Gordon has "Advantage of being a man".
The other night Jimmy and I were having a conversation, where he said he could not imagine being a woman and wouldn't want to be; I said that I wouldn't want to be a man. He said he was surprised.
I do not want this to be read as anti-men (some of my best friends, etc...), but I seriously wouldn't want to be a man.
Because, for my entire life, apart from being 'me', my main role or definer has been 'female'. I have only adopted other roles later - eg I now know that I am 'white', but, in my most formative phase I didn't know that there was 'black'.
Why do I like being a woman? It's all right to have, and to express, emotions. If I am not a high-flyer, in work, or other spheres, I do not see my 'failure' as an affront to my femininity.
I can choose to wear skirts or trousers...in summer, I do not envy men who wear heavy trousers. Or trousers, full stop, to work, while I float around in a super-cool floaty frock.
Then there's all that trouser-department stuff...if I'm aroused, no-one need know. I can have wild sexual fantasies in boring meetings and there's no obvious physical signs.
If I wanted to, I could have sex all night, repeatedly.
That messy period thing can be a nuisance, but someone I know had terrible problems and when she had her surgery and her periods re-started, she celebrated the wonderful feeling of being a woman.
I am lucky because, among reasonable people, like you, if not necessarily among the Greater Unwashed, there is a happy equilibrium of gender roles or expectations.
People feel able to acknowledge and welcome the differences between men and women, without the need for a debate about superiority. Many settings - work, the blogosphere, whatever, - are enhanced by the mixing of male and female traits. If you are one gender, but have many traits that are traditionally associated with the other - geeky women, nurturing men - that's okay, too.
Of course, on a global scale, there are massive inequalities between genders. I often feel guilty about being an educated woman born in the West and living in the Twenty-First Century. In the entire history of human existence, no woman has had it as good as me. I should use my guilt to make changes, and above all, I should celebrate that I am me.
