We have set ourselves up to be equals in the workplace, but it will never happen as long as we have to work so hard to feel normal. We will always be at a disadvantage in this way. So, I would love to know the secret that keeps you all from thinking about womanhood. I can’t believe that it isn’t a big part of your lives - unless you don’t have a uterus.

In my teens I’d received quite a few passes from men. I was as oblivious to them as I was to the more subtle flirtations from girls. It’s not that I was uninterested in the latter; I am just dumb in some ways.

My teen appearance was quite androgynous. One of my nicknames was “locks” as in Goldi-, and I got very tired of answering “are you a boy or a girl?” I also resented the question, “Are you queer?” I was firmly and entirely attracted to girls, but I usually answered the dumb question with a flurry of long words to convey that I was indeed offbeat, but not gay. My prevailing mustache began as a shield against the gender question.

Some people are still confused about me. I am a bit flamboyant, for a straight guy. I like some chick flicks, and Amy Tan. I get along quite comfortably with people who are most comfortable dating their own kind. Several are my friends.
I have always been able to fit in with girl talk. Girls and women often seemed to forget that I wasn’t actually one of them. Perhaps I unconsciously carried Dale Carnegie techniques too far. I was always a friend to the few girls in my classes who talked to me.

I was somewhat surprised when I found out that the girl who finally overcame my stupidity and “made a man of me” later decided to do it to herself. She decided to become a man when her son was almost the age she was when she first “knew” me. His husband is supportive of the change. This doesn’t affect my own sense of identity, though.

But gender is not a major characteristic at the root of my self image. When I am asked a simple “who are you?” sort of question, I usually answer with one or more of my vocations or hobbies: Computer Geek, Artist, rehabber, traveler, or the like. Maybe I simply neglect to answer that I am a man because it seems too obvious.

Someday I may have to decide what I want to be when I grow up. But I really doubt that it will be a woman.

-Shel Silverstein

Hey, Vicki, what is my identity if I go around calling women “Dude”?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iObGIkqhJJw

But I have to say that I find myself being aware of being a woman quite often, particularly in a professional capacity while working in a primarily male-dominated technology niche. If I act in an assertive way I risk a very real backlash. I am quite aware that I immediately have to establish my knowledge in a way that a man, perhaps, might not or be relegated to the back of the line. These are all subjective experiences, but they happen enough that I would be foolish to ignore them.

When out walking alone at night I feel very vulnerable, but a man might well feel that way too - though I wonder if a woman feels especially vulnerable - perhaps not.

While I may not place the identifier “woman” at the top of my list of important traits, there is no doubt it plays a very strong role in how people define or even just interact with me. I try to think of people as people, but things like gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, socio-economic reality, and a zillion other things do inform who we are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmFBOVZ6BLM