Are there ever times when you can immediately assume the gender or race of someone who made something, based on instinct and prior experience?

[MCheetah]

Not to sound sexist here, but if I see a brilliant idea for something, an amazing movie premise, a decent invention idea, or something funny, I immediately think a man made it. Even when it seems like a woman made it, I'll do some basic Googling and find out, "Nope, they're trans! A man still made this." And if it sucks, it isn't funny, or seems like it was made by someone untalented who is only there as a diversity hire, I immediately think "a feminist/Karen made this."

I'm really not trying to sound sexist or offensive here, but I've literally never seen anything brilliant or funny, made by a woman before. Like, ever. Not even from a lesbian or old woman. When women do make things, it's always female centric or super-obvious it was made by a woman (and pretty much, only caters to women).

I've NEVER seen anything gender-neutral or universal, made by a woman. Even when it seems like it was made "by a woman," it was still made by a person with a Y chromosome. Or a man with a feminine sounding name. And I notice this a LOT. Whether it be GAG posts, movie trailers, new inventions, or so on. I notice it so much, I made this into a question here.

My question is, do you ever have an instinct like this, where you can automatically tell what kind of person made something through assumptions on their gender, age, or race?

Updates

+1 y

JK Rowling might be the only female creator or visionary I can think of that successfully made something without it being obvious it was written by a woman. Not that I'd know 100% for sure, as I've never read or watched anything with Harry Potter in it before.

Updates

+1 y

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is another one a woman made that is universally known and liked and not specifically female-pandering.

[HighlyVolatile]

One thing I've noticed in films is that I can notice when something is unusual with the direction. I can't necessarily pinpoint it to a female or minority director but I notice something is unusual with the direction. That's in a good and refreshing way though.

One of my favorite horror films of all time is Ravenous from Antonia Bird as its director. And it's definitely unusual. I would love to see more horror films like this directed by women because I'm not one of those thinking men and women are identical. I think part of the film's magic might owe its part to being directed by a woman:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/l7BDiNktrLU

[HighlyVolatile]

There is also this film called No One Lives that is like a guilty pleasure -- except I don't feel guilty at all about it -- but it's something hardly anyone I know likes. I didn't know who the director was upfront and just watched it somewhere for the first time... I think maybe on an airplane trip or something like that. And I thought it was totally awesome, but it's weird in that there's no character you can really root for in the film which is unusual for a Hollywood film:
https://youtu.be/7Eiko_J6mfE
I noticed it was so weird that way but later noticed it's from a B- Japanese director here: Ryuhei Kitamura.

[HighlyVolatile]

I got a feeling maybe it was directed by a French director -- couldn't place as Japanese -- but maybe not American director.

[HighlyVolatile]

Also Titus from Julie Taymor:
https://youtu.be/OvZRvKf78yY
There's something different about it. It irked me far more than usual even though it's not my favorite film. Then I discovered director is a woman: Julie Taymor.

[HighlyVolatile]

And also in writing. I used to geek out on fantasy books written by both male and female authors. But I noticed female authors went into vividly descriptive details about certain things like the intricacies of oiling a leather breastplate that male authors tended to skip. There was a difference I noticed there in retrospect -- not always -- but a sort of trend.

[IceCreamSandwich]

I usually think action-oriented books are by men, and character-oriented books are by women.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the Indiana Jones series, The Most Dangerous Game, etc... are mostly about what characters DO/ how they ACT.

Frankenstein, Pride and Prejudice, the Hunger Games trilogy, The Yellow Wallpaper, etc... are more about how characters REact/ how they INTERact.

Of course there are exceptions like The Great Gatsby and the Giver series. But generally that's what I've thought.

[IceCreamSandwich]

Oh, also if 97—100% of the characters in the show/movie are white, then I think a white person probably made it.

[MCheetah]

I'll give you Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. That's two women who have made universally known products so far. Thank you.

[IceCreamSandwich]

You're welcome

[LovingLoverReturned]

Of course, I assume the gender of the creator of many things.
But I'm surprised to know it was an actress who first came up with the idea of WiFi. Hedy Lamarr in the 1900s gave a blueprint for the wifi we have today. She wanted to help with communication during the war. Despite being an actress she had background knowledge in ammunition, which somehow helped her in these endeavors.

[LovingLoverReturned]

I'm impressed.

I love communicating by means of Wi-Fi... much easier than using pigeons or having to travel around.

[LovingLoverReturned]

World atlas is unbelievably dumb.

It admits that Dr. John O'Sullivan made wireless LAN... FASTER and more steady.

But he did not invent WiFi... yet they have that answer under the question "who invented WiFi."

[LovingLoverReturned]

This may be why we don't know more about female inventions. Due to the dumbness and Algorithm of the internet.

[MCheetah]

I've heard about this and heard about Hedy Lamarr. But there's like six or more people credited to inventing WIFI. Lemarr's name gets thrown around just because she's a woman, but John O'Sullivan, Diethelm Ostry, Terence Percival, John Deane, and Graham Daniels are also credited as having invented WIFI, and I don't know who the "true/first" inventor is.

Having looked it up, it says she did NOT invent WIFI, but helped "pioneer the technology that would later be used for WIFI." So I don't know if she counts. Either way, good for her for making something useful for society.

www.womenshistory.org/.../hedy-lamarr

[LovingLoverReturned]

It's not hard to figure based on 1) the dates
2) the origin story. War times.

[MCheetah]

But she didn't actually INVENT WIFI though. At best, it was an idea of hers.

[LovingLoverReturned]

It was not just an idea. More of the story is on Forbes and History. com... But it can be say in this sense "she invented the computer" and someone else invented the laptop which is heavily based on the computer.

[Ffggguuyggf]

"I've NEVER seen anything gender-neutral or universal, made by a woman"

-The theory of radioactivity was discovered by Marie Curie. She also discovered 2 radioactive elements, radium and polonium and for this, she won a Nobel in Chemistry

-The first computer software was discovered by Grace Hopper.
In 1952 she developed the first compiler called A-0, which translated mathematical code into machine-readable code—an important step toward creating modern programming languages. She also discovered the COBOL programming language.

-Home security system - Marie Van Brittan Brown.

-Kevlar (the lightweight fibre used in bullet-proof vests and body armour) was invented by Stephanie Kwolek.

-The theory of stem cell isolation, which is very important in stem research- was discovered by Dr. Ann Tsukamoto

-The rules in Monopoly were also invented by a woman...

[MCheetah]

Except none of that stuff is universal; it's very specifically isolated to the science community.

Also, my point wasn't that women haven't/can't make anything, which I never said, it was "I've never seen anything gender-neutral or universal, made by a woman." As in *I've* never seen it before. Besides JK Rowling writing Harry Potter. Besides Marie Curie, I never even heard of any of these people before. Regardless, you used six examples, all of which were very obscure and specific to science, meaning besides Curie, most people outside of Women's History Month wouldn't know any of these obscure female inventors.

[Fuentes]

No i never thought about it but true i did think JK Rowling was always a dude until i seen her on a interview when i was younger

[AvaOneLasTime]

Yes , there are females creating gender-neutral content. I can think of two, just in this site.