Me: It really pains me that I feel as if I have to never joke around, never crack up — essentially not be myself — to be taken seriously. Or thought of as “mature.”

I feel like if I were a boy, I could do all those things and still be considered a professional.

Friend: Oh yeah, I agree. I feel like we’ve gotten to a point where a woman can be a lot of things, but we’re not quite allowed to be lots of things at once.