You Fail Asking Me for a Review Forever

Dear Self-Published Author Looking for a Review:

Look. I don’t mind readers of my blog thinking I’m male, because it’s an easy mistake to make in a default-white-male society, especially as I neither discuss my gender in detail nor do I put up pictures of myself. (I don’t like it, but understand it.)

But if you’re asking me to review your work?

It’s called research, you fucking idiot.

Also, I have no idea why you view “Arachne” as masculine. Even if I were a male drag queen, I’d have chosen the name for the complete opposite reason.

Don’t even bother to mansplain to me how I should consider being addressed as male an honor. A male-identifying person gets pissed if you call him “Miss”, I can get pissed if you call me “Mister.”

Good gods.

Also, not the first time this happened.

*headdesk*

And no, I will not review your work.

11 thoughts on “You Fail Asking Me for a Review Forever”

  1. You’d think in 2010 we’d be past this whole “assuming anybody who is anybody is male” malarkey. Bah and humbug. It bugs me even more at work, where most of my colleagues ARE male. Sadly, such is still the nature of the IT world. Le sigh.

    But OMG. Come on. GAAHHHHH!! ‘Arachne’? Yeah, WAY more obvious that it’s a feminine name than ‘Kelly’. People… what are you going to do, eh?

    (Anything address to Mr. Kelly gets tossed in the recycling bin or the deleted items folder. “What’s that? Nope. Never got your email.” Heh. At least it’s vendors who usually make that mistake, and I don’t want to talk to them anyway. Evil grin.)

  2. Ever since I saw your tweet on #ebz, I thought you were female. I’m not even sure how one could possibly think you were male or argue (!!) that you should feel “honored”. I really hope they emailed before your post on Day 46 where you do explicitly call attention to your gender, because otherwise, the cluelessness is too much to bear.

    I’m with Kelly. I often get mistaken for male by salesminions because of my name. No one seems to really notice the feminine ending, I suppose. Though when it happens irl, I wind up pointing to these DDs and asking them when the last time they had seen a woman was.

    Sad, just sad.

  3. LOL, Cori. When that happens IRL to me, I peek into my shirt and say, “Hey, they may not be much, but they’re THERE!” Ah, the trials of being a Barely A.

  4. Yay it’s not just me!

    Although I will say that each of my former names have also been mistaken for male, without exception, even though when left to my own devices I come up with very feminine names. (And yet until I discovered the freedom of flowing skirts, I prefer masculine dress. Still do, just not from the waist down….)

    The person emailed me after the Day 46 post. I had mentioned, after all, that in my dream I fell in love with a woman, therefore obviously I’m a man. Sigh.

  5. Arachne: *laughs* Must be that too many of my friends are queer, I didn’t actually think of the dream as being a potential gender-indicator, just the comment about being quite girly about shopping, J.Lo and Orlando Bloom.

    Kelly: I’d trade you if I could, if only for a day or two :-)

  6. From your tweets, I thought you were female. When I started reading your blog, I decided I was wrong and you were a male. When the Overherd appeared, I gave up and decided you were a person and an interesting one, and if I never knew what gender you were, it didn’t matter.

    That said, anyone who assigns a gender pronoun in a case where they cannot be absolutely sure is irresponsible. Especially in a professional setting.

  7. And especially since they could simply have used my full name without address. That’s what I would have done (and have done in the past) if I didn’t know.

    I find it funny that the people who address me as “Mr.” often cannot bear to add my first name, though they do it with other (presumed) men, as if emphasizing my female-sounding name would embarrass me. It’s a really weird pattern.

  8. I assumed you were female from the name. That dream told me you were probably lesbian, but I didn’t want to assume it, because my subconscious can and does pair me up with anybody of any gender in dreams regardless of the real life evidence, and I thought maybe yours did the same.

  9. Makes sense that dreams can pair people up with anybody regardless of orientation.

    I’m bisexual. I’m far from promiscuous, though. (That can sometimes lead to doubt that I’m “really” bi. It’s weird, but then again, identity is weird.)

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