Insightful on the differences between how men and women perceive the world.

Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't.

Here's one difference. If someone is explaining something to me about which I am an expert, I would try to gently correct them. If they protested further, I would turn into a smug, snarky asshole who wants to make that person feel 2 inches tall. I don't know many women who would behave this way (and maybe the world is better for that, as we don't need twice as many jerkoffs in the world).

Arrogance might have had something to do with the [Iraq] war, but this syndrome is a war that nearly every woman faces every day, a war within herself too, a belief in her superfluity, an invitation to silence, one from which a fairly nice career as a writer (with a lot of research and facts correctly deployed) has not entirely freed me.

Self confidence is transcendent of gender. Belief in oneself is freeing, but no one can give that to you; you have to realize that only you can provide it for yourself. I don't know if society conditions women to not be confident in themselves--or if there is something more innate about it--but in a Western country where opportunities abound there is nothing holding women back but themselves. Self confidence and mental freedom come from within, and its up to each of us to decide we're worth it, men and women.