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.
