Inferences

[koganbot]

This is an edited-down excerpt from a reply I made to Dave on the Elephant Call thread. In my edits I've taken out some of my sharp opinions because they aren't relevant to the point of this post, but by all means click the link, for the sharpness. And I'm going to sneak the actual point of this post down in the comments, so look there as well

Comments

[koganbot]

If you're like me, when you read the anecdote about Sam and Chris you automatically, without thinking about it, added a rudimentary sense in your mind of Sam and Chris, to give them presence. You may not have gone so far as envisioning them, and setting the conversation in a room, though you may well have. Their voices might have had pitch, and a particular spirit, or lack of spirit. You may have been viewing them from the side, or over one of their shoulders. They may have been face to face. They may have been standing, or sitting, or walking on the street. They may have been your age, or younger, or older. In any event, trying not to add details now, think back to that sense, or that vision, you had of them, and of the room or street around them, if you gave them one. Then go to the next comment, and see the question I ask.

[koganbot]

What gender did you assign Sam, if you assigned one? What gender did you assign Chris, if you assigned one?

[koganbot]

My hypothesis, though I can't use you to test this, since I'm giving it away here, is, in three parts:

(1) Most people will assign Sam and Chris genders.

(2) If we were to remind the readers a few days hence that they'd read an anecdote about two people who were deciding what day to meet for lunch, the same gender assignments would remain.

(3) In most readers' memories, the gender would be a fact of the anecdote, not something they'd added

[petronia]

I thought of both Sam and Chris as male, early-30s business types. The type of person most likely to have such a conversation in my hearing IRL, I guess (my offline friends would never do non-work-related weekday lunches, it's just not a thing).

If you asked me the gender question, I would automatically think back and realize the names were non-gender specific in 21st century common usage -- but I do still think of them as male names. I wouldn't remember the pronouns, not having heard any, so wouldn't assume I'd heard any.

[koganbot]

Ah, I should have had them meet for coffee.

I wonder if by making Sam and Chris potential embezzlers I also unintentionally coded them male for the reader. I'd originally planned to make them potential secret lovers, not potential embezzlers, and then realized that that would immediately make the reader consciously wonder about Sam's and Chris's genders, which was the last thing I wanted to happen. I wanted the gender assignment to be subconscious.

In my everyday life I actually know more female Chrisses than male Chrisses (one of whom is in her 60s), but I agree that Chris still codes more strongly male than female, as of course does Sam.

But my main hypothesis is that most people are like me in automatically assigning gender unless they receive a strong signal not to. Even when I'm consciously aware that I don't know (e.g., when I know someone only online and only by a funny Internet name), I'll assign someone a gender in my mind. I can't stop myself. And who's to tell how often I've assigned a gender without even noticing that I

[petronia]

Yes, this is what in social justice circles they call "cissexism" -- the tendency to assume everyone belongs squarely to one side of a binary gender split. :P Not only do ppl tend to assign gender, we tend to get upset/uncomfortable if our assumptions are wrong, or if gender signals are conflicting, and throw that discomfort back onto the external cause (you lied to me; you're a freak; why don't you dress your small child properly). It's hard for us to hold people (and animals!) in our minds as gender-neutral-until-proven-otherwise entities.

I would say, if you're interested in unconsciously added information, you've picked a good example -- I think this is way more deeply-rooted than picturing everyone as heterosexual or white until proven otherwise, for instance.