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# Posted 7:58 PM by Patrick Belton

WE'RE ALL MALE: At least according to the internet Gender Genie. Following Glenn and Andrew, I visited said Genie today to judge by my use of definite articles and conjunctions whether I wrote in a way more in keeping with male or female writers. I write like a guy; okay, no huge surprise there. Then I tried running through an op-ed piece by Rachel in the WaPo; somewhat surprisingly, the Genie thought she was a guy as well. So then, I tried running through the algorithm the most recent online writing of several female friends, prominent bloggers, and columnists - Virginia Postrel (whose picture is on her blog; she clearly isn't a guy), YaleDiva, Maureen Dowd, and Anne-Marie Slaughter (as well as a post by Rachel on Thucidydes). This sample included some variance in ideology and prose style. And, I don't mean to use a phrase from back in high school here, but - it was a total sausage fest. Every single one of these women writers came up as male. So either the algorithm's not spectacularly powerful (i.e., "guess male"), or perhaps the concept that the gender of an author can be inferred from a text needs revisiting. But given that we're all guys here, I figure I might as well stick with Rachel over Maureen. (Though I guess I'll probably be needing one of Eugene's pills....)

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