oursin, wasn't there an excerpt from her in the Guardian? Because if not her, then someone very much like her. I remember reading it at the time and boggling at her experience of feminity, because it doesn't match mine: I've got male friends, I've got female friends, and I've had very deep and very meaningful conversations with them. I've worked in mostly-male environment - white Van driver, warehouse-with-heavy-lifting, machine operator, and while the banter sometimes got a little too sexual for my taste, I never had any trouble with it. (I had trouble with the guy who thought chatting casually meant I wanted to be kissed by him, but he was an outler) - and the guys with the more explicit (though still well short of offensive) talk were the guys who kept it to light banter.

Nothing in that article was a revelation to me: I've had the experience of what it's like to be on equal footing with men without ever pretending to be one.