Honorary male

An honorary male or honorary man is a woman who is accorded the status of a man without disrupting the patriarchal status quo. Such a woman might be considered “one of the guys” by the men she associates with.

The honorary man, Carolyn Heilbrun writes in "Non-Autobiographies of 'Privileged' Women: England and America" (1988), must isolate herself from the common run of women to maintain her "privileged" status. In this way, she exchanges one form of confinement (the domestic sphere) for another (the male realm).

Queen Hatshepsut was the first female ruler of ancient Egypt to act as a full pharaoh. Ruling in the New Kingdom, Hatshepsut depicted and asserted herself as a male ruler. In artwork and sculpture of Hatshepsut, she is represented in the traditional pharaoh headdress, kilt, and false beard—a symbol of kingship; her breasts are reduced and deemphasized, and her shoulders are broad and manly. Hatshepsut executed several building projects and military campaigns and brought Egypt into a period of peace and prosperity. Hatshepsut's actions to improve the status of women during this time are unknown, befitting the attitude of an honorary man though gender inequality did not exist heavily in ancient Egypt compared to other countries. Women could decide their own professions, marry whomever they desired, contract prenuptial agreements that favored them, divorce their husbands, own real estate, enter the clergy, and had access to birth control and abortions. Women in Egypt during this time were respected and esteemed more than their counterparts in other countries and more than Egyptian women would be in later centuries with the rise of Christianity in the 4th century CE and later Islam in the 7th century CE.

In "Queen Elizabeth I and the Persistence of Patriarchy", Allison Heisch describes honorary males as women who accept the values and practices of the male society in which they function, and internalize and follow them. She notes that honorary males tend to support rather than subvert patriarchal governance, and cites as an example Queen Elizabeth I, whose reign had little to no impact on the status of women in England. She also cites the example of Gertrude Stein sitting in her salon, smoking cigars and conversing with the men. Stein's participation temporarily modifies the after-dinner ritual in which men smoke cigars and talk amongst themselves, but does not permanently alter it. An exception is made for her because she is seen as different from other women; Ernest Hemingway once wrote in a letter, "Gertrude Stein and me are just like brothers".

...
Wikipedia