This is something I've thought about quite a bit. The way I see things, women are trying to break into a system built by men. Success in the business world is built on male values so women are usually going to feel pressure to put aside things that come to them naturally as women and do things the way men do in order to succeed. Women feel driven to master this system because we're coming from a background where women were basically property to men but I keep thinking that there ought to be a better way for us to win our independence, some way that doesn't ask us to become men.

I worked amongst 20,000 men in a shipyard for 13 years and never heard this.......they wouldn't dare!

i have never EVER heard anyone tell a woman to act like a man. i hear women who are being just normal intelligent human beings told to act like a lady (never like a woman). i hear girls being told they throw like girls, as if there's something wrong with that. i am not going to read an article whose headline's premise i don't buy (no offense to possum, who i am sure posted in good faith). i even think the article might be good... and mean the opposite of what the ttle says, from the comments i see below. what a terribly unfortunate title! but you can't tell us to stop doing what no one is doing. everyone keeps telling us the opposite.

g

Excellent article.

"You ride like a girl!" used to be a common insult in men's cycling. So, those of us in women's cycling learned a lesson from what gay people have been doing for years and took ownership of it - nowadays in cycling, "ride like a girl" means you kick a whole lot of ass.