Men with boobs.

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I think this is absolutely the heart of the matter. Woman and female do not stand alone. It is always in comparison to man and male.

People even "compliment" women for "thinking like a man," etc. Um no she's a woman thinking like a human being because she has a human brain.

If you don't fall along socially accepted lines of what a woman is, then you are either man or man-like (i.e man with boobs), not a different sort of woman/female.

The whole "thinking like a man" thing? OMGEEEE!
I think I talked about this in the "Sexism in Technology" thread but every time I sign up on a forum with a non-gender-specific name like " Me " or "Somebody" and start interacting on topics ranging from Internet Trolls to friggin' GARDENING, I am ALWAYS, ALWAYS referred to as "He".

One of the participants on another forum I frequent actually said they felt quite "suckered" because they felt that I "talked like a man" and was "assertive like a man" and "knew about things that only Men would know about" (Survival skills and guns? Really?)

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Medusa

but every time I sign up on a forum with a non-gender-specific name like " Me " or "Somebody" and start interacting on topics ranging from Internet Trolls to friggin' GARDENING, I am ALWAYS, ALWAYS referred to as "He".

A similar thing happened to me on these forums. I don't know if it's because of the way I phrase things, or because I swear, or what - but someone absolutely referred to me as "he" in that conversation. I let it go, but what I really wanted to do was climb through my monitor and beat her about the head with my underwire.