as if it should be weak to be considered so, or more emotional. I would be interested in seeing which of the blogs the Guesser marked as female. I agree that language is engendered, but not innately. Valley Girls didn’t come out of the womb saying “like” and “totally,” after all; these are learned behaviors.
Tannen’s argument was gorgeously constructed. From clothing to hairstyles to speech to legal practices, she had all the bases covered. Try as I might, I could not come up with a scenario in which a woman is unmarked. Even naked, stripped of all the societal bullshit that we are laden with, a woman is marked, weighed, and measured by whether she shaves or not, whether her eyes are on the ground or straight ahead. Everything brands us!
November 1, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Like others who have responded, I put multiple entries into the gender guesser out of curiosity about differing results. My first entry was from last week and dealt with misogyny. I felt it was one of my better, more formal arguments. It tested about 75% male for both formal and informal. I then tested my post about consumerism, a post that I felt was a little more informal and not my best, though it was more personal. For informal, I was a weak male, possibly indicating European, and about 57% male. For formal I ranked about 60% male. My last test included a post about Hitler and Martin Luther King, Jr. This test came out about the same as the consumer post, but it was the formal that indicated I could be a European male this time.
Judging from the other posts about this topic, the gender guesser often guessed male and possibly European. So my question is, how are they defining male and female writing, and where does the European fit into gender guessing at all? Is it educated argumentation/discussion that marks a person as male to the makers of this gender guesser? If I had put something with frivolous writing or less argumentative tone would they recognize the writing as female? I think that this relates to Deborah Tannen’s argument because it addresses how women are approached in use of language. I’m not sure it is the same idea, because I haven’t seen an example where a person was declared female by the gender guesser, but the fact that there wasn’t a writing labeled female from our class also makes me question, like I said before, what kind of criteria for writing they expect from a woman.
Deborah Tannen’s argument immediately caught my attention because I have long questioned the use of “he” as a universal and the placement of man before woman in speech and text. Even when I was younger I thought it was odd that very seldom did I read or hear “woman and man” or “she” referring to an unspecified gender. How about I now pronounce you man and wife? Why not I now pronounce you woman and husband? I still do not understand. Is man supposedly better than woman? Is that why he is mentioned before she?
Also, like Evelyn and the author, I find the female word endings to sound silly, like a doctorette is somehow less capable or intelligent than a doctor.
I think women are marked. Yet, I don’t think that gender guesser has it right. There are some parts of language that are engendered, like Tannen shows. She also showed that we are marked way beyond language through expectations of women to fit into a certain little idea of a female. It happens with some men, obviously not her male subjects, but with metrosexuals now being acceptable and certain subcultures embracing formerly female styles (tight jeans on guys, make-up on guys, longer hair, etc.)the boundaries are changing. However, women remain most affected by gender expectations. Women, no matter what action they take, or inaction, will be judged for their decisions.
November 1, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Personally I really don like that gender guesser program. When I submitted my longest work which even then wasn’t that long it came back to say i was a weak male. That was somewhat of a shock to me. After it told me my writing was one of a weak European Male I was mad. I really don’t think I write anything like a man because I’m such a girly girl. And then I have to find it somewhat funny because I’m usually extremely whiney in my writing and I tend to complain a lot. Like I am right now.
I also enjoyed reading Debroah Tannen’s piece. It was easily relatiable for me and I can also somewhat relate to what Evelyn said about girly girls liking to be marked. As a girly girly that is what I am like everyday.
November 1, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I also thought the Gender Guesser was interesting and informative. I was rated as a European Male. Being half Canadian myself, I thought that was pretty interesting. I’m still not even sure how the whole thing works out with the way one writes, but I find it pretty amazing. I don’t really think how writing can determine masculinity or feminity.I think it just shows how stereotypes and labels even work in the way someone writes. I agree what Dwight said about how it seems like women have to prove themselves in the world, like its a competion or something. I think that is awfully degrading toward women because it may seem like they are not good enough in a “man’s” world. Thats not to say that I don’t think women should stand up for their rights, its just that it suddenly becomes a competion and people become hostile towards one another. Which misses the point. And I think I might be off topic, so I’ll stop. Anyway, I think you get the idea..
November 1, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I didn’t pick anything from this blog, because I feel like when I write in here, even though it’s a “blog”, I’m still formulating a response. I took something off of my personal blog page and posted it in the gender guesser. My results were: Informal, 44% (weak?) European females, and 52% (weak?) European MALE.
In both cases, my results were incredibly close. I’m not exactly sure what the program analyzes, aside from my choice and repetition of key words. I looked on the Gender Genie website and saw that there are key female and male words. I know that I definitely use certain words a lot when I write, and I try not to sound repetitive. I just don’t understand though how or why or if woman and men use different words more often.
So I did something kind of interesting- I went to a blog site and started reading through random journals of anonymous people and tried to guess if they were males or females speaking. I guessed correctly every time, but I’d assume that a lot of it had to do with content. I’d be very interested to see some sort of actual facts and statistics about this Gender Guesser study.
And in response to the SOL reading, I’m gonna have to agree with Olivia- a woman is measured no matter what she does; if she hasn’t shaved, someone is going to make assumptions about why. I think that people always ask WHY about people in terms of their hairstyle, clothing choice, make-up. We are marked and people make assumptions about everything we do! Such a shame.
November 1, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I did the first option: the gender guesser. I thought the reading about the he or s/he was very interesting because i always find myself getting upset when a person will say he or him instead of them or they when they are speaking of a person whose gender they dont know. So i was interested to see what the gender guesser would say about my writing. First, i entered one of my shorter blogs that was just kind of my opinion and very laid back and whatever. Well, it told me i was a weak female. So i was kind of like, “what? wait a minute. whats up with that?” So then i put in a longer more aggressive blog with a lot of exclamation points and more of an aggressive feel and then all of a sudden i was mostly male. So, i dont know if that aggression factor is really what makes it say whether you are male or female but i do think that maybe this gender guesser was based on sexist ideas? I dont think that men are more observant about their markings and spellings in things. i think that some people are more gramatically correct than others whether they be male or female.
November 1, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I used two examples from different blog entries I’ve responded to and both came up with similar results. They both said I was a “weak male” which could indicate I’m European. (Which Isn’t true) but at least it still said I was male which was good. The thing I am finding most interesting about this gender guesser is the fact that it guess nearly everyone as a European male…. are there any other options?! The thing I am most curious about is how do males and females differ in their writing. If i read a book by someone like J.K Rowling, if i didn’t know she was a woman before hand I certainly couldn’t tell from the Harry Potter stories. The same can go for any writings, if you don’t know the authors name I would imagine it would be extremely difficult to attempt to guess their gender. I’m not sure what about my writings made the guesser believe I am a European male, but it guessed nearly all of us were that so I’m skeptical of its abilities. I totally agree with what Olivia says about women being “marked” in every aspect in life. It’s a shame that is the case but women are making tremendous strides towards being totally equal I think. If you compare today to even just 50 years ago and what women could and couldnt do, and what would have been shunned in society… its amazing. Thanks for reading..
November 1, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Blog—–gender guesser.
I submitted to the gender guesser one the blogs I am more proud of. The gender guesser was exactly right according to it I am male. It said in both formal and informal contexts I am man. Language is definitely impacted by our word choices and how often we use filler words and what filler words we use. Language is so impacted by our race, gender, ethnicity, and geographic location, in fact there are often many dialects to each category and combinations of the four create sub dialects for each other. The theory tool box this week started by asking the questions do race gender media etc. impact our decisions as writers, teachers and artists and more so does it effect us as viewers, students and audience members, I agree I think that everything effects how we look at things for example art and how we would approach creating a piece of art. Even in my classes I see how each persons unique background and story effects the way the do anything from communicate their idea to how they comment in class during debates and discussions. I know in my life I have been impacted by being many things; white, male, a Christian, American, a student. And to say that I have not learned from different things in my life would be silly. In closing I think both the identity we think of ourselves as and the identity we have based on others perceptions of us are so important to us and effect everything we do.
November 7, 2007 at 1:17 pm
when i put my paragragh into the gender guesser i came out as a weak european male.when it said weak i could understand why because the words that i use when writing aren’t as strong and the vocabulary that i have isn’t so demanding for me so i write as i would speak. i’m not this walking dictionary. my words could have been read as a male. in a females language we tend to use more “es” sounds and lighter words, nicer sounding words. the female is suppose to more intelligent than the male so we use words that are to the point and say something. language is gendered because if a person reads another random persons paper they go by what is being said, how its being said and the words that are being used many a people can mistake a females paper for a males because of the phrasing and all grammatical stuff
November 7, 2007 at 8:31 pm
The Gender Guesser told me I was male. In reading all of the other blog responses, it sounds like it guessed that everyone else is male too (except for one person).
a) Its hard to say how a program like this could be developed. It somehow seems that any intelligent writing comes off as male. By intelligent, I mean “big” words, aggressive, probably not too many adjectives, etc. Because we are all college students, it is possible that anyone sounding like they have any sort of edcation may be labeled as being male?
b) The response I had the gender guesser analyze was fairly informal, I think, because I pretty much wrote it as my thoughts were going. Maybe that is why I only got a 64%, because it wasn’t well written so it wasn’t 100% male.
c) Very plain, to the point language, not showing much emotion but stating the facts would probable default as male. Depending on how many emotional words were found probaly determined the score. It kind of validates Tannen’s point in SOL, there is no unmarked woman, but that is not to say that I agree with her. I think there is no unmarked man either. The color of his skin, his height, anything he wears will automatically mark him. How can you look at anyone and not have a preconceived notion of who they are? Its not like looking at a blank canvas.