A quick poll

glennmagusharvey

Try not to think much about each question.  There are just a few, and they're all short.

 

1. Picture a person.  What is this person's gender?

2. Picture a character in a TV show or movie.  What is this character's gender?

3. Picture a character in a videogame.  What is this character's gender?

4. Picture a character in an anime series.  What is this character's gender?

Nyktos

1. Genderless (stick figure)
2. Male (the Tenth Doctor)
3. Male (spess mehrine with a big gun)
4. Female (schoolgirl with blue hair)

Forzare

1. Female

2. Male (Walter White)

3. Male (Ezio)

4. Female (Rena)

ClockworkUniverse

1. Male (me) 


2. Male (generic action hero played by Bruce Willis) 


3. Male (generic action hero somewhere on the Gordon Freeman-Nathan Drake spectrum)


4. Female (generic moeblob)

Nova

1. Female
2. Female (Faith Lehane)
3. Male (Some random dude with big muscles)
4. Female (Kirika)

Schitzo

1. Male

2. Audrey Horne (Twin Peaks)

3. Shermie (King of Fighters

4. Guts (Berserk)

fourteenwings

1. Male


2. Male (Fabian Rutter - House Of Anubis)


3. Female (Female MC - Persona 3)


4. Female (Eureka - Eureka Seven)

Icalasari

1) Male (Me, although then I pictured my girlfriend right after)

2) Male (Not sure who... I think somebody from Walking Dead)

3) Male (Generic action hero)

4) Female (Generic moe blob)

MillerCross

All Male.

which probably speaks bad about me

MadassAlex

1. Ungendered (featureless homonculus).

2. Male (Sean Bean as seen in A Game of Thrones). 

3. Female (Fire Emblem; go figure). 

4. Male (Alucard from Hellsing). 

Nyarly

1. Female

2. Male (Batman from The Dark Knight)

3. Female (Rydia from Final Fantasy IV)

4. Female (Rika from Higurashi)

Saigyouji

1. Female

2. Male (Mal Reynolds from Firefly)

3. Female (Chie Satonaka from Persona 4)

4. Female (Arcueid Brunestud from Tsukihime)

BlackHumor

1. Since you asked that specific question, female, but I'm sure if the question wasn't laid out so starkly like that it'd be male.

2. Female, same condition as above.

3. Male, even given condition above, oddly enough.

4. Female, same condition as above.

Sorry, the question made me self-aware. (Oh, and the specific characters are all generics)

┻━┻ ︵ ヽ(`Д´）╯︵ ┻━┻

1. Female

2. ...uh...UHH...screw it only Asian ones are coming to mind, Sujini (Female)(From Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi)

3. My Paladin in Maple Story (Male)

4. Kirito (Male)(Sword Art Online)

JHM

Male, Female, Male, Female.

Alkthash

I think this question would work better in an instant chat medium. That way you can ask the questions and get people to think of their characters without knowing gender is involved until after they have given their answer.

glennmagusharvey

I was thinking about how to do this as I was writing up the questions.  I'm aware of answer-biasing effects; I was just trying think about how best to do it without going to too much trouble.

Maybe I should have put each of them sequentially in spoilers.

Like so:

 

Picture a person.  Then click the first spoiler below.

Spoiler:

1. What is that person's gender?  After answering this question, click the next spoiler.

And so on.

Unfortunately, this would only work the first one or two times; after that, people would see it coming for the third or fourth query anyway.  And on top of that, this survey, having a self-selected sample of people who are used to thinking a lot about media issues and gender issues (on top of being mostly male), really doesn't have a particularly unbiased sample.

What I was trying to test here was whether the "default" gender of an anime character is more often female and less often male than the "default" gender of a first-come-to-mind real-life person or person in another medium.