Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

This presentation uses results of a study where participants identified their own genders to illustrate ethical and methodological problems. It makes normative claims about gender as a variable in studies of written communication, including composition studies, technical and computer-mediated communication, and natural language processing.

 

Theories of gender and communication include early gender-difference/dominance views, social role theory, standpoint theory, and queer theory. Nevertheless, empirical researchers often use gender as a variable without explaining how they ascribe it to participants or what they intend it to mean. For example, Tebeaux and Allen performed studies in technical communication with gender as a …