First I want to apologise to Travelling Lady for not realising that continuing with my questions would get her interesting thread closed down. Sincere apologies TL!!! I am new here and still learning, but didn't listen well enough to you caution.

Secondly, for me that thread was making me think hard about how I do and don't relate regarding conventional gender roles between men and women.

It was odd to realise that despite engagement in all of the women's liberation movements my relations to men have STILL been conditioned by whether I am cute enough and whether I can perform domestic services.

I was employed successfully in a male-dominated industry without being aware of discrimination - but listening to women here talking about their personal relations with men, or in some of our cases personal non-relations with men...

I realise that my somewhat questioning, wild-minded personality has partly been conditioned STILL by the fact that I wasn't born as beautiful as my father expected me to be, and growing up I wasn't as beautiful as my best friend, and my mother wasn't as beautiful as my best friend's mum.

I thought that I'd rejected those roles - because I couldn't be best at them - and made my way in the world otherwise. But retiring from work has made me realise that socially... I still play out the role of dressing up and cooking for men and I long to be seen instead as "ME".

Please feel free to ignore me, or whatever. I am genuinely sorry for my responsibility in getting an interesting thead shut down.

I don't at all disrespect women who stay at home and bring up children. I am simply reflecting that odd circumstances - like the male gender's general expectations about looks and cooking - might determine the whole course of our lives STILL.

Is this a gross generalisation? I'm dying to hear about exceptions. Is it possible to be valued by the male population as "ME" rather than as some …. standard or non-standard female icon?