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.

Masculinity

I've never felt masculine in my life, and I've never felt the urge to be like other men. Right from childhood, they seemed to have nothing at all in common with me except their bodies.

I was always indifferent to the stereotype masculine interests of cars, booze, gadgets and sport. Even girls didn't register very much except as potential friends or enemies. Sex hardly crossed my mind until my twenties, I was that innocent.

It never occurred to me to see male celebrities as role models I should imitate, just because they happened to be the same sex. Their maleness was no more significant to me than their fingernails or what they ate for breakfast.

Most of the time I've just gone my own sweet way without ever thinking about masculinity. But every so often I'm in some situation where it seems appropriate to 'act masculine' or 'act like a man' and I have to rack my brains as to what that means.

Sometimes it's obvious enough - wearing a skirt or putting on make-up wouldn't go down too well - but sometimes I'm baffled. Usually it's some kind of emergency and I'm clearly expected to be a master plumber or an income tax wizard or just a tough he-man who can casually break down a door or see off some unsavoury loiterer.

When I tell people I'm utterly unmasculine, they usually say 'Oh, but you're so male when you do so-and-so.' I explain that I wasn't being masculine, I was just doing what the occasion demanded or what seemed sensible. I repair the garden fence not because I'm a bloke but because I don't want it to fall to bits.

It's also puzzling that people expect me to defend other men because I'm one of them. Shouldn't I be loyal to my sex? But I don't see why I should excuse someone who behaves badly because of what's between his legs. It makes no more sense than rooting for fellow spectacle-wearers or right-handers.

I think a lot of men feel secretly unmasculine, or even feminine, but not being brave enough to resist, they conform to the classic masculine patterns. How many men slouched in the pub debating the pros and cons of four-wheel drive would rather be trying on dresses or cooking lasagna or ballroom dancing (or even something gender-neutral like campaigning for cheap nurseries)? The answer might surprise you.