Let's have a talk

Thank you for some inspiring (and some just plain weird) comments on what being a woman in the restaurant business (or any business come to that) is like. Most of you touched on the complicated politics concerning childbearing/rearing and working late nights and long hours - which is not necessarily unique to working in a restaurant. I think managing a career and a family is hard no matter what profession you're in. In these days and times I think this is not just a female problem, either. But that's me, and I was brought up with my dad doing the stay-at-home thing, choosing to give up his career to raise a family.
Anyway, so what do Titti and I really think of being women in the restaurant business? I've come to think of Titti and her husband as two very close friends. We try very hard to see each other outside work, which is a hard thing to accomplish. It's hard because, as Titti said to me the other day: if you're hungry and ambitious, there's always another thing to do. The restaurant business is bloody demanding too, especially if you're running your own restaurant. We work very hard at our respective careers. And here's the crunch point for this post: we're not working hard at our careers because we're women. We didn't choose our careers from a gender perspective either. In fact, if my primary thought about myself was that I am a woman, then I wonder whether I'd get out of bed in the morning. We're both a million things before we're women. I get very upset at having my work efforts, not to mention myself, being reduced to that of a gender issue, and I know Titti feels the same.
So when someone next rings up to ask what one of us feels about being a woman in the restaurant business, you'll know what we're going to reply (with heavy irony of course): "My right ovary didn't want to get up and go to work this morning, but dammit, my personality prevailed."