Gender Anonymity .

[modeller]

I know this isn't News as such but I have just read this in CB and being as it applies to a number of us I thought I would sound out the News' ABers. I'm sorry if it's been raised before but I haven't seen it. The CB question is :
//How well do we know each other???//
Why do some ABers hide their gender ? They don't declare it in their profile or actually lie and their Avatar implies a totally different gender. I understand the value of some anonymity it allows us to express views which we may not want our neighbours or colleagues to know about . It also allows us to be devils advocate at times, but why hide or imply a totally different gender.
It makes it difficult at times to answer some questions as without knowing the gender they don't make sense or put it another way they would make more sense if you knew the gender.

[ludwig]

Maybe I am...

[ludwig]

Actually I'm not.

[ludwig]

....or am I ?

[society]

Do you wear wigs, Ludwig? :-)

[Hopkirk]

Wasn't there a famous English authoress, who was actually a man with a woman's pseudonym?

[modeller]

I find the answers quite entertaining but I think only one person gave a reason why they chose to hide their gender. It doesn't matter whether you are lying or not but rather why would you choose to do so in the first place.
In some professions it might help .Some authors write under two names to cater for a different readership but Answer Bank what's the point ?

[ludwig]

Yes Hopkirk, you're probably thinking of George Eliot, but there's a load of modern ones. Lots of Mills & Boon type novels are written by men but they have to put a woman's name as the author.

[jno]

ludwig, George Eliot wasn't a man.

modeller, the reason is simple: it's none of your business.

[mike11111]

George Eliot was a woman with a man's pseudonym.

[jno]

of course, that may be what he wanted us to believe, mike

[karenmac60]

Are you thinking of Emma Blair Hopkirk? Or Virginia Andrews (who was actually female, but died after writing 5 books and the rest have been written by Andrew Neiderman).
I'm a hermaphrodite btw ;)

[Invictas]

George Sand was a woman(French Authoress).
and this is interesting:~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d'Eon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Snell

http://en.wikipedia.o...James_Barry_(surgeon)

All of the above seemed to have lived their lives as men because they could not have accomplished their ambitions in life being women.

[ludwig]

Doh. err yes - I misread the question didn't I. I thought Hopkirk was asking about George Eliot, who was of course a woman with a man's pseudonym.

[jno]

Georgina Eliot, on the other hand...

[ludwig]

Georgina Eliot? I bet she didn't understand the offside rule.

[jno]

she had to pretend not to, obviously

[modeller]

jno // the reason is simple: it's none of your business. // Sorry ! Judging by the number of posts on CB and News a lot of ABers are just curious and have treated it as a bit of fun.
but you are right , if you have a need to keep your gender secret, that's entirely your business.

[jno]

no 'need' to, just prefer to. I don't give away a lot of other personal information, either. If other people want to do so, that's their business; my ASL is mine.

[ludwig]

I think you can tell 9 times out of 10 anyway just by the way people 'talk'.