I reread my own writing sometimes — not out of vanity, but out of habit. Like checking the mirror one last time before leaving the house, except the reflection stares back in syntax and sentence breaks.

And when I do, I notice things. The apologetic tone. The second-guessing. The abundance of qualifiers: “just,” “maybe,” “I think.” I write like I’m afraid of being wrong. Or worse — of being heard too clearly.

Which makes me wonder: do I write like a woman?

I don’t mean that in some essentialist, biological way. I mean it in the socially trained, culturally coded way. The way girls are taught to phrase opinions like questions. The way clarity becomes aggression, and certainty becomes arrogance, if you’re not careful — especially if you’re young, brown, and socialized to be likable before you are respected.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How writing — this supposedly free, unfiltered, personal thing — ends up replicating the very same dynamics we try to escape. I’ve been taught to value precision. But I’ve also been taught to avoid confrontation. So I end up cushioning every opinion like it’s fragile. As if someone might break it. Or worse, break me for having it.

When I write formally, I notice it more. The way I over-cite to prove I belong. The way I bury personal insights under layers of theory, like they need permission to exist. Academic writing is full of invisible gendered landmines. Be rigorous, but not cold. Be passionate, but not irrational. Be original, but not too personal. Be smart, but not too confident.

It’s exhausting.

And here’s the twist: I don’t even know how I’d write without those habits now. They’re wired into me. I code-switch not just between languages, but between tones of self.

Sometimes I envy the men who write like they own space. Who begin essays with declarations instead of disclaimers. Who assume authority instead of constructing it piece by careful piece. They write with the audacity of someone who’s rarely been interrupted.

I’ve been interrupted my whole life. So my writing flinches. Even when no one’s in the room.

But maybe there’s power in that, too. Maybe writing “like a woman” isn’t weakness — it’s complexity. It’s awareness. It’s reading the room while writing it. Maybe it’s survival translated into structure.

And maybe, just maybe, we need more of that.