Internet Gender Issues

[smileyeagle1021]

What gender do people think I am?

I'm going with male... ?

I can kind of understand how people would be confused with mine... smiley isn't exactly the type of thing many guys would put in their screen name, yet eagle is typically associated with masculinity. That and post style... being gay probably puts me as a kind of hybrid between the masculine and feminine styles of posting...
That said... it is kind of rare for people to confuse me on forums... oddly just on the phone.

[TehShush]

Most people default towards male, not just online but in general. I do know that in most games that I play, a girl has to tell people she is female (unless she has a very obvious female username) for others to call her such. A lot of online games are male-oriented, as girls tend to stick with messaging and such, at least as the stereotypes go.

I use this screen name almost everywhere; when under another psuedonym, I generally pretend to be a guy (such as on Gaia, where girls tend to get a lot of unwanted attention).

[Lace Neil Singer]

I don't find that; neither myself or my mule account get unwanted attention, tho my main gets a few weird ranty PMs and annoyances from beggars in Towns. There are also a lot of Gaians who have opposite gender avatars; must be funny if you're really a guy and some noob is asking you to cyber. XD

[Gravekeeper]

I don't find that; neither myself or my mule account get unwanted attention, tho my main gets a few weird ranty PMs and annoyances from beggars in Towns. There are also a lot of Gaians who have opposite gender avatars; must be funny if you're really a guy and some noob is asking you to cyber. XD

Depends on the game I think. I've never been bothered on female characters in DaoC, CoH/CoV, LOTRO or WAR.

But I couldn't so much as swap armour on my she-Draenai in WoW without a comment from the desperately rubbing my peanuts gallery.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I'm a girl, everyone knows I'm a girl right off the bat.

This ties in to a little experiment I'm currently toying with. A few years ago, I was part of a wrestling forum that was rather...unkind to anyone who wasn't all about "being cool" by hating the popular people and ranting about how the indies had all the good people and we're-the-smart-ones blah blah blah. I was a girl, with girly opinions, and got freaking crucified for daring to tell the truth about my earlier life.

Stumbled across it not long ago and on a whim, rejoined using a more masculine user name, yet I'm still writing, posting, and opining in the exact same way I ever did. So far nothing but occasional commentary on how "neat" an idea of mine is or how they hadn't thought of that or whatever.

Like I told Cath, it's so blatant as to almost be cute. "Awww, wookit the widdle mens thweatened by the ovawies, they so adowable!"

[Nyoibo]

Pfft, ovaries aren't scary, what they do to women though, that shit is scary.

[smileyeagle1021]

Pfft, ovaries aren't scary, what they do to women though, that shit is scary.

no... the really scary part of women is a little bit further down on their body... I do believe it may even have teeth

[violetyoshi]

Post here and say what gender you are, plus what other usernames you've used online and whether you've ever been mistaken for the opposite sex. XD

Well, I'm female. I also go by The Anti-Crisst and SS Lt Frehley; yup, I do get mistaken for a guy lots of times. XD I admit my usernames are a bit ambiguous, but I've posted with a girly signature, title and avatar and STILL had someone assuming I'm male. o_O

I'm female, most of the time on the net people will assume I'm male. I think it may be the combination, of the sexist notion that women don't play video games, so if I have a screen name related to video games I MUST be male. Also I don't talk like a woman whatever that means.

Apparently I wasn't in class on the day, they talked about saying "OMG" and "like" adnauseum, and that women only talk about cooking, shopping, and sex. Cause you know, silly internet, why would people there believe a woman can have a life not revolving around a man?

[BroomJockey]

I do believe it may even have teeth

Only in bad horror movies.

[Gravekeeper]

I'm female, most of the time on the net people will assume I'm male. I think it may be the combination, of the sexist notion that women don't play video games, so if I have a screen name related to video games I MUST be male.

Objection!

Its not sexiest, it's stereotypical. Like or not the video game industry has been male dominated for the longest time. It's not been until more recent years that the gender ratio has started to even out with the popularity of more accessible games and newer game types such as mmos.

The stereotype tends to persist because

A) You still don't see a lot of female players in "mainstream" games ( Read: Action games ), because these are typically marketed to young males and predominately played by young males. A realm female players don't tread as often or don't admit that they do for obvious reasons. ( 13 year old horny males ).

For the record actual adult male gamers such as myself don't tend to play said games much either. Their twitch fix games filled with screeching little e-peen wankers.


B) Female gamers rarely identify themselves since depending on the game community the reaction or unwanted attention can be problematic. This is typically problematic in the aforementioned action games dominated by younger male players.

Whereas there is a higher percentage of openly female gamers in teamwork/social building game's. MMOs for example tend to have more even gender ratios and far less creepy horny 13 year old attention for anyone that happens to have a uterus.

[Fashion Lad!]

I generally assume everyone is a he until they say otherwise.

In my class we were speaking about internet and gender.

One of my classmates said that any girl you talk to online is actually a man. And for some reason, we managed to figure out scenarios that would point to the person being a man in real-life.

We have no life.

No one has every mistaken me for a female. I've only been using two names. Fashion Lad! and variations of pushing_pixels.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Note to add: My mule account on Gaia has a male name; whether it's masculine enough is a matter of opinion. I named my mule after my avatar, in case you're wondering. And yup; people are assuming my mule to be male. Even tho my mule is female and currently wearing a dress. XD

[Fire_on_High]

I get constantly mistaken for a male on IRC since I don't use girly nicks. I think there's also an inherent assumption anyone on IRC must be a guy, since it's a geekier medium to this day.

Pretty amusing, I'm pretty butchy IRL as well so...

[BroomJockey]

I'm a girl!

Okay, no, but funnily enough, the only time I've been mistaken for a girl online is on CS.

[Flyndaran]

I've always gone by Flyndaran or KBantar, yet I don't think anyone has ever mistaken me for female.

It might be partly due to my poor social skills and how it affects my writing. But since I've met women with just as poor social skills as mine, it can't be that stereotypical.