Gender options (an "XX" rated article)

[Drew Danielson]

Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> At 6:52 PM -0400 5/7/02, James A. Landau wrote:
> >_Philadelphia Inquirer_ May 7, 2002, page D1 (w/ jump to D2), article
> >"Women's rowers find themselves in demand"
> >
> >written by "Ira Josephs" (how's that for an androgynous name?) (Not to be
> >confused with "IRA", a pension plan for Irish terrorists)
>
> Really?  In my experience it's about as androgynous as Joseph.  I've
> never known a female Ira, and I've known and/or heard of many a male
> one.

Having never met an Ira early in life, I was not disabused of the notion
that it was a female/women's name until I was in my teens.  I suppose
that I associated it with morphologically similar names like Ida, Myra,
and Irene.

Of course my own name has been accused of being a "girl's name", which
never made sense to me since Drew Barrymore came along much later in
history than either myself or my father, not to mention either of the
Drew Pearsons (one a journalist, the other a Dallas Cowboy).