Should We Fake It to Make It? A Woman Who Writes Like a Man

I have a psychologist friend who told me once about a female patient, a successful executive, who felt marginalized and defensive in professional situations when she was the only woman at the table. My friend's client's solution was to "act like a man" at such gatherings. She watched her male colleagues and mimicked their mannerisms. (I pictured her assuming a tiny swagger at meetings.)

To hers and the therapist's surprise, the kabuki theater worked. Maybe the guys felt more comfortable and started treating her more casually? Maybe she had dispelled her anxiety by reframing her own perspective? I don't know. I heard that story many years ago, but every once in a while I still imagine the ever-so-slight testicular adjustment when entering a heavily male-weighted environment.

That anecdote illustrates why, despite agreeing in principle with Luisita about who's fooling whom, I feel sympathetic to sister writer "James Chartrand." Her essay, headlined "Why James Chartrand Wears Women's Underpants," confesses that her media company's Men With Pens guise of a clever boy blogger is a made-up persona the author has led readers to imagine sitting at her keyboard.

The real JC is apparently an uppity (and still anonymous) woman whose plight reflects the sad state of all women challenged to "grow a pair." The contrivance began when, after facing a welfare application, "out of money and out of choices," she put on her big girl panties and launched the copywriting service to support her two school-age children. JC's business only took off when she started accepting assignments as the masculine avatar. "My life changed that day. Jobs were suddenly easier to get. There was no haggling. There were compliments, there was respect." In this new media medium, her business model followed a tried-and-true economic equation: give the people what they want.

We all know that on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, unless you tell them – or somebody else does. The writer came (partially) out of the closet because a similarly compromised confidant was about to expose her.

For JC, and other unmasked personae to come, I anticipate a new problem. Now that she has educated her fans that the guy they admire, perhaps quote, is a fiction, will they notice that "his" somewhat chauvinist opinions ("Woe to the man that steps foot in those online communities of female bloggers with children") are oddly contrived to accommodate a marketing and branding agenda? Will they care? So far, online support of the newly candid businesswoman has been somewhat ambivalent.

Personally, I'm not that curious to read more "James Chartrand," but I would like to read more from the real JC, using her own equally clever but more honest voice.