usernames - male or female???

[joko]

Do people make assumptions as to the gender of an ABer by their ambiguous usernames?

Does this affect responses?

Anyone put their foot in it because of this?

[Cetti]

You tend to have an idea of their gender after a while if you take careful note of their posts.Giveaways are 'when I was pregnant' or referring to a husband or wife - although even that doesn't always follow now, does it?

[SC00BY]

Cetti, someone assumed I was a bloke once, because of references to my girlfriend! I think it took a while for them to realise that a woman could have a girlfriend too.

[joko]

yes that's true cetti, but that's not an assumption, that's gathered 'knowledge'. I mean first impressions, based purely on the username.

for instance my instant assumption is that cetti is a girls username - even though the word itself implies neither one nor the other.

er.. in a pickle...er...what? Don't get your point...how is a list of info about you relevent to the question?

[woofgang]

yes people tend to think of my username as male. When this happens, I always mention politely that I am female, but no one so far has really put there foot in it and to be honest it doesn't bother me.

IAP has a point. Even when you have gathered information, it doesn't do to assume!!

Also you have to believe that I am telling the truth when I say that I am female (I am by the way!!)

[sp1814]

I've seen posts from Woofgang before and I always assumed you were a bloke, because in my head, I was pronouncing it as 'Wolfgang'.

Huh...weird how the mind works (or doesn't in my case).

[netibiza]

I was confused about Inapickle when I first joined - he was so on my wave length.

[Cetti]

I was hoping woofgang would respond as this is the user name I thought of straight away when reading the question, but then she is more than capable of standing up for herself.....in the nicest possible way of course!

Quite honestly joko gender issues do not cause the most problems on this site - it's rudeness and profanity (especially with asterisks) that make my blood boil.

[woofgang]

the funny thing is that I chose my name because I thought that it was gender neutral. In the early days of the internet when it was powered by pedalling dinosaurs, most recreational users were teenaged (or a little older) males. Going online as a female was an invitation to leery conversation, strange suggestions or occasionally abuse, not that it ever bothered me but the novelty soon wears off.

My father in law used to call our dog a woofgang, because he couldn't remember "weimaraner" and so I decided to use that and have done ever since. Now that I know this site, I have no problem revealing my gender, but as some of us have found, not all sites are as (comparatively) open and non judgemental as this one and sometimes it still feels more comfortable to conceal my gender until I know the lie of the land.

Sorry to hijack the thread, I'll shut up now!

[Robinia]

As Cetti knows I had a name previously that a lot of others assumed to be male. It didn't upset me but I got fed up of explaining. When I changed computer/address etc I decided to have a name that was more fitting for my gender & main interest....but AB wouldn't let me have Strumpet!!

[Lonnie]

I was previously Chessman, mainly because I love the game, but am now Lonnie, in honour of the father of British pop, but I have noticed, that even if the name clearly denotes male or female, some hedge their bets when replying with him/she.

[Drusilla]

I thought woofgang and joko were both male originally and I tended not to answer questions I perceived to be from males in my first few weeks on Answerbank. Now, I'll talk to anyone, though I'm still careful around the attack dogs of Answerbank.
I'm also surprised how fond I've grown of certain Abers who are complete strangers- In A Pickle, Lore, Gnisy, Shaneystar and Tatty Rollox, who my daughters have adopted as a kind of eccentric relative with all his/her picture postings.

[sp1814]

Similarly, I work for a company that has a close relationship with a company in India who manage the development of new computer code for us.

We often talk via email to teams based in this company, but India names don't offer up any clue as to the gender of the person you're speaking to.

There have been loads of occasions where someone from an India team has come to London on secondment, to be greeted with "Blimey! You're a bloke/woman".

(I recently found out, going by just our names, that they have no idea which sex we are either).