Active Users:546 Time:05/07/2025 07:41:05 PM
These results don't prove Naipaul wrong Corwin Send a noteboard - 30/06/2011 07:58:39 PM
There are always people out there who would claim that men and women write inherently different types of fiction/language/whatever. The latest such is V.S. Naipaul. I have always been sceptical of the claim and I find it absurd that a well respected author like Naipaul, who has spent his writing life tackling another form of marginalisation, would spout such nonsense.

Anyway. Here is a test. I'd be interested to hear what you get, as a semi-scientific sampling of the reading public (please let me know if you get something right because you recognise the passage).


The results of this test don't really prove or disprove Naipaul's claim. He never said that any differences in the writing of male and female authors are blatant, and if subtle nuances of gender are present in writing, the inability of the reading public to decipher them doesn't disprove their existence. Furthermore, small samples like the passages in this test obviously make it more difficult to distinguish gender, considering the proposition that male and female authors are different on some fundamental level does not mean that the language they use is necessarily dissimilar, but that they perceive the world around them in different ways, and therefore write about their perceptions in different ways. A couple of sentences is certainly not enough to get an accurate sense of an author's writing.
Reply to message
Sex and writing - 03/06/2011 03:45:43 PM 1452 Views
This test simply reinforced a completely different opinion of mine. - 03/06/2011 04:07:26 PM 898 Views
Literature reflects society. Welcome to the age of text messaging *NM* - 03/06/2011 06:08:53 PM 420 Views
Agreed. *NM* - 03/06/2011 10:14:05 PM 386 Views
I really disliked those excerpts as well - 04/06/2011 02:10:36 AM 851 Views
5/10. Exactly as chance would predict. *NM* - 22/06/2011 11:27:25 AM 400 Views
6/10 - 03/06/2011 04:34:19 PM 824 Views
9/10: Not bad, but you're no Sir Vidia - 03/06/2011 04:56:08 PM 1025 Views
6/10! *NM* - 03/06/2011 06:06:09 PM 397 Views
7/10. - 03/06/2011 07:15:44 PM 940 Views
6/10. Would be 7/10 but I thought #10 was a trick question. *NM* - 03/06/2011 07:17:51 PM 390 Views
8/10, but that is really largely luck if you ask me. - 03/06/2011 07:45:07 PM 935 Views
7/10 - 03/06/2011 09:52:40 PM 873 Views
5/10 I was guessing on all of them though. - 03/06/2011 11:19:09 PM 846 Views
8/10 - 04/06/2011 12:54:02 AM 873 Views
Guessed all the way through. 2/10 - 04/06/2011 04:06:08 AM 788 Views
9/10, but that doesn't mean a thing... - 04/06/2011 08:06:00 AM 872 Views
I also got 4 out of 10 - 04/06/2011 02:17:50 PM 907 Views
At the same time? - 06/06/2011 04:54:09 PM 879 Views
7/10 *NM* - 22/06/2011 08:49:07 PM 422 Views
These results don't prove Naipaul wrong - 30/06/2011 07:58:39 PM 999 Views

Reply to Message