Not at all. I just don't think that hiding gender is meaningful beyond making some people feel good. It's a false set of security -- gender and identity are linked.

It's a social networking application. Knowing what people put on social networking sites, my guess is that if you couldn't see someone's name/alias or gender, you could identify the gender of a user with a reasonable degree of confidence.

The predators (rapists, stalkers, etc) are highly attuned and skilled at identifying victims. If a woman (or man) is actually awware of a specific risk of a stalker getting info about them from a social networking site, she/he shouldn't have a public profile, period. Hiding gender in that case could create a dangerous, false sense of security.

"The predators (rapists, stalkers, etc) are highly attuned and skilled at identifying WILLING victims."

There, fixed that for you.

"Hiding gender in that case could create a dangerous, false sense of security."

It's even worse. Exploiters and stalkers build a relationship with a delusion. Maintaining ongoing contact using a mystery persona gives their imagination free rein, ungrounded by contact with reality, building up a fantasy relationship that does not exist. The solution is to use your real persona, and end all contact the moment you start getting creepy vibes.

Privacy exists. Just not on social networks where you share personal informational with the network provider.