12 ms·

Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants

158 points by JoelSutherland 17y ago

lsb 17y ago
It's not just men, it's high-class men. Lots of hackers think that good work wins, but it's good work marketed well wins, and it turns out that people are incredibly biased towards high-class men, and a name like "James Chartrand" is a prime example. I challenge her to see the results when she chooses a name like "Tyrone Jackson".
- ebrenes 17y ago
  On a similar line, since we don't know her real name then it could just very well be there's some other bias against her name besides the gender issue. It's not unheard of for names that are associated with a specific ethnicity having an effect. I have a name that's almost impossible to pronounce for English speakers, and I've always noted the difference between when I use my real name or when I use the anglicized version. Potential clients are going to go with the option that's easier, and yes that might even include things such as: the name that's easier to pronounce, the gender the client can identify with the easiest or the name that clicks subconsciously with them. These aren't just interesting bits, they're part of the image we portray. Actors have known this for quite some time and it's common to pick stage names.
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    From what I got from the pseudonym's blog is that 'he' is a Canadian, and suggested French Canadian. If this is true for the real author then there's all the reason in the world for not hiring her. I want English copy, I don't want it from someone I believe to be French whether my assumption is correct or not. I'm going to hire John Smith over Jean Lefevre at the drop of a hat, however Anglicize Jean Lefevre and you have the employable writers name of John Smith. I have a very English surname, which has never given me a problem when applying for a writing gig.
    - ido 17y ago
      I am not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but if it isn't - why would you not hire a French Canadian?
      - electromagnetic 17y ago
        As I said, contracting someone to write English copy, I would instinctively and likely purposely hire someone with an English sounding name based on name alone. A French name won't get you hired for writing in English, it might however get you hired to write in French even if your native tongue is English.
        waterlesscloud 17y ago
        Chartrand sounds pretty French to me.
  - bugsbane 17y ago
    It seems the reverse experiment might work as well, for a well known writer to post with an unappealing (and perhaps even female) name and compare the revenue per post on each one. That does not seem overly difficult though the writer might by leaving money "on the table".
- axod 17y ago
  Slightly related: When I first visited the US, I was really surprised at the adverts in newspapers for realtors (estate agents). They all had photos of the realtors faces?! Do people choose realtors based on their photo? How would that make any sense at all. Perhaps it's just some custom that's been passed down, but it really freaked me out. Could you use some other picture of a warm fuzzy respectable person and say "Oh yeah James Hilby-Smithe is currently unavailable, I'm his associate I can help you"? Would that be legal. I wonder if any of them do this already.
  - sethg 17y ago
    I can’t think of very many objective criteria that would help someone choose one Realtor®¹ over another. They all get paid the same commission and they all have access to the same database of listings. So it makes sense that they would differentiate themselves from each other by using their handsome faces; what else is there? ¹That HN link to information about third-level keys has changed my life. Possibly not in a good way. :-)
    - axod 17y ago
      Past data on the houses they've recently sold, and for how much? :/
      - pyre 17y ago
        What data, and how to present that in an advertisement?
        axod 17y ago
        Typically in UK adverts you have pictures of houses, summary of details, price, and if it's sold, they slap a big "SOLD" across it. This shows you how well they can sell, and how much they get for properties. Adverts in papers are typically a full page, so there's plenty of space.
      - sethg 17y ago
        If you see an ad that says “I sold the house pictured here for $300,000”, then for all you know, the guy sitting at the next desk over could have sold it for $350,000.
- neilk 17y ago
  There was a section in Freakonomics about this. Most of that chapter is available here. http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/ http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/ An empirical study concluded that "black" names had no effect; it was background. On the other hand, it's only people with a certain kind of background that name their kid "Shaniqua" (middle class blacks usually adopt generic North American naming standards). So I'm not sure if that contradicts your point.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Funny you should mention that. I'm Irish and white but my name (Eddy Robinson) 'sounds black' to a lot of people, and I wasn't aware of this until someone I was doing business with expressed surprise on our first meeting. I did a quick straw poll of acquaintances who I'd had first contact via email or seeing my resume and they confirmed this assumption. I can't say it's ever affected me personally though I wonder sometimes if it's a factor when I bid on a job and don't get a reply. This article made me think more about the possibilities if I had picked some place other than California to live when I came to the US: http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-having-black-name.html http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-having-black-na...
  - duncanj 17y ago
    Robinson = Robertson = Duncan. Two ready-made pseudonyms!
  - falsestprophet 17y ago
    FTFY: Edward Robinson
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      Indeed, and Mrs Browl has suggested I use this form professionally for a little extra sizzle, or even the Irish version (Eamon Mac Robin) for an exotic flavor - I work in the entertainment industry and even behind the camera personal branding carries a little more weight than in some other fields. Other readers might be interested in this census document on the demographics of common US surnames; turns out there's a 44% probability someone named Robinson is African-American, for example: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/surnames.pdf http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/surnames.pdf
      - lsb 17y ago
        Jon Stuart Leibowitz decided that Jon Stewart was a better TV name. In America, we had had "Irish need not apply" signs in windows in the 1800s and early 1900s, but that prejudice is basically non-existent; if you think it'll give you a leg up, do it.
- boredguy8 17y ago
  I've recently given a lot of thought to shifting from "Joey" to "Joseph" as my day-to-day name. I'm reluctant, but if you're theory is right, it seems like it would command more respect.
Ixiaus 17y ago
This is off topic in my opinion.
- csuper 17y ago
  I don't know - I think it is interesting. I would have thought that it would be easier for a woman to be successful writing on the internet. I guess I based that on 'sex sells'. It does seem that profiles on social sites with photos of pretty girls get more attention...
  - arien 17y ago
    But sometimes you want the right kind of attention. People who look at your content, not the wrapping around it.
  - Ixiaus 17y ago
    This article has nothing to do with the general content of hacker news. This is an article about the social status of women and how they overcome it, more political than anything else. I would rather see articles about successful women leading innovative companies, doing innovative research, or saying intelligent things that don't hide behind "male" pen names. I think intelligent female hackers actually get a lot of respect from fellow male hackers and this would be more on-topic if it pertained to hacker culture. This article gives women more reason to hide behind a facade then it does to actually inspire them!
    - sundarurfriend 17y ago
      Since when is expressing genuine opinion mercilessly downvoted here?
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I don't think this was about success of her blog, it was about getting writing contracts. Although she might have mixed up things a little in the story to make it a better read (like in the end, suddenly there is this mystery top blogger who recommends her blog as one of the top 10 reads - might have distorted the outcome of her names experiment a little).
rglovejoy 17y ago
This is not a new phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr.
lionhearted 17y ago
Gosh, the general point was quite interesting, but I have such a hard time reading the "Emotional Headline -> Witty hook -> Two more paragraphs -> emotional headline -> witty hook -> two more paragraphs" style of writing. Yeah, I know it makes people read your copy, but I like to the point writing more than the wandering around building a narrative that sucks you in, leaving you breathless with anticipation and excited for more of whatever they're selling... Sales copy just adds so much noise to the points. I get why they do it, but it's really a fight to get through it for me even if I think there's going to be valuable points in there.
- access_denied 17y ago
  1. I agree with all your points. 2nd, as someone who makes his dough with writing copy, let me tell you this: the really good writers do use those tricks of the trade without you noticing it. It is similiar to good typography: it doesn't get into the way. You may want to check out the writings of Gary Halbert or John Carlton to see it in action.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > You may want to check out the writings of Gary Halbert or John Carlton to see it in action. Will do - cheers for the recommendation.
rsheridan6 17y ago
This made me think of the "Libertarian Girl" hoax, in which an unsuccessful male libertarian blogger got a lot of traffic by claiming to be a pretty girl. I guess the people who hired the writer of the article aren't libertarians.
- jrockway 17y ago
  This effect definitely works on IRC. Create a female-sounding Twitter account with some pretty girl in the picture, use that nick on IRC, get instant help. (You need to make sure the name is actually girlish sounding, of course. Otherwise nobody will bother to check you out.)
  - forensic 17y ago
    >You need to make sure the name is actually girlish sounding, of course. Such as: Geekgirl89 Girlgeek5 Grrlgrrl Emilygeek8 Sleepygrlgeek shygrlsam lonelygirlphil How am I doing?
  - sheena 17y ago
    Have you employed this tactic?
  - silencio 17y ago
    On the flip side, you have guys hitting on you just because your name is feminine, or worse, they assume you don't know anything. I'm 'jane' on freenode, and it happens a LOT, and I suspect it'd be worse if I used my twitter handle which also works for my website ('janeylicious' ;) ). On a sidenote, I also get guys named Jan with last names starting with E trying to use that nick..
- RK 17y ago
  That's also the story behind the name of "Blondie24", the AI checkers bot. They started with some handle like Jedi123, but no one would play them online... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie24
araneae 17y ago
It's a nice story, but it's hard to extrapolate from just one anecdote. First of all, she undoubtedly became more experienced at her job as she got older. She does claim that she kept looking for work as both names, but we know that there's a huge element of randomness to internet success. Often the same exact article gets posted to reddit several times before one of them takes off, for instance. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade There are plenty of examples of successful female bloggers, so I'm not sure that her personal example really means anything. This really requires experimental data. tl:dr The success of James could easily be attributed to an increase in experience and completely random elements.
- wglb 17y ago
  Well, reading the entire article, there were a/b tests there, so the increasing experience claim doesn't explain the result.
  - Retric 17y ago
    The two names have diffrent track reccords, how much would you expect to pay each of these people on your next project? A) 5$/h, 7.50$/h, 10$/h, 15$/h B) 10$/h, 15$/h
    - duncanj 17y ago
      If this trend continues...
  - scj 17y ago
    What could explain the result is self-confidence. The data comes from a source that needs to be double-blind but wasn't. What would be interesting would be to do have one party write two separate emails talking about a different subject. Then randomly switch the name/gender of one of the emails. Then have a second party "grade" the emails. With the "author's name" clearly marked on the email. I'd like to see the results.
Goladus 17y ago
I was with her until this comment: And yet apparently we haven’t gotten past those 19th century stigmas. Bad assumption. She's got an interesting story, but doesn't go anywhere interesting and seems to just blame it all on the vague idea of antique male chauvinism.
- neilk 17y ago
  Are you saying it may not be sexism? What then?
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    Bias is not necessarily an "ism". Saying "sexism" has with it the connotation that there is a fundamental wrong here which should be corrected for the betterment of our society. That it's a product of backwards thinking and known prejudices. What you are seeing here though is much more than that. We're seeing that people conform to a pre-ordained bias. In this case, that all good writers are upper-crust white guys with distinguished names. This is a much deeper and subconscious display of human behaviour that all of us are bound to. It is unlikely that all of this woman's readers feel women should be barefoot in the kitchen.
    - skorgu 17y ago
      > there is a fundamental wrong here which should be corrected for the betterment of our society Women not being rewarded equally for equal work is a fundamental wrong which should be corrected for the betterment of our society. It's possible I'm misreading you but one can be sexist without being a cave, um, person.
      - Tichy 17y ago
        She was free to pick a male sounding name. Problem solved. Also, it is just her story, it is not clear if she did "equal work" with her female name. She picked the name for something she did not want to be associated with - perhaps it simply was a different kind of writing that tends to pay better?
dlytle 17y ago
Something about this strikes me as either shady, or engineered to make a point. I'm probably paranoid, of course. Looking at the about page, "Men with Pens" was founded by the article's author. The sit is deliberately and heavily grounded in male stereotypes. Plus, looking at the bio for one of the other authors: "Taylor Lindstrom, is a twenty-something copywriter and journalist from Boulder, CO. She’s the team’s rogue woman who wowed us until our desire for her talents exceeded our desire for a good ol’ boys club." Maybe that's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to the founder's real gender. Perhaps the heavy masculinity of the Men With Pens site was designed to test/prove the theory. Not enough information to make a real decision. It just seems that there's more to this than meets the eye. I'd love to see some statistics on the comparative success of her publishing names.
- araneae 17y ago
  It's also amusing that the author is displaying blatant sexism towards this woman and at the same time complaining about sexism against her. Women can still be misogynists.
- scott_s 17y ago
  My assumption was that Men With Pens was founded well after she realized her male pen name was outperforming her real name. I didn't think she made Men With Pens hyper-masculine as a test, but just as an extension of using a male pen name.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  >Maybe that's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to the founder's real gender. Perhaps the heavy masculinity of the Men With Pens site was designed to test/prove the theory. It does seem to be a hyper-masculine design parody of men's magazines. I mean come on, the suede header background, hollow point bullet, chunky metalised writing, welder at the top of the page, "guns for hire" ... seriously? This is for real? Presumably "Taylor Lindstrom" in their about us is a bloke. Also, OT: design is completely broken with js off, right menu is broken with it on too (ff3.6, Kubuntu).
100k 17y ago
The more things change... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot
- dflock 17y ago
  Quite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_authors_who_wrote_under_male_or_gender-neutral_pseudonyms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_authors_who_wro... Although, Anne Rice is on that list and her real name is apparently Howard Allen O'Brien, despite actually being female: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice
ilamont 17y ago
Writers who claim to be something they're not: It's been happening for years. See http://bit.ly/8cteG0 http://bit.ly/8cteG0
- ars 17y ago
  Don't use url shorteners here. You still have time to edit your post.
  - ilamont 17y ago
    The original link is: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/02/books/two-artists-neither-aboriginal-nor-original-after-all.html http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/02/books/two-artists-neither-...
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      An extraordinarily good counterpoint to the case before us. I think the key here is that a particular viewpoint from a man can be apparently more revealing, eg "this guy is on the inside and he said ...". If the same ideas are presented from a woman as a speculation then they are less interesting, eg "this woman is guessing that this is what men talk about when they're with other men ...". A painting is not just an image (as the curator in the link above claims) but is also an expression of the artist themselves (in most cases for non-professionals who actually paint their own work). A painting with the foot has a different quality to one painted by hand because one knows how the artist struggled against a physical adversity, etc..
scotty79 17y ago
> Truth be told, if just a name and perception of gender creates such different levels of respect and income for a person, it says a lot more about the world than it does about me. People who succeeded and think that they own it all to their skill, persistence and diligence should read this. Being lucky on some trivial things like name or gender may have affected your success more than you think.
RK 17y ago
I have a friend who works as a copywriter, and I have to say that it sounds like a shitty job. My friend talks excitedly about the pinnacle of copywriting being "direct mailing", which we all know as pre-email spamming. I think the appeal is that they get royalties on a per mailing basis.
neilk 17y ago
I wonder how Indian names are perceived in technology. There are a lot of examples of brilliant Indian computer scientists and entrepreneurs, but I suspect that Indian names are still viewed unfavorably in Silicon Valley. Everyone has experience with say, math profs with indecipherable accents, crappy Indian outsourcing firms, or the QA department that's entirely staffed with low-skill imports.
ankeshk 17y ago
Name has always made a difference. Do you know how many Indian programmers have American sounding pen names on freelance websites? They'll always get more work and higher per hour rates with an American sounding name than an Indian sounding name.
wglb 17y ago
Along with JK Rowling, if I am not mistaken.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  What? JK Rowling is a woman?!?!
- philwelch 17y ago
  J.K. Rowling, D.C. Fontana, C.L. Moore, probably many others.
Tichy 17y ago
Scientific this is not. Even for anecdote the story seems rather weak. But I guess he/she is very good at writing what people want to hear.
Daniel_Newby 17y ago
Methinks Ms. Galore doth protest too much.
jff 17y ago
It's possible the pen name helped on her side too--she may have started writing more to her expectations of a male writer (different style, sentence structure, etc), which in turn might have sold better.
Locke1689 17y ago
She's surprised that she had better success as a writer for "Men with Pens" when she chose a male pseudonym?
- Jem 17y ago
  No, she owns Men with Pens.
prodigal_erik 17y ago
> I quickly learned not to mention I had kids. I quickly learned not to mention I worked from my kitchen table. Maybe the false assumption was that she's a partnered dilettante (who might get bored and not deliver your work) rather than a professional (who takes your work seriously, in part because it's keeping the lights on), along with the assumption that mothers are more obsessed with parenting. On that note, anyone else think it was weird that she only talked about supporting her kids, as if she herself didn't eat?

158 points by JoelSutherland 17y ago

lsb 17y ago

It's not just men, it's high-class men. Lots of hackers think that good work wins, but it's good work marketed well wins, and it turns out that people are incredibly biased towards high-class men, and a name like "James Chartrand" is a prime example. I challenge her to see the results when she chooses a name like "Tyrone Jackson".

ebrenes 17y ago
On a similar line, since we don't know her real name then it could just very well be there's some other bias against her name besides the gender issue. It's not unheard of for names that are associated with a specific ethnicity having an effect. I have a name that's almost impossible to pronounce for English speakers, and I've always noted the difference between when I use my real name or when I use the anglicized version. Potential clients are going to go with the option that's easier, and yes that might even include things such as: the name that's easier to pronounce, the gender the client can identify with the easiest or the name that clicks subconsciously with them. These aren't just interesting bits, they're part of the image we portray. Actors have known this for quite some time and it's common to pick stage names.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  From what I got from the pseudonym's blog is that 'he' is a Canadian, and suggested French Canadian. If this is true for the real author then there's all the reason in the world for not hiring her. I want English copy, I don't want it from someone I believe to be French whether my assumption is correct or not. I'm going to hire John Smith over Jean Lefevre at the drop of a hat, however Anglicize Jean Lefevre and you have the employable writers name of John Smith. I have a very English surname, which has never given me a problem when applying for a writing gig.
  - ido 17y ago
    I am not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but if it isn't - why would you not hire a French Canadian?
    - electromagnetic 17y ago
      As I said, contracting someone to write English copy, I would instinctively and likely purposely hire someone with an English sounding name based on name alone. A French name won't get you hired for writing in English, it might however get you hired to write in French even if your native tongue is English.
      - waterlesscloud 17y ago
        Chartrand sounds pretty French to me.
- bugsbane 17y ago
  It seems the reverse experiment might work as well, for a well known writer to post with an unappealing (and perhaps even female) name and compare the revenue per post on each one. That does not seem overly difficult though the writer might by leaving money "on the table".
axod 17y ago
Slightly related: When I first visited the US, I was really surprised at the adverts in newspapers for realtors (estate agents). They all had photos of the realtors faces?! Do people choose realtors based on their photo? How would that make any sense at all. Perhaps it's just some custom that's been passed down, but it really freaked me out. Could you use some other picture of a warm fuzzy respectable person and say "Oh yeah James Hilby-Smithe is currently unavailable, I'm his associate I can help you"? Would that be legal. I wonder if any of them do this already.
- sethg 17y ago
  I can’t think of very many objective criteria that would help someone choose one Realtor®¹ over another. They all get paid the same commission and they all have access to the same database of listings. So it makes sense that they would differentiate themselves from each other by using their handsome faces; what else is there? ¹That HN link to information about third-level keys has changed my life. Possibly not in a good way. :-)
  - axod 17y ago
    Past data on the houses they've recently sold, and for how much? :/
    - pyre 17y ago
      What data, and how to present that in an advertisement?
      - axod 17y ago
        Typically in UK adverts you have pictures of houses, summary of details, price, and if it's sold, they slap a big "SOLD" across it. This shows you how well they can sell, and how much they get for properties. Adverts in papers are typically a full page, so there's plenty of space.
    - sethg 17y ago
      If you see an ad that says “I sold the house pictured here for $300,000”, then for all you know, the guy sitting at the next desk over could have sold it for $350,000.
neilk 17y ago
There was a section in Freakonomics about this. Most of that chapter is available here. http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/ http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/ An empirical study concluded that "black" names had no effect; it was background. On the other hand, it's only people with a certain kind of background that name their kid "Shaniqua" (middle class blacks usually adopt generic North American naming standards). So I'm not sure if that contradicts your point.
anigbrowl 17y ago
Funny you should mention that. I'm Irish and white but my name (Eddy Robinson) 'sounds black' to a lot of people, and I wasn't aware of this until someone I was doing business with expressed surprise on our first meeting. I did a quick straw poll of acquaintances who I'd had first contact via email or seeing my resume and they confirmed this assumption. I can't say it's ever affected me personally though I wonder sometimes if it's a factor when I bid on a job and don't get a reply. This article made me think more about the possibilities if I had picked some place other than California to live when I came to the US: http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-having-black-name.html http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-having-black-na...
- duncanj 17y ago
  Robinson = Robertson = Duncan. Two ready-made pseudonyms!
- falsestprophet 17y ago
  FTFY: Edward Robinson
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Indeed, and Mrs Browl has suggested I use this form professionally for a little extra sizzle, or even the Irish version (Eamon Mac Robin) for an exotic flavor - I work in the entertainment industry and even behind the camera personal branding carries a little more weight than in some other fields. Other readers might be interested in this census document on the demographics of common US surnames; turns out there's a 44% probability someone named Robinson is African-American, for example: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/surnames.pdf http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/surnames.pdf
    - lsb 17y ago
      Jon Stuart Leibowitz decided that Jon Stewart was a better TV name. In America, we had had "Irish need not apply" signs in windows in the 1800s and early 1900s, but that prejudice is basically non-existent; if you think it'll give you a leg up, do it.
boredguy8 17y ago
I've recently given a lot of thought to shifting from "Joey" to "Joseph" as my day-to-day name. I'm reluctant, but if you're theory is right, it seems like it would command more respect.

Ixiaus 17y ago

This is off topic in my opinion.

csuper 17y ago
I don't know - I think it is interesting. I would have thought that it would be easier for a woman to be successful writing on the internet. I guess I based that on 'sex sells'. It does seem that profiles on social sites with photos of pretty girls get more attention...
- arien 17y ago
  But sometimes you want the right kind of attention. People who look at your content, not the wrapping around it.
- Ixiaus 17y ago
  This article has nothing to do with the general content of hacker news. This is an article about the social status of women and how they overcome it, more political than anything else. I would rather see articles about successful women leading innovative companies, doing innovative research, or saying intelligent things that don't hide behind "male" pen names. I think intelligent female hackers actually get a lot of respect from fellow male hackers and this would be more on-topic if it pertained to hacker culture. This article gives women more reason to hide behind a facade then it does to actually inspire them!
  - sundarurfriend 17y ago
    Since when is expressing genuine opinion mercilessly downvoted here?
- Tichy 17y ago
  I don't think this was about success of her blog, it was about getting writing contracts. Although she might have mixed up things a little in the story to make it a better read (like in the end, suddenly there is this mystery top blogger who recommends her blog as one of the top 10 reads - might have distorted the outcome of her names experiment a little).

rglovejoy 17y ago

This is not a new phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr.

lionhearted 17y ago

Gosh, the general point was quite interesting, but I have such a hard time reading the "Emotional Headline -> Witty hook -> Two more paragraphs -> emotional headline -> witty hook -> two more paragraphs" style of writing. Yeah, I know it makes people read your copy, but I like to the point writing more than the wandering around building a narrative that sucks you in, leaving you breathless with anticipation and excited for more of whatever they're selling... Sales copy just adds so much noise to the points. I get why they do it, but it's really a fight to get through it for me even if I think there's going to be valuable points in there.

access_denied 17y ago
1. I agree with all your points. 2nd, as someone who makes his dough with writing copy, let me tell you this: the really good writers do use those tricks of the trade without you noticing it. It is similiar to good typography: it doesn't get into the way. You may want to check out the writings of Gary Halbert or John Carlton to see it in action.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > You may want to check out the writings of Gary Halbert or John Carlton to see it in action. Will do - cheers for the recommendation.

rsheridan6 17y ago

This made me think of the "Libertarian Girl" hoax, in which an unsuccessful male libertarian blogger got a lot of traffic by claiming to be a pretty girl. I guess the people who hired the writer of the article aren't libertarians.

jrockway 17y ago
This effect definitely works on IRC. Create a female-sounding Twitter account with some pretty girl in the picture, use that nick on IRC, get instant help. (You need to make sure the name is actually girlish sounding, of course. Otherwise nobody will bother to check you out.)
- forensic 17y ago
  >You need to make sure the name is actually girlish sounding, of course. Such as: Geekgirl89 Girlgeek5 Grrlgrrl Emilygeek8 Sleepygrlgeek shygrlsam lonelygirlphil How am I doing?
- sheena 17y ago
  Have you employed this tactic?
- silencio 17y ago
  On the flip side, you have guys hitting on you just because your name is feminine, or worse, they assume you don't know anything. I'm 'jane' on freenode, and it happens a LOT, and I suspect it'd be worse if I used my twitter handle which also works for my website ('janeylicious' ;) ). On a sidenote, I also get guys named Jan with last names starting with E trying to use that nick..
RK 17y ago
That's also the story behind the name of "Blondie24", the AI checkers bot. They started with some handle like Jedi123, but no one would play them online... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie24

araneae 17y ago

It's a nice story, but it's hard to extrapolate from just one anecdote. First of all, she undoubtedly became more experienced at her job as she got older. She does claim that she kept looking for work as both names, but we know that there's a huge element of randomness to internet success. Often the same exact article gets posted to reddit several times before one of them takes off, for instance. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade There are plenty of examples of successful female bloggers, so I'm not sure that her personal example really means anything. This really requires experimental data. tl:dr The success of James could easily be attributed to an increase in experience and completely random elements.

wglb 17y ago
Well, reading the entire article, there were a/b tests there, so the increasing experience claim doesn't explain the result.
- Retric 17y ago
  The two names have diffrent track reccords, how much would you expect to pay each of these people on your next project? A) 5$/h, 7.50$/h, 10$/h, 15$/h B) 10$/h, 15$/h
  - duncanj 17y ago
    If this trend continues...
- scj 17y ago
  What could explain the result is self-confidence. The data comes from a source that needs to be double-blind but wasn't. What would be interesting would be to do have one party write two separate emails talking about a different subject. Then randomly switch the name/gender of one of the emails. Then have a second party "grade" the emails. With the "author's name" clearly marked on the email. I'd like to see the results.

Goladus 17y ago

I was with her until this comment: And yet apparently we haven’t gotten past those 19th century stigmas. Bad assumption. She's got an interesting story, but doesn't go anywhere interesting and seems to just blame it all on the vague idea of antique male chauvinism.

neilk 17y ago
Are you saying it may not be sexism? What then?
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  Bias is not necessarily an "ism". Saying "sexism" has with it the connotation that there is a fundamental wrong here which should be corrected for the betterment of our society. That it's a product of backwards thinking and known prejudices. What you are seeing here though is much more than that. We're seeing that people conform to a pre-ordained bias. In this case, that all good writers are upper-crust white guys with distinguished names. This is a much deeper and subconscious display of human behaviour that all of us are bound to. It is unlikely that all of this woman's readers feel women should be barefoot in the kitchen.
  - skorgu 17y ago
    > there is a fundamental wrong here which should be corrected for the betterment of our society Women not being rewarded equally for equal work is a fundamental wrong which should be corrected for the betterment of our society. It's possible I'm misreading you but one can be sexist without being a cave, um, person.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      She was free to pick a male sounding name. Problem solved. Also, it is just her story, it is not clear if she did "equal work" with her female name. She picked the name for something she did not want to be associated with - perhaps it simply was a different kind of writing that tends to pay better?

dlytle 17y ago

Something about this strikes me as either shady, or engineered to make a point. I'm probably paranoid, of course. Looking at the about page, "Men with Pens" was founded by the article's author. The sit is deliberately and heavily grounded in male stereotypes. Plus, looking at the bio for one of the other authors: "Taylor Lindstrom, is a twenty-something copywriter and journalist from Boulder, CO. She’s the team’s rogue woman who wowed us until our desire for her talents exceeded our desire for a good ol’ boys club." Maybe that's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to the founder's real gender. Perhaps the heavy masculinity of the Men With Pens site was designed to test/prove the theory. Not enough information to make a real decision. It just seems that there's more to this than meets the eye. I'd love to see some statistics on the comparative success of her publishing names.

araneae 17y ago
It's also amusing that the author is displaying blatant sexism towards this woman and at the same time complaining about sexism against her. Women can still be misogynists.
scott_s 17y ago
My assumption was that Men With Pens was founded well after she realized her male pen name was outperforming her real name. I didn't think she made Men With Pens hyper-masculine as a test, but just as an extension of using a male pen name.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
>Maybe that's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to the founder's real gender. Perhaps the heavy masculinity of the Men With Pens site was designed to test/prove the theory. It does seem to be a hyper-masculine design parody of men's magazines. I mean come on, the suede header background, hollow point bullet, chunky metalised writing, welder at the top of the page, "guns for hire" ... seriously? This is for real? Presumably "Taylor Lindstrom" in their about us is a bloke. Also, OT: design is completely broken with js off, right menu is broken with it on too (ff3.6, Kubuntu).

100k 17y ago

The more things change... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot

dflock 17y ago
Quite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_authors_who_wrote_under_male_or_gender-neutral_pseudonyms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_authors_who_wro... Although, Anne Rice is on that list and her real name is apparently Howard Allen O'Brien, despite actually being female: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice

ilamont 17y ago

Writers who claim to be something they're not: It's been happening for years. See http://bit.ly/8cteG0 http://bit.ly/8cteG0

ars 17y ago
Don't use url shorteners here. You still have time to edit your post.
- ilamont 17y ago
  The original link is: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/02/books/two-artists-neither-aboriginal-nor-original-after-all.html http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/02/books/two-artists-neither-...
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    An extraordinarily good counterpoint to the case before us. I think the key here is that a particular viewpoint from a man can be apparently more revealing, eg "this guy is on the inside and he said ...". If the same ideas are presented from a woman as a speculation then they are less interesting, eg "this woman is guessing that this is what men talk about when they're with other men ...". A painting is not just an image (as the curator in the link above claims) but is also an expression of the artist themselves (in most cases for non-professionals who actually paint their own work). A painting with the foot has a different quality to one painted by hand because one knows how the artist struggled against a physical adversity, etc..

scotty79 17y ago

> Truth be told, if just a name and perception of gender creates such different levels of respect and income for a person, it says a lot more about the world than it does about me. People who succeeded and think that they own it all to their skill, persistence and diligence should read this. Being lucky on some trivial things like name or gender may have affected your success more than you think.

RK 17y ago

I have a friend who works as a copywriter, and I have to say that it sounds like a shitty job. My friend talks excitedly about the pinnacle of copywriting being "direct mailing", which we all know as pre-email spamming. I think the appeal is that they get royalties on a per mailing basis.

neilk 17y ago

I wonder how Indian names are perceived in technology. There are a lot of examples of brilliant Indian computer scientists and entrepreneurs, but I suspect that Indian names are still viewed unfavorably in Silicon Valley. Everyone has experience with say, math profs with indecipherable accents, crappy Indian outsourcing firms, or the QA department that's entirely staffed with low-skill imports.

ankeshk 17y ago

Name has always made a difference. Do you know how many Indian programmers have American sounding pen names on freelance websites? They'll always get more work and higher per hour rates with an American sounding name than an Indian sounding name.

wglb 17y ago

Along with JK Rowling, if I am not mistaken.

jimbokun 17y ago
What? JK Rowling is a woman?!?!
philwelch 17y ago
J.K. Rowling, D.C. Fontana, C.L. Moore, probably many others.

Tichy 17y ago

Scientific this is not. Even for anecdote the story seems rather weak. But I guess he/she is very good at writing what people want to hear.

Daniel_Newby 17y ago

Methinks Ms. Galore doth protest too much.

jff 17y ago

It's possible the pen name helped on her side too--she may have started writing more to her expectations of a male writer (different style, sentence structure, etc), which in turn might have sold better.

Locke1689 17y ago

She's surprised that she had better success as a writer for "Men with Pens" when she chose a male pseudonym?

Jem 17y ago
No, she owns Men with Pens.

prodigal_erik 17y ago

> I quickly learned not to mention I had kids. I quickly learned not to mention I worked from my kitchen table. Maybe the false assumption was that she's a partnered dilettante (who might get bored and not deliver your work) rather than a professional (who takes your work seriously, in part because it's keeping the lights on), along with the assumption that mothers are more obsessed with parenting. On that note, anyone else think it was weird that she only talked about supporting her kids, as if she herself didn't eat?