Not only do I enjoy the Friday Five, I check out RevGalBlogPals on other days as well. Today I read a blog post from a woman who visited a site called Gender Genie and had some of her writing analysed.
It was an interesting experience. I used samples from my "normal" blogging, my newsletter articles, and sermons. I found that generally speaking, my sermons are male (2 strongly, 1 weakly, 1 strongly female); my church newsletter articles are also predominantly male; my other blog musings are predominantly female.
I wonder if this has to with sort of percieved intimacy in our language...sermons tend to be a little broader than my blog posts, but the Pentecost (female) sermon was strongly invitational. My newsletter articles, while chatty, tend to be a bit, er, controlled, because I know I'm writing for an audience. When I write for myself, my "voice" is female.
I'm a bit curious as to how the terms were chosen, and why my public voice, and that of many others, seems to be male and my personal voice female. I'm calling it a bias in the test...are we sure it's not a psych experiment?
Hi Rev. Anne... thanks for stopping by and commenting. Your suggestion that the Gender Genie might be a psych experiment intrigues me! Although the NY Times article to which the genie links would suggest it's a straightforward theory.
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you!
Peace,
Mags