You and I have shared similar experiences in the workplace Heather.  Yet having been a serious tomboy while growing up though and it took me a while to even be able to perceive the discrimination at play.  I wasn't looking for it or expecting it.  In some ways I guess I just felt like "one of the guys".  At some point my natural tendency to be friends with men got misconstrued and years later I found out about a rumor that I had been having an affair.  I was devastated to hear that the rumor existed and even more so that it had often been cited as the reason I had been getting promoted so quickly.  It was so hard to come to terms with how many people believed it even though it never happened.  Yet it explained a lot of how some people treated me along the way.

The big lesson for me was that I had to be a lot more awake to the social norms and belief systems in which I worked and adjust my behavior accordingly, not to be inauthentic, but to protect my identity,

My belief system didn't match what were the norms of the times so I was essentially blind and the cost was very high.  I have never shared this publicly before yet I wonder how may women like me have suffered and are still suffering in silence at being wrongly accused with no way to set the record straight because denial just feeds the rumor mill.  Your post inspired me to speak up.

We can only change the stereotypes of men and women by continuing to shine a spotlight on them just as you did here.  However, change will continue at it's sometimes maddeningly slow pace so we need to be mindful, operating with our eyes wide open based on the current reality while we continue to work to bring forth a new possibility.