You Mean You're Not A Man?!? - Identifying Gender Online

Sometimes you just can't tell if you are chatting with a man or woman. There are cues sometimes. Most women are very concerned with being polite, and careful about hurting people's feelings. Women usually talk more about feelings. Women tend to use emoticons more often. In chat, women also seem to giggle or laugh more often. But, you are right. Most of the time you don't know without asking. And, that is no assurance. People often lie online.

I thought you were a woman from your avatar. :) But a lot of people mistake me for a man even in public, and I am not butch! I don't know why, but I get called "sir" a lot. I usually call the lady "sir" back. Then she gets the message. I could somewhat understand it when I had short hair, since I'm flat chested. But now I'm nearly always wearing jewelry, and have shoulder length hair!

I look at someone's profile to determine gender by the social clues of interests, topics of discussions, choice in avatar, sentence structure, and syntax. Not all sterotypes to gender apply, I use my intuition too, and so far I haven't goofed.

If I can't tell obviously by the name I don't assume at all. I've had some think I'm a man as well. Don't know why but they do. I've also known others who have had ones assume that way. Usually I find it funny when they make that mistake but sometimes it is irritating. Usually I go by name or what they say. If they are talking about the father of their children, I'm going to assume they are female for example or if they talk about when they gave birth. Obvious clues like that. However when they just talk abotu their partner I don't assume. It's a good way to be wrong.

I wouldn't say it's easy, though if you stick to gender stereotypes (like some of the commenters above ;), you might get a fairly good guess-rate of someone's gender. I tend to get an image of someone based on their user id and posting style and content. I'm not saying I'm always right, though. :) I've gotten gender wrong before. But I guess I don't think of it as all that big a deal. If someone wants to be known as female, male, intersexed, two-spirited, or genderless, that's fine with me. I find gender is not always the most interesting thing about a person, online or off. With your username, "misskatonic", I'd have guessed that you were female. I don't think I've ever been mistaken for a male with my name "wyrdsister". An old handle I used in the past had me constantly mistaken for a guy. The handle was really genderless, and the assumption was that people online were male, especially if they talked about physics and math like I did. People were often surprised I said I was female, if I bothered to say anything about it that is. :) Interesting topic! *thumbs up* ~Wyrdsister

I ask! That's the only way I can tell :) I do the profile peek like you, but some people are very vague and you can't even tell from that. The only other way I try to tell is if someone talks about their husband or wife or girlfriend/boyfriend. But that still doesn't make it "for sure" For you though, I would just look at your member name and think you are either a miss (female) or a cross-dressor! I think female is more likely :) Mine should be easy to tell to based on my name, I wish more ppl would choose names to easily identify themselves.

I don't think it is that difficult to tell with some users. Other times when it is difficult to tell and there is no gender specified on the profile then I just use neutral words. I do find it strange that people do not pick up on the clues to gender in the names or avatars.... but I have seen many profiles with female pictures but the profile says "M" I wonder why I should even bother.

On mylot, maybe it is your anime avatar. Guys tend to like that. But your name of course gives your gender away :) As far as other indicators, I've been wrong and surprised a few times up on here, usually because of language. I've also seen guys with normal-looking chicks ( I mean not just boobage) as avatars and I've seen girls who stick a guy on their avatar or use a masculine screen name just so they won't get unnecessarily hit on. It's all good.