Again with the gender thing...

[strangetomato]

Gender is weird, huh?

I've noticed that people on lj (and other places online, I assume) tend to make something of an issue out of people getting their gender wrong. Someone made a secret about me at one point, saying that they always thought I was a guy, and I wonder how they thought I was going to react to that. I don't really care. If anything, I think it's nice to be anonymously without gender on the internet, and I usually don't select a gender when given the option in profiles and such. If people don't know, then you don't have any of the baggage that comes with it. It's the same reason I use SO instead of husband. Husband feels like such a loaded term to me.

I see people rushing to correct people when they get the gender of a simmer wrong, whether it's themselves or someone else. I notice, too, that it's always males. That's not surprising. It makes sense, given the predominantly female nature of the sims fandom (and fandom in general). We're going to assume y'all have ovaries unless we're told the difference. But why is it so important to correct people?

I was curious about it, so I thought I'd ask (rather than make a simsecret or some such nonsense). For those of you that have done it (and I know a number of people on my flist that have), why do you feel the need to inform people that you or someone else is a male? Note that I'm not here to pick a fight or anything of the sort. I'd just like to hear your side of it.

(Oh, and... for the record, fanseelamb is a female. :P This one seems to come up over and over again.)

And another thing...

I've always been one of those people that tries to be conscious of the gendered messages I give to children in the way I talk to them, like not telling girl's they're "pretty" while telling boys they're "smart" and crap like that (which people do ALL of the time, if you listen to them), but then I noticed I was treating Petey (my first male cat) in a distinctly different way than his big "sister," Suki. How much of that is personality, and how much of that is me projecting? (He's a total Momma's boy, by the way. :P) It's crazy how we slip into these things. The cats are both spayed/neutered, so it's not like they even have any sex-based behaviours to speak of. And they're cats! Do they even have gender?

What do you think? Have any thoughts or interesting stories to share?

Comments

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it all that much. It happened with me a couple of times (both people popping in to say, "WHUH?! You're not a dude? :P), and I've seen people inform me of the gender of a simmer (male in each case, but not always correctly), and a couple of guys point out that they are guys. I haven't seen a kerfluffle, either, but sometimes it struck me as odd that someone would react to that one little he or she enough to go out of their way to comment on it.

I think it's a bigger deal for guys to be mistaken for girls. Men are generally raised to avoid being feminine at all costs, so it's probably a knee-jerk reaction. As women, we're told that masculine traits are generally okay to have, so it doesn't bother us as much.

I guess the WoW world has women dealing with the idea that games are a guy thing, so it's more that you're fighting to be recognized as a player. It comes down to having to prove yourself as having the same skills, perhaps? I don't think we see that much in the sims fandom. (Yeah... we're here because we don't need to have gaming skills! XD)

On a related note, my cell phone bill has been coming to me addressed as Mr. Firstname Lastname, but I'm way too lazy to go through the 20 step process to call them up to change it. I have chosen to merely find it amusing. I even say it's for my SO and he should pay it, since he OBVIOUSLY must have took my whole name as his own, as women often do. Now he's Mr. Strange Tomato. About time!

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I wonder if your Ripp and Johnny avatars have something to do with people thinking you're a guy. Just seeing that male face over and over might give them an unconscious impression, like how you see meetme2theriver as a skunk. People have told me they think of me as green! :D

My SO has a story about shocking his parents at the age of five or so by imitating a sexy woman in a perfume commercial. He sang "I can bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan, and never never never never let you forget you're a man!" I can just see his skinny little boy-self doing the hip-bumps, and his parents' horrified faces. I think it was in front of company too. xD He treasures this memory as the beginning of his rebellion against sex roles, I think.

I lol'd at your comment about Sims players and lack of gaming skills. For sure I was over my head in WoW, having never played anything but Sims and Luxor. Not even one shooter, or RPing game, or even paper-based D&D. But y'know, I don't remember anyone who gave me grief ever connecting it to my sex. They just called me a noob, which was justified.

Your SO will always be Mr. Strange Tomato to me! (I already think of him as Mr. Tomato.)