Why is your gender "undeclared" in your DU profile?

[Blue-Jay]

There have been several instances where I wanted to reply to a post by using "she" "he" "him" "her", but didn't because I'd rather not refer to a fellow DUer as an "it".

What's your rationale for withholding that small bit of information? It doesn't make your opinion any less or more relevant in the eyes of 99% of the members here. The other 1% need help.

Why the subterfuge?

[salinen]

1. What if someone isn't sure

what sex they are?

[wyldwolf]

2. I would assume some people want to be as anonymous as possible

[arcane1]

3. am I the only one who makes this mistake:

seems like whenever I assume that a given DUer is m or f, and start regarding them as such, I end up finding out I'm almost always wrong!

:wtf:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. how could you even THINK i am a boy?

really!

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

16. Well, you DO like girls!

:beer:

[arcane1]

17. yours was too easy to figure out, you got lucky

the "lioness" gave it away :silly:

[Parrcrow]

14. you said it sister!

hah hah hah gotcha! :toast:

[bucknaked]

4. Didn't even know that option was available until I chose an avatar.

That's my excuse.

[greatauntoftriplets]

5. Mine is declared....

...though I think my gender is pretty obvious.

[Classical_Liberal]

6. If you don't know my gender, you can't be sexist against me.

. Women can't demagogue on "Oh you typical man!" hurrumph hurrumph! Men can't demagogue, on "Only a women would say such and such!"

When I don't know someone’s gender. I use s/he or h/im/er, h/is/er.

[Blue-Jay]

12. I don't see a lot of blatant "demogoguery" here.

To be quite honest, there are more female posters here that I make a point of reading very closely than there are male posters. It's not really a matter of gender to me. That said, most of my best friends are women.

[Classical_Liberal]

18. I have seen enough of it here to satisfy me that I don't

need to advertise my gender.

What does genitalia have to do with my political opinions?

[Political_Junkie]

22. I agree

I trolled this board long before I actually joined just to see if it was something I wanted to be a part of. There was enough so that it influenced my decision to remain undeclared.

[Blue-Jay]

24. Absolutely nothing!

But perhaps you miss my point. Your "parts" have nothing to do with your opinions on any subject. (Which, by the way, is a pet peeve of mine in abortion-threads where some people maintain that because *I* don't have a womb, that I shouldn't be entitled to an opinion on the subject. That's a whole 'nother thread, though).

My point is that I don't see the point in remaining completely gender-neutral. Not that it makes one "better" or "worse", but we of differing genders sometimes have a different perspective on things. I'm not advocating that anyone should declare a gender if they don't want to, but I was just wondering why that would be an issue. I don't mean any disrespect.

[Political_Junkie]

26. I didn't think

that you're question was disrespectful at all.

[dweller]

39. You must be a

Democrat.....

isn't that enough?
dp

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

7. Mine's not hidden but if it were it would be so that more women would

flirt with me :evilgrin:

[Blue-Jay]

8. You slut!

Always trolling for broads!

:D

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. I prefer to call it

resourceful :D

[arcane1]

19. if it helps, some of us appreciate your honesty

:D

[Book Lover]

10. Because I like

making people guess. If you read enough of what I say, you'll probably figure it out.

[Political_Junkie]

11. Sometimes it does make a difference.

As we have seen in the bitch wars, you can have your opinion discounted because of your gender, i.e. comments like these (not actual quotes, but you get the point):
You're only saying that because you're male
or
Why do women get so upset over a stupid word?

My motivation is to not have someone decide the validity of my statements through the filter of gender.

As to the he, she, him, her quandary, how about just using their name?

[Blue-Jay]

20. I must be an anomaly, then.

I judge the validity of one's views based on my perceived estimation of the validity of their views. There's no gender-gap of stupidity or brilliance in my humble opinion.

That said, I'll ashamedly admit that I'm more eager to point out male stupidity. Maybe I'm a sexist, but I don't like "baiting" women when I disagree with them.

[notadmblnd]

23. People can't help it

its human nature and just like racism, we're all guilty of it. The question is, can we recognise it in ourselves and when we do, do we have the courage to admit it and change?

[Political_Junkie]

25. I agree with you

as to judging the validity of one's views without basing it on gender, unfortunately not everyone plays by those rules. Therefore, I will remain undeclared. Although, I'm not really, because I have told anyone who asked and even supplied the answer when someone asked a gender-specific question.

[Blue-Jay]

27. You can't fool me!

That sunflower marks you as a chick's chick!

(Hey, listen, that was a joke, OK?)

[Political_Junkie]

28. LOL

That sunflower is the flower of Peace. I'm a hippy and a chick's chick! ;-)

[Blue-Jay]

29. Your sense of humor has just earned you

a star.

-Jay-

[Political_Junkie]

35. Ooh, thank you

[Blue-Jay]

38. De nada.

Just as long as I don't get the guilt-trip during the next fund-raising drive.

I'm looking at you, Grovelbot!

[tigereye]

30. I think it is fun to play with the idea of whether people will

respond to you differently if they don't know your sex. Because sometimes you can't tell from the posts, which is how it should be?

[Blue-Jay]

32. sooo....

You want me, right?

Or did I misread that whole post?

[tigereye]

36. somehow I knew it would come down to that

:evilgrin: so that was what this was all about, to see who is interested in .... something? he he

it's cuz of your squirrel

[Blue-Jay]

37. Saw right through me, didn't ya?

As a typical man, I'm apparently completely transparent.

(Ya know what's funny? I can't decide whether or not this thread is serious or silly.)

Who wants me to throw out some Mardi Gras beads?

[tigereye]

40. this is fun

I like it when people are not sure if they are serious or silly.
It is that kind of day... sort of dreamily silly. You can tell that spring is really here. Toss those beads over here... ooops you missed it...

No men are not typically transparent - well maybe sometimes. But then so are women. A more intriguing discussion, by extension, would be about what the differences actually are, between men and women, to what degree they are actually driven by gender, and how much of an influence gender is. Then you'd have a paper!

[ikojo]

15. I used to keep my gender private when I first got online

(AOL) in order to minimize the number of teenage boys or other pervs who just wanted to harrass a female.

[tigereye]

33. I think that when I first came here

I wasn't sure what it would be like. Generally it doesn't seem to matter here what gender you are, I feel like I have been treated well, as a person. I think there are some silly sex comments at times, but it seems to be all pretty good - natured and inoffensive. That is my experience at least in the short time that I have been here. I think most people look at the content of the posts, not gender, generally.

[notadmblnd]

21. My gender is not hidden

and I've been mistaken for a man. It really doesn't matter to me knowing if the person I'm talking to is male or female and I don't think that I would say anything different if I did know the gender of the person. But if it bothers you, why don't you just use the persons screenname when refering to/about that person?

[Iris]

31. because I like it like that

[johnnie]

34. To be honest

I didn't know mine was undeclared after over a year here until earlier today. I'm declared now.

[Guy Fawkes]

41. Blame that squirrel

[TrogL]

42. gender is a mutable characteristic

[wickerwoman]

43. Because my posts get more respect when people think I'm a man.

I've had two names here both of which were androgynous with a combined total of about 5000 posts. And I find that posters who assume I'm male in their responses show a lot more respect for my ideas, while posters who assume I'm female don't. And I find that information interesting while maintaining my ignore list.

To flip the question, why do you care if the person you are responding to is male or female? It's not that hard to use (s)he or he/she until they out themselves. If gender only matters to 1% of DUers, then why insist that people declare it?