by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 23, 2008   Last Updated: May 31, 2009

In 1996 a woman in West Virginia actually married a man who had claimed to be injured - but in fact, was actually a woman pretending to be a man! Sometimes it's hard to know someone's true gender - even if you meet them in real life! So how can you determine someone's gender online? It's not possible to be absolutely certain, but there are real ways to obtain possible hints.

Unfortunately, some of these rely on gauging a person's online behavior against expectations for their gender in the real world, but that still can be a reliable method. For example, there's personal ads on Craig's List which are obviously promoting pornography sites. The ads are short and overly aggressive, and it's obvious the post's author isn't a woman. I saw one post describing female body parts with words too silly for any woman to use when describing herself!

I've asked myself if I'm falling prey to a stereotype when I dismiss those online postings, since it's wrong to think women can't be aggressive, or to believe that they'll always be shy and demure until the day that their married, like homemakers from the 1950s. But women really do live with the knowledge that men are interested in hitting on them. (As Jerry Seinfeld once joked, "Wherever there's a woman, we've got a man on the case. Now he may not be our best man, but....)" Because of this, it's just not necessary for a woman to be particularly aggressive in a romantic situation. In some cases, I'm sure women are actually more afraid of fending off male aggression, and are trying to keep the suggestiveness down to a minimum. In the online world they have more safety, but it's still hard to let go of those years of caution.

Sociologists have also documented very specific behaviors that are different for women and men. It's not just a stereotype that men are generally more competitive while women are more "affiliation-seeking." This lends an academic basis to the assumption that women will, in general, be more friendly and less aggressive. But this is only a subtle hint, and not a definitive test.

But here's the best way to approach this problem. The "gender" question usually happens someone sends an email or appears in a chat room. And in these cases, sometimes it's possible to "cheat" - by researching the person's screen name or email address. Typing it into Google could very well find other web pages where they've identified themselves, or posted about tell-tale topics that are gender-specific!

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