Again with the gender thing...

[strange_tomato]

Gender is weird, huh?

I've noticed that people on lj (and other places online, I assume) tend to make something of an issue out of people getting their gender wrong. Someone made a secret about me at one point, saying that they always thought I was a guy, and I wonder how they thought I was going to react to that. I don't really care. If anything, I

Comments

[simsinthecity]

As someone whose gender is constantly confused around here ... I don't know why I do it. I guess I've gotten into such a mode of correcting others about myself that I tend to do it with others as well. I also like passing on little pieces of information when it looks like others don't already know them, whether they actually make a difference, and sometimes gender qualifies.

As a male, I also wouldn't want to be treated like a girl. Regardless of whether it *should* happen, some people do treat me different based on that. Even though it's "just the Internet," I like it when I see others being treated "appropriately." I've never actually considered what that person considers appropriate and whether or not they mind others getting the facts wrong, but I've not been called out on it, either.

[meetme2theriver]

...How do you treat someone like a girl (or boy) on the Internet? I mean, in a normal conversation? I'm honestly curious.

[simsinthecity]

Knowing just changes the way I interact with people, sometimes. I mean, for example, if I know a person is a part of Group/Category X, then I'll tend to avoid making jokes that are unsympathetic to Group/Category X.

[will_o_whisper]

I have to say this.

If you think/know certain jokes and comments are going to hurt members of certain groups, you shouldn't saying those things at all. It's still offensive and wrong.

Like, for example, gay jokes are still harmful and offensive regardless of whether a queer person hears them or not.

[meetme2theriver]

I don't imagine cats have a "gender" as in a socially constructed behaviour. :) I also think that any sex-related behaviour they display will be more in relation to other cats, not so much towards humans. Neutered male cats will still be territorial in a different way than (neutered) female cats, etc.

About the Internet Gender Correction syndrome... Yeah, I don't really get it either. I mean, when they're just sort of politely and offhandedly pointing out that 'oh, I'm a s/he', then okay, whatever, I can see that if you're going to be talking to someone you might want them to know that about you, even if I don't really think it's very important myself. But when people get all OFFENDED... or even mock offended. That's a huge WTF to me. OH NO, SOMEONE COULDN'T SEE HOW MASCULINE/FEMININE YOUR SCREENNAME IS. SOMEONE THOUGHT YOU WERE A BOY/GIRL ON THE INTERNET. RAGE!

[strange_tomato]

No, I guess not. They don't style themselves in certain ways, and they all sway their hips when they walk. In fact, there's a bit of a human-projected notion that all cats are feminine and all dogs are masculine, isn't there?

When I'm talking about cats, it's more "sex" than "gender" and I shouldn't confuse the two terms.

Luckily, I haven't seen anyone get really offended or anything, but most of the time I wonder why people even bother to correct someone for using he or she incorrectly. I don't think I'd even pick up on it. I'd just skim the pronouns and get to the meat of the sentence, like the part where we talk about SIMS. Sims are very important to me. :P

[meetme2theriver]

B-but what if someone called your male sim a female sim? WHAT THEN?

[nepheris]

I'm very non-fussed about other people's dangly or non-dangly bits. Most of the time you don't know anyway, I treat everyone the same regardless of gender.
Granted, I got on the internets quite a while before I got into the sims fandom, and while in here you can sort of gauge that most people will be female, out there you really don't have a clue. I guess that's where my stand on that comes from.

[strange_tomato]

Aren't all people's bits dangly? :P Some are danglier than others, I guess.

I was like you when I came to the sims fandom. I think I initially imagined it would be more of a mixed group, though I'm not sure why. Before this, I was pretty involved in the crafty blogosphere (mostly knitting), which is very much female dominanted, but I think it's easier to see why. With Sims, I was looking at it being a computer game more than a girl's computer game. I think the sales show that it's a pretty mixed group, don't they?

[nepheris]

They're only dangly if you can make them, well, dangle :D
I think far more men play sims than there are active ones in the community, which skews people's view on it a bit.

I'm still very used to using him/her or he/she (or if the person is annoying, he/she/it :p). Strangely enough people don't tend to correct me, maybe they just mentally pick what fits and are content with that.

[strange_tomato]

A whole conference on gender? Sounds interesting! ^_^

I'm not sure I agree on your first statement from my own experience. Most of the males I know in the sim community (and I know at least 4 or 5) did identify themselves as such before I thought to ask, or at least that's how I remember it. I believe it came up more or less casually in about half of the cases. And I have noticed others (females, we would assume) pointing it out just as must as the males themselves.

Thinking a little broader on the whole online community, I thought instantly of J.M. Pescado, and he is well known as a male in the sims fandom and gets those "I have a wide-on for Pescado" secrets made about him, so he is sort of singled out for being male, aside from his renown as a modder.

[will_o_whisper]

re: kids and gender, I'm visiting my grandparents for my grandfather's funeral right now, and yesterday we had a bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles over after church. I was playing with my eight year old cousin, showing him some things online, talking about Mario and what not, when he politely informed me that girls don't know stuff about computers. That's a boy thing, but girls did know lots about dancing and hair. Fascinating tale, me, but that was the first thing I thought of seeing this post. That, and the fit my mother threw/it throwing over my refusal to wear a dress to this; I wore dress pants and tie to church, will be wearing them to the wake and funeral. She was furious because it wasnt' "nice" enough, by which she means not "feminine" enough

[strange_tomato]

Wow. How did you react to that? You must have wondered where to even start with that one.

I'm very sorry about your grandfather. That's tough enough to go through without having to deal with motherly nitpicking (mine does it, too, though not as much as she used to). I hope you're doing okay. It's hard to lose a grandparent.

That's an interesting point. I can see how identifying with a gender is more important for those who have to struggle with it in that way. What I might resent may be seen as desirable to them. I guess the bottom line is respecting people's wishes. When you put it that way, I have a better appreciation for people making a point to specify what they identify with.

It took me a while to realize that livejournal was mostly female. I had no idea. Why is that, I wonder? Because it's mostly fandom-based?

[will_o_whisper]

Awkwardly. His parents are crazy fundamentalist Born-Again Christians - like, homeschooling their kids because the schools are Christian enough crazy - and his mom was in the room. I ended up telling him that I thought that wasn't a very nice thing to say, because lots of girls knew things about computers, and did he know I couldn't dance and didn't know anything at all about hair. I don't know that he bought it, and I doubt his mom liked but...I couldn't just ignore that. I mean, what. The. Fuck. Him and his sister, I worry about. They are the cutest, sweetest, kids, but they are going to be so messed up as they get older.

I'm doing alright. The funeral proper is tomorrow today, and that will be rough, but at least I got to be here

[sadieg79]

This whole discussion of whether a simmer is male or female doesn't even consider for a moment that they might be both, neither, or somewhere in between. It's another good reason to be wary of the whole thing.

That's just it - there *is* no relationship between gender and sexuality. I can only guess that people think that way through stereotyping, and lots of it - as you've mentioned, in fact. Butch woman = lesbian, camp guy = gay, etc. I've met enough butch women and camp guys who are straight :P But you've made a lot of interesting points about the whole thing.