I’m one of those girls who practiced tae kwon do as a kid, and then migrated to aikido in my adulthood. I was one of the few girls who stuck for longer than a few months, and I vividly remember one girl who was using the testosterone imbalance to her advantage, practicing her flirting skills more than her punches. Needless to say, I would pound her whenever we sparred.

It was good preparation for going into male-dominated professions. However, I will also say that the same behavior (extremely decisive attitude, ability to think and articulate clearly and independently) gets interpreted very differently when exhibited by boys vs. girls. I try to steer towards environments where these qualities are appreciated in men and women. But there are still a lot of regressive enclaves (and you have to suss out certain personalities, even in the better places) where the ability to couch these strengths in diplomacy, request language vs. demands, willingness to convince others slowly rather than lay out all the logic and expect others to capitulate their clearly less defensible position…well, let’s just say that learning *persuasion* by means other than strict force or logic is one of the reasons I switched martial arts.