The linked story is not new but I just came across again.
My question is now: If you read a (scientific) article or blog or whatever from an author with unknown gender (e.g. because the first name is shortened or unisex or from another language/culture or an alias) - do you "assign" a gender to the author? Do you assume a male or female author in the first place? Or do you not care?
I always see the author of an article or blog or text as kind of "genderless": There is a text which contains information it(!) wants to tell me. I never wondered about the gender of the author or thought something like "if the ion analysis of these Baltic sea samples were performed by a woman, the results would be in an altogether different light...".
Whats your opinion on this topic?
http://www.theguardian.com/science/us-news-blog/2013/mar/20/i-love-science-woman-facbook
In my field of research, social psychology, there is an extensive literature on how the author's alleged gender affects judgments of essays (and other products of creative work). A meta-analysis of experimental studies (Swim et al., 1989) showed that, overall, there is a small effect to the disadvantage of female authors. (In the meantime, there has been more research on the issue. A recent paper looking at perceptions of creativity is Lebuda and Karwowski (2013).)
One factor that appears to be related to the extent and direction of bias is the gender-stereotypicality of the topic or area of work to be judged. I would suspect that stereotypic expectancies may also affect perceived gender if an author's gender is unknown.
References:
Lebuda, I., & Karwowski, M. (2013). Tell me your name and I'll tell you how creative your work is: Author's name and gender as factors influencing assessment of products' creativity in four different domains. Creativity Research Journal, 25, 137–142. doi:10.1080/10400419.2013.752297
Swim, J. K., Borgida, E., Maruyama, G., & Myers, D. G. (1989). Joan McKay versus John McKay: Do gender stereotypes bias evaluations? Psychological Bulletin, 105, 409–429. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.105.3.409
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