Hi Ben, this is my first ever comment from someone on Medium :D Thanks for reading and taking the time to respond!

I *think* I understand what you are saying, and I definitely think we attach a lot of characteristics to gender identity that we need to dismantle. And I think when Christopher Hitchens says this, he’s thinking of woman as some mystical, inscrutable creature. And what he’s thinking of, in terms of what it means to be a woman, is exactly the kind of bullshit concept you are talking about.

But I do think that going through this world as a man and going through this world as a woman are two very different experiences. I hope that changes, and I think it is changing. But I think it’s a lot harder for that to happen when one of those groups (ie. men) get to live in ignorance of the experience of the other.