Southern Fried Chicas

A few years ago, I ran across an interesting writing test on one of the blogs. I found it again yesterday afternoon while procrastinating searching for some lost files on my computer. It’s called the Gender Genie test and it’s supposed to be able to predict an author’s gender just by analyzing a writing sample.

Using a simplified algorithm, Gender Genie scans your prose for certain key words. The concept was inspired by a piece in the New York Times about the linguistic differences in males and females.

According to the article,“Men and women ostensibly write the same language … but … they do so in ways that immediately reveal which sex is doing the writing. A team of Israeli scientists … punched into a computer some 600 published documents and devised an algorithm that could predict with 80 percent accuracy the sex of the author……[W]omen are more comfortable talking or thinking about people and relationships, while men prefer to contemplate things.” –Charles McGrath, The New York Times Magazine

Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? Well, I took the test again and guess what? I fell in the 20 percentile they got wrong.

Or so I thought……

You see, I cut and pasted a passage from one of my books and this so-called genie determined that I was a guy.

That got me thinking, and I finally figured out what may have happened. Thepassage I posted was in “deep male POV,” which meant the Gender Genie had essentially validated my writing!! IOW, according to their algorithm, I had succeeded in what I was trying to do. Write with a male voice. That compelled me to test my heroine’s POV, and the results stunned me. You guessed it. Female!

So here’s the challenge. Cut and paste sections of your WIP or something from your blog if you prefer (one or two paragraphs) into the box at this link, select whether it’s Fiction, Non-Fiction or a Blog Entry, then post your results in the comments section below.

Here are mine:

First, I tested a passage from my hero’s POV (JOSH):

The small jail cell had no windows. Just a naked bulb suspended high above the linoleum floor. Josh lay on his back, one leg bent, hands threaded behind his head. The thin mattress beneath him felt as lumpy as the oatmeal he hadn’t touched. He glared at the metal breakfast tray beside his bunk. Who could eat with the stench in this place? Everything but the food smelled of urine and unwashed humanity.

He’d been here, done this just two months ago.

Sounds of creaking bedsprings and jagged breathing bled through the concrete wall to his left. The perv in the next cell was at it again. He’d been jerking off for hours.

And here are Josh’s Gender Genie results:

Words: 116
Female Score: 88
Male Score: 165
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Now here’s a passage from my heroine’s POV (ELISE):

The room’s airy motif, with its flowing linen drapes, and Shaker furniture should have felt warm and inviting. Yet it, two blankets and a comforter hadn’t displaced the chill plaguing her. She was cold inside. Empty. As if someone had sucked her soul out with a Hoover.

She knew this remote feeling wouldn’t last. It never did. Like lightning in a storm, her emotions were fleeting. Miles away one minute, back in the thick of it the next, she couldn’t be sure if she was coming or going.

So far she’d leapt from numbness to shock. To disbelief. To rage. To a stormy fusion of guilt, fear and humiliation. Then back to numbness again.

Here are Elise’s Gender Genie results:

Words: 119
Female Score: 378
Male Score: 103

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

POST SCRIPT: Gender Genie’s 20% inaccuracy rate is real. I went back and tested another story I’d written, this one in first person POV, but once again I was shocked. That freaking Genie still thought I was a guy. And I’d written the passage in my heroine’s POV! Then again, this is a kick-ass heroine with a very strong voice, so maybe that’s why.

Oh, who the hell knows. Whatever the case, give it a whirl. It’s fun!