I was working on an assignment today when I made an “earth-shattering” discovery….
To give a little back-story on how I made this discovery, I was color-coding something for work when I noticed that I had matched Phase “6″ with a pink color. When I had first done it I had randomly picked up highlighters of different colors and those two happened to match up, however I briefly thought “hmm, that’s funny….6 is a masculine number, but I have it in pink (which is obviously feminine 
).”
A few seconds afterwards, I thought about what I had said. “6″….masculine? And then I realized, I’ve always considered different numbers to have an associated gender!!!! While I’ve done it all my life, I realize how crazy this is, and I was instantly drawn to do a google search, and I came across this post.
So, 1) I’m NOT the only person that does this, 2) some people DO think we’re crazy, and 3) my associations are way different than some most who commented on that post. Lol.
For those who are curious, here is what I think of the different numbers:
1 – male
2 – female
3 – female (tomboy, if I must be specific)
4 – female
5 – female
6 – male
7 – female
8 – male
9 – male
0 – male (although leaning on neutral)
Are you as crazy as me? Do you assign numbers a certain gender? (And any idea why some people do this and others don’t?! lol)
January 15, 2009 at 11:52 am
I did.. not.. know you could do that, but now that I think about it the #8 for me is female..
AAH! I’ve been converted!!!
Fabulously Broke in the City
“Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.“
January 15, 2009 at 11:53 am
OMG I totally do this!! I discovered that I do this a few years ago, and have never mentioned it to anyone for fear of being labelled a maniac! My numbers have different sexes to yours though..
1 female
2 male
3 female
4 male
5 male
6 male
7 female
8 male
9 male
0 male
Not many females in there. OCD much??
January 15, 2009 at 11:58 am
I totally do this, too. Terrifying in a way, but also comforting to know others do it too.
1 male
2 female
3 female
4 male
5 female
6 female
7 male
8 female
9 male
0 male
When I picture a number in my head, it always is dressed up or looks like whatever gender I think it is. For example, the number five has a flowered hat, glasses and earrings. And… that’s all I’m gonna say about that. Because I’m scaring myself.
Also, I think some numbers have colors:
1 red
2 blue
3 orange
4 green
5 blue
6 green
7 yellow
8 purple
9 red
0 black
January 15, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Yes, definitely crazy!
January 15, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I don’t do this but in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the main character assigns “personalities” to the numbers. 0 is a baby, you just “carry” it. 1 and 2 are the little kids. 7 and 8 are the grandparents. 9 is a stranger. And so on. Numbers would tell a story–7812 would mean the grandparents taking the kids for a walk, 912 would mean the kids being baby-sat.
January 15, 2009 at 12:27 pm
You guys are all maniacs….
I forgot that about the “Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, but that is sort of beautiful. I guess if you take your craziness of assigning genders further, it goes from “nuts” to “beautiful” in my book.
January 15, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I don’t do this, but my coworker who has synesthesia does, only she assigns colors, not genders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
It’s very interesting stuff… there are better websites about it, including those who have synesthesia explaining how they see and color words. Fascinating stuff!
January 15, 2009 at 1:26 pm
All the ways I can think of designating genders to numbers are dirty. (C’mon, what does 8 look like to you? 3? 1??)
January 15, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Yes, I do this, too.
I also assign gender to letters, days of the week and months.
*heading of to see my therapist now*
January 15, 2009 at 1:53 pm
You should check out “Born on a Blue Day,” a book about a man who has this (and other) conditions. Synesthesia is an unusual neurological syndrome that allows people to experience numbers and words as shapes, colors, textures and motions.
January 16, 2009 at 3:14 pm
@ SP: So in other words….we’re all nuts? lol. Hmm, I’m going to have to pick up that book (as well as “Born on a blue day”). It sounds neat!
@ Sarah: thanks for the link! Interesting stuff.I can’t imagine seeing colors with words, I do a little bit of the spacial-related things. lol.
@paranoidasteroid: LOL. Let’s not go there…
February 5, 2009 at 12:36 am
I just told someone for the first time today. I thought I was weird and just never thought to tell anyone. I assign gender to letters and numbers and now that another blogger metioned it, I guess I assign gender to days of the week and months, too. It’s always been that way since I can remember and there is no rhyme or reason to it. It just is. A woman from my work researched this for me (no she is not a trained professional) and she thinks this: When you are 2-3 years of age, you begin to understand and discover gender. You realize your gender and other people’s gender. If you started to learn your numbers and letters around this same age you would begin to assign gender to these, also. I don’t know if it’s true but it makes a lot of sense.
February 12, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I’ve always known the gender of both colors and numbers. Possibly the alphabet, too, although I’m only thinking about it now for the first time. Here’s my list:
Female numbers: 2,3,8,9
Male numbers: 1,4,5,6,7,10
Female colors: red, green & shades and tints of each, but not usually when mixed with a male color, such as blue and green making teal. Teal is male.
Male colors: Blue, Yellow, Brown, Black, White, Purple, Orange, Teal
Look up synaesthesia and see if you think we qualify. I can’t tell.
March 1, 2009 at 10:23 pm
I’ve done that as far back as kindergarten I think. Your number genders are identical to mine except 3 is a boy. I do the same thing for letters. Crazy isn’t it. I had this discussion at work once with someone who’s numbers were colored and she explained that it’s a form of synaethesia
June 17, 2009 at 12:17 am
I posted on that other blog too, which I found before yours, and only mentioned number gender and personality, but I’ll also add more as well as that here…
0 1 5 6 7 9 and 10 are all masculine to me.
4 and 8 are totally feminine
2 and 3 are kind of iffy, but it really just varies, I just can’t decide.
As for personalities, I see them in my head a lot more clearly than I could write them down, but I do know 6 is really mean, 5 is really good friends with him, 7 is really shy, and 8 is kind of fun-loving.
As for the alpabet:
B D F G I J K O R T U X and Z are all masculine, while A C E H L M N P Q S V W Y are all feminine pretty much. I’m not as sure with letters as I am other things.
Which leads me to my last two. heh. January June July August September October and December are all masculine, and February April, and May are feminine, while March and November are kind of neutral. Given, some of this still varies. As for days of the week: Sunday Friday and Saturday are males, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are females.
Wow. I went on about it wayyy to much. I feel like a weirdo. Oh Well. I finally got to share it!
July 6, 2009 at 11:51 am
Finally, I am not crazy! And what its seems after reading other peoples`s descriptions is that numbers does have gender but they are different with different people.I guess everyone is born to their own family of numbers or tribe of numbers that they may be associated with.
I will now describe my numbers.
1 is a male and is the youngest of the family.
2 is a girl that looks up to 3.
3 is a girl that has a crush on 4 who is a male.
4 is a young male that looks up to masculine 5.
5 is a male that likes 6.
6 is a female who is in love with 7.
7 is a male that is controlled by 8 for some reason.
8 is a female who looks up to 9.
9 is a very powerful female.
10 is the mother of all of them.
That is my number family.
July 17, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I too assign numbers with a gender and color. Could the reason be as simple as the learning tools we had around us when we were young? The poster with the red 4 or the 3 with little legs and hands that had a baseball cap on? Maybe something like this…
http://www.homeroomteacher.com/numberposters1011×17posters.aspx
Just a thought.
July 18, 2009 at 5:52 pm
You know, I was thinking about that the other day, and I think there’s something to it….although I don’t specifically remember any examples. I think you’re onto something with that…
July 22, 2009 at 10:20 am
Wow, i am so glad to have seen this blog! I too associate numbers with gender, as well as colours and the alphabet. My list seems pretty different to everyone elses though; the majority see 3 as female but to me 3 is one of the most male of them all! Here is my list:
1- female
2- male
3- male
4- female
5- extremely male
6- extremely female
7- female
8- male
9- female
I’ve done this for as long as i can remember and I have no idea why! It’s kind of comforting to me in a way though. Quick question for people that this has made me think about. We assign single figures with gender, but do people assign double figures with a gender? e.g if you perceive 3 as male and 4 as female would 34 be neutral? Personally my gut feeling would be male as 3 is the more dominant number (being 30) and therefore 43 would be female (due to the 40).
August 5, 2009 at 2:56 pm
This is so weird to me and kind of exciting to know there are other people who do this. All my life, I have associated gender with numbers, letters, days and months. None of my siblings ever did this. I’ve never discussed it with any friends, cause I just figured it was some kind of weird personality glitch of mine and, frankly, it’s never come up. Now I’m an adult and one of my four children also does this. I’m going to show him this blog. I’m also going to research synesthesia. I’ve never heard of that. Here are my gender associations:
Nos: 1,5,7,8,10 are male; 2,3,4,6,9 are female
Letters: A,G,H,N,P,Q,R,S,U,V,Z are female; B,C,D,E,F,I,J,K,L,M,O,T,W,X,Y are male
Days: Monday – Friday are male; Saturday and Sunday are female
Months: January, February, June, July, October, December are Male; March, April, May, August, September November are female
August 28, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I’ve been doing the same thing for as long as I can remember, I thought it was crazy but I see its niether strange nor crazy as I thought it was. Now I see there’s many of us whom are charing same experience. For me its both numbers and letters.
female# 2,5,8,9,
male# 1,6,7,10…..(0,3,4)can be between both genders.
Leters
Femle b,g,l,o,p,f,q,r,s,u,w,y,z
Male a,c,d,e,h,i,j,k,m,n,t,v,x
November 6, 2009 at 12:23 am
I do this too! I was doing a division problem in my head and realized 7 was blue and had long blonde hair. Then I thought about it and realized I assign a gender to every number. So, I googled it to see if I was the only weirdo who does this. Yay, I’m not! Here is my breakdown:
1-female
2-male
3-male
4-female
5-male
6-male
7-female
8-male
9-male
10-female
After reading what you guys wrote, I realized I also do it to days and months and letters too. Crazy! Earlier this year, I found out that not everyone sees colors and patterns when they hear music–I do! I googled that too and saw it is synesthesia. I wonder if this is related?
November 19, 2009 at 7:02 am
i’ve posted about this on another blodsite also and im quite relieved im not the only one coz ppl have been telling me ive weird for a very long time lol
I am a psych student and recently just learnt about a term called synaesthesia which is a perception of a specific stimulus which induces a concurrent and distinct experience in a separate or same modality. However it usually have to do with colour and numbers but still it made me feel a lot better coz ever since ive been little i always knew numbers had genders for me 2, 4, 5 are females and 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are all males (i also have the feeling 6 and 7 are brothers and youngish and 8is an uncle and 10 is an old man, crazy i know) and 1 is a little kid which their gender is unknown. lol
November 26, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Mine are:
Male – 1 3 6 7 9 0
Female – 2 4 5 8
This has been so interesting for me to find out because I always thought it was only me that percieved numbers with a gender.
So much so, that when I met my future husband and mentioned this to him, he went online to research it and came up with nothing. And now I found this to show him LOL
Now I am learning that colours can come into play too. I honestly don’t associate colours with numbers.
As for the alphabet, I am not sure – some letters lend themselves to male/female for me (a=female, b=male, c=female, d=male, e=female,f=male, g=male,h=female etc) but I also sense a “personality” too? Maybe not making sense.
Very interesting
November 30, 2009 at 3:50 am
I thought I was the only one… I have done this and thought this way for as long as I can remember. Its so solid in my mind that virtually everything that fits into a category like this has a gender to me. I don’t even have to think about it, these genders are so obvious to my brain, but I have never written them down or talked about the way I associate them. If it makes any difference, I am a 21 year old male. I wonder if my being gay (actually bisexual by about 70/30 I would say) has anything to do with it.
0-female
1-male
2-male
3-male
4-female
5-male
6-female
7-male
8-female
9-female
10-female
ABCDGHKLOPQRVWXY=female
EFIJMNSTUZ=Male
Monday=female
Tuesday=male
Wednesday=female
Thursday=male
Friday=male
Saturday=male
Sunday=female
When I was very little, like 5 years old, I also associated the days of the week to shapes… not like geometric shapes (no circles), and some were the same shape. I can’t remember them all today, that seems to have faded, except that I knew Tuesday and Thursday (males) to be squares, and Wednesday was sort of a trapezoid I think.
January=female
February=female
March=male
April=female
May=female
June=female
July=male
August=male
September=male
October=female
November=female
December=male
Even shapes, the simple elementary ones:
Circle=female
Triangle=female (even though the number 3 is male to me)
Square=male (even though the number 4 is female to me)
Rectangle=male
Pentagon=male (and past this the gender matches the number of the sides)
I seriously think I could assign gender, instantly, to a lot of categorized things.. basically anything where there is a lot of different specimens of the same thing. I will drive though a neighborhood, and could tell you which houses are male and female, or neutral (just meaning I don’t see a gender there). I think names usually follow the letter-gender I have for things, but not always.
Here’s some weirder examples:
Countries:
England=male
Ireland=male
Portugal=male
Spain=male
France=female
Germany=female
Netherlands=female
Italy=male
Switzerland=female
Belgium=female
States:
Washington=Male
California=Female
Nevada=Male
Kansas=Female
Oklahoma=Female
Texas=Male
Florida=Female
Pennsylvania=Female
Massachusetts=Female
Anyway, just thought I’d share – this is a really dominant way of thinking for me that I guess I didn’t realize was unusual, until I started taking Spanish language class, when the “genders” assigned in that language would sometimes conflict with what was natural to me, and made it difficult to speak correctly.
December 7, 2009 at 4:06 am
Whoa, that’s nuts! You know, this so sounds like something that I would do, but alas, I don’t. Now I feel left out