Basically, we've hyperfeminised women lately. I don't find pleasure in the overt activities that a lot of people consider feminine, and I prefer the freedom of refusing to label myself female in a female body. It's an increasingly tightly defined gender role and I dislike it.
There are also other factors - I have little patience for verbal game playing, which seems to be a male trait, I have a vocabulary and way of speaking that is consistently identified as male, I tend to be identified as "male" in the minds of most of my friends simply based on my size and presentation of myself.
There are things I prefer and would like to emphasise about myself that are male - I would like to be more able to present myself in a manner that goes along with my physicality - I'm a huge person, realistically, and I'd like to be able to use that, rather than being very shy and diffident around people. Not that I want to dominate the conversation, but men present themselves (whether for good or ill) generally better than I present myself. Many of the people I know well in my life and admire on a personal level (ie, coworkers I admire, rather than personal heros) are male and I admire them for reasons that I would like to incorporate into my own life to a certain extent.
This isn't to say that I want to eradicate any trace of femininity in myself. I see that as well, and I see things that are neither male nor female and I like that (all in all, I'm pleased with myself, except for the shy thing). But I don't like the uber-feminine that is currently what it means to be a woman, at least in society's eyes (society is, once again, dividing by zero) and I'd rather challenge the assumption that someone with breasts can't do anything other than giggle and bake. I'd rather challenge peoples' perception that sex = gender, and I think there are enough elements of myself that are not female that I would do better to do that. And the other part of that is that I'm not interested in switching my body's sex, either. I LIKE having a woman's body and a mind that is probably neither completely male nor female.
Of course, the flipside to that is that I really do enjoy a lot of female activities, like sewing.
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There are also other factors - I have little patience for verbal game playing, which seems to be a male trait, I have a vocabulary and way of speaking that is consistently identified as male, I tend to be identified as "male" in the minds of most of my friends simply based on my size and presentation of myself.
There are things I prefer and would like to emphasise about myself that are male - I would like to be more able to present myself in a manner that goes along with my physicality - I'm a huge person, realistically, and I'd like to be able to use that, rather than being very shy and diffident around people. Not that I want to dominate the conversation, but men present themselves (whether for good or ill) generally better than I present myself. Many of the people I know well in my life and admire on a personal level (ie, coworkers I admire, rather than personal heros) are male and I admire them for reasons that I would like to incorporate into my own life to a certain extent.
This isn't to say that I want to eradicate any trace of femininity in myself. I see that as well, and I see things that are neither male nor female and I like that (all in all, I'm pleased with myself, except for the shy thing). But I don't like the uber-feminine that is currently what it means to be a woman, at least in society's eyes (society is, once again, dividing by zero) and I'd rather challenge the assumption that someone with breasts can't do anything other than giggle and bake. I'd rather challenge peoples' perception that sex = gender, and I think there are enough elements of myself that are not female that I would do better to do that. And the other part of that is that I'm not interested in switching my body's sex, either. I LIKE having a woman's body and a mind that is probably neither completely male nor female.
Of course, the flipside to that is that I really do enjoy a lot of female activities, like sewing.