Gender dissenters

I hate gender roles. They put so many arbitrary limits on what you can and can't do. Women should be this and this. Men should be this and this. And if you do something that doesn't fit your allotted gender role, you can get a very frosty reception.

Which is why I really admire those people who deliberately flout their designated role and are prepared to put up with all the negative responses, however upsetting and infuriating.

Like the artist Grayson Perry, who revels in his alter ego Claire, with her flamboyant dresses and bizarre hairdos. Of course he can get away with it because he's a phenomenally successful artist, but even so.

Like Samira Ahmed, who took the BBC to an employment tribunal in a dispute over equal pay, and won.

Like the Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai, who from the age of 11 campaigned for the right of girls to go to school.

Like Sally Ride, who in 1983 became the first American woman in space when she rode the space shuttle Challenger.

Like women who sport cropped hair, a suit and tie, and chunky footwear. They know the ignorant will assume they're lesbian or "wasting their femininity" but that doesn't put them off.

Like all the women who're determined to pursue careers traditionally reserved for men, and all the men who're happy to be house-husbands.

But these unabashed gender benders are still thin on the ground. The reality is that gender roles are very strictly enforced and you need a thick skin and a lot of bravery to ignore them.

It would be fun if I could wear a dress occasionally, but I don't think east Belfast is quite ready for such wayward behaviour. I'll have to leave it to the celebs and the unrepentant social mavericks.

Tough ambitious females

It's depressing how many working women feel they can't be themselves but can only prove their worth by being even more macho and ruthless than men.

It happens in so many jobs - estate agents, politicians, office workers, sales reps. Instead of bringing a bit more sensitivity and humanity into the workplace, they just switch themselves off and become as hard-bitten and go-getting as the men. They turn into soulless apparat-chicks.

Of course they don't necessarily want to be like that. In most cases they probably feel they have no alternative if they want to be taken seriously and climb up the career ladder.

Too many men still think a woman who treats her customers and workmates like human beings is some sort of pinko wimp who's just not up to the job - and is trying to undermine her male co-workers' credibility.

I've nothing against ambitious women, if that's their bag. If they want to be a company boss or a government minister, that's fine by me. As long as they don't morph into a hawk-eyed harridan on the way.

But I've had to deal with a few of these tough nuts in my time and it's no joke. Like Tracey of Floggem Estate Agents who regards any criticism of her perfect homes as a sign of insanity and acts as though I'm privileged to be invited to look at them.

Or Teresa Bullshit, MP, who tells me the health service is under colossal pressure and expecting prompt medical attention is simply unrealistic and irrational.

It's a strange irony. We applaud the fact that there are now so many women in the workforce, but if half of them are just trying to outdo the men in tight-arsed arrogance, what's the point?