Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman.

We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.

We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has

To say anything about women and men without marking oneself as either feminist or anti-feminist, male-basher or apologist for men seems as impossible for a woman as trying to get dressed in the morning without inviting interpretations of her character. Sitting at the conference table musing on these matters, I felt sad to think that we women didn't have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had. Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman.

The Pavlovian view of women voters - plug the words in, and they will respond - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands. But there's a difference between a private conversation and a presidential election, between what we want from our leaders.

All conversation, in addition to whatever else it does, displays, and asks for recognition of, our competence.

The key to conversation at work is flexibility and understanding how what you say might be perceived by others.