elusiveat ([info]elusiveat) wrote,
@ 2008-04-28 02:43:00
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Poll: Social impact of gender perception
This poll posted (with slight modifications) at the request/suggestion of Emp42ress.

Please respond to the best of your ability from your own experiences.

Poll #1179156 gender perception
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: Friends

When I am perceived as a woman:

this in general makes my life easier
1 (4.8%)

this in general makes my life more difficult
4 (19.0%)

this on average makes my life neither easier nor more difficult
10 (47.6%)

I don't think I'm ever perceived as a woman
6 (28.6%)

When I am perceived as a man:

this in general makes my life easier
7 (35.0%)

this in general makes my life more difficult
3 (15.0%)

this on average makes my life neither easier nor more difficult
4 (20.0%)

I don't think I'm ever perceived as a man
6 (30.0%)

When I am perceived as a androgynous or gender-neutral:

this in general makes my life easier
2 (10.0%)

this in general makes my life more difficult
5 (25.0%)

this on average makes my life neither easier nor more difficult
4 (20.0%)

I don't think I'm ever perceived as androgynous or gender-neutral
9 (45.0%)


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[info]metahacker
2008-04-28 06:54 pm UTC (link)
I am occasionally mistaken for a woman from behind, though less so now that my skin is not as smooth or something. It doesn't really cause much change, except to break the social ice.

I find that if people don't know what gender you are, things are ambiguous and socialness is slightly harder until they can classify you in their head. This isn't true for everyone, of course.

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[info]elusiveat
2008-04-28 07:26 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, ambiguity can make things awkward. I hesitated which way to respond to that question, but decided that the difference was small enough that it didn't really matter to me.

I also sometimes have trouble knowing exactly how I'm perceived.

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[info]metahacker
2008-04-28 07:53 pm UTC (link)
You've got me thinking. (Also, just finished Self-made man, which raises many of these questions.) Now I want to pose as a woman on the internets and get the full experience.

(Not that I haven't done this in the past. But it's been...hmm...13+ years?, and the net has changed a lot since then.)

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[info]catamorphism
2008-04-28 06:59 pm UTC (link)
This is an incredibly broad question, though, and hard to get accurate self-reporting about because I doubt most people are perceived as one binary gender nearly as often as they're perceived as the other, or are ever perceived as gender-neutral.

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[info]elusiveat
2008-04-28 07:04 pm UTC (link)
The original idea was to have people choose between being identified as a man and how that affected them and being identified as a woman and how that affected them. I wanted to permit either-or because I think there are more people who have experienced both than who are seen as completely androgynous.

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[info]mdyesowitch
2008-04-28 07:18 pm UTC (link)
On the internets, I used to present as somewhat masculine because I found it hard to be taken seriously as a woman.

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[info]lyght
2008-04-28 07:34 pm UTC (link)
My responses are based on meatspace...and they are far from objective. I define "easier" as including "emotionally easier, because it matches more closely with the way I define myself."

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[info]jadia
2008-04-28 08:07 pm UTC (link)
I've only been perceived as a woman, so it's hard to tell. I think it makes my life easier in some ways, more difficult in others. Once I think I was perceived as a guy on World of Warcraft and it was very refreshing. I can't really say whether on average being perceived as a woman makes things easier or more difficult. I think it's like averaging two very different extremes so I don't feel comfortable doing it. Like the average of -10 and 10 is zero, but that doesn't really tell you much.

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[info]smoketheworld
2008-04-28 09:24 pm UTC (link)
It depends on what you're trying to do from day to day and where you live.

I live in a college town whose student population consists mainly of people who conform to the dumbest parts of the social norms for their gender, so that's what the people are used to.

I am trying to become a barback, and eventually, a bartender. I was dressed to appear feminine (in my taste of the word), and the bartender, who was a girl mind you, told me they dont hire female barbacks because they have to carry multiple cases of beer often. Offensive? Yes, but then again I do look like a thin, 'respectable' girl at times.

I was at that same bar the next night and saw what 'cases' she was talking about, and they were totally manageable, at least to me, and I'm aware that I seem to be stronger than other girls my size.

Anyway, so I couldnt get a job I wanted because of my gender. On the other hand, I got a delivery job somewhere else shortly after BECAUSE I'm percieved as an attractive female. Not in a sleazy way...the manager is decent and didnt want to hit on me or anything, but I suspect he thought that having a female delivery person would boost sales.

When I'm percieved as female, people are nicer to me, or at least dont approach me aggressively of their own will. But I think part of that is my demeanor and air. When I'm percieved as male (the few times people made the mistake when my head was shaved/hair was very short), people are more likely to react aggressively to me. Not necessarily mean, but aggressive. When I'm androdgynous, older people shake their heads at the crazy 'sub cultures' these days, but I dont really notice much of a difference in the way I'm treated. I think people either treat me with respect because they respect the vibe of the anti gender role scene, or they just find it attractive, or they dont care.

Also, I agree with Lyght. Generally I feel I identify with a rather personalized version of feminine, or androdgynous. It switches, or rather the two arent very far from each other in the first place. Whether or not I refer to myself as a 'he' or 'she' in my head flip flops regularly, and I never really cared enough to worry about it.

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[info]elusiveat
2008-04-28 10:20 pm UTC (link)
Huh. Just noticed that the time-stamp is screwy on this post. Evidently it was cuing from the clock on my new computer. Not sure why it was a day off, though.

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[info]neuromancerzss
2008-04-28 10:20 pm UTC (link)
I've been mistaken for a woman only rarely and then only briefly, so while I wouldn't say "I don't think I ever...", I can't give a meaningful comparison to whether or not being male makes my life easier or harder because I haven't had significant experience with another state to compare it to. I could give opinion based on observations of the other gender, but even then I'd have a hard time judging how valuable it is to get X benefit vs. Y drawback, especially when I only notice the more obvious effects and never have to live in their skin.

Also, all of the options are relative, but it's not clear to what. What do they all compare to? If someone has significant experience with all three choices, do they say "neither" for whichever is in the middle and then split the other two options? Or is this a poll relative to your "norm" and that is automatically pegged at "neither"?

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[info]elusiveat
2008-04-28 10:26 pm UTC (link)
This is an interesting ambiguity that I think I've increased by approaching the poll the way I did. See my response to Catamorphism. Originally it was going to be a one-question poll.

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[info]water_childe
2008-04-28 11:17 pm UTC (link)
Your poll could did encompass my experience.
I've had fairly equal positive and negative effects from being perceived as a woman, a man, and gender neutral.

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[info]gigglingwizard
2008-04-29 03:03 am UTC (link)
On the rare occasions I've been perceived as a woman, always from behind when I had long hair or was wearing a large straw hat, people immediately caught themselves after addressing me. They sometimes laugh at themselves for the mistake (I imagine because I have facial hair), but they always apologize, sometimes profusely, as though they expect me to be offended. Then we drop it and move on.

Being perceived as male has made my life both easier and more difficult, depending on the situation. In cases where a physical danger or threat was present, I believe I'd have had a harder time if I had been perceived as female. That is, I believe aggressors were more apt to back down, potential troublemakers have been less likely to be threatening in the first place, and when I gave orders to dangerous people, they were more compliant than they might have been for a woman. When I was a police officer, I found that the female officers in our department were more often attacked by suspects than male officers were, especially if they were alone or in the company of only another female officer.

On the other hand, I think being perceived as male has caused me problems socially. People who don't even know me are more likely to assume I'm physically dangerous and sexually exploitative. Only in very rare instances will people believe that a man can be victimized by a woman. In my own personal experience, I've seen women treated with much more leniency and compassion--especially by men--than a man could expect to receive. Even little boys, in my observation, are nurtured less than little girls are.

In a nutshell, the world thinks men are mean and scary, and treats them as such. This can keep me safer sometimes, but most of the time it's hurtful and alienating. Seeing as I talk with people far more often than I fight them, I selected that being perceived as male has made life more difficult.

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[info]tinocherubini
2008-04-29 04:54 pm UTC (link)
I didn't respond to the poll per se as I have no experience in being perceived as female so I've nothing to make value judgements by. Has my being perceived as male made my life easier? I don't know, I've never lived as a woman so any response on my part would be pure speculation.

One thing I wanted to comment on though was the poster above me's comment that 'men are perceived as big and scary and are treated as such' rang a bell. I've never considered myself particularly scary or uber-masculine. I've never even considered myself particulary large - IMO at 5'11 and 200 pounds I'm average. I was shocked to find out that some people find me intimidating. Really shocked as this sort of persona is so far out of my personal world-view I have trouble getting my head around it.

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[info]elusiveat
2008-04-29 05:18 pm UTC (link)
In all fairness, 5'11" and 200 pounds is average or slightly above for a man, but definitely on the large side for a woman. It would be interesting to compare experiences correcting for body size.

Do 130lb, 5'6" men get picked on more? How does the tendency to see them as victims compare with that for women of the same body size?

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[info]tinocherubini
2008-04-29 06:09 pm UTC (link)
I've never really thought about it. In my experience it's the smaller guys who are usually the more agressive.

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