On being female in NationStates: I find it would be impossible to ignore being in a minority here. For one, it kind of automatically makes you stand out a bit, and I think that can contribute to achieving prominence - at least, I found when I first started getting involved that people paid a bit more attention to me because I was female. I don't think that was always for the right reason. There was a lot of flirting that, when I was younger, I took as a compliment, but looking back on it... there was a lot of it, that sometimes went too far, from people who barely knew me, and were clearly paying attention just because of my gender. Ah, hindsight. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was harassment. But at the time it just seemed like the natural price of being female on the internet, and it shouldn't be.
 On the other hand, I think it helped me in some ways. Now, I realise I was pretty much only getting attention because I was female, but it absolutely helped my confidence a lot. And gaining that confidence, and automatically standing out a bit, absolutely assisted me in NS. At times, I can feel a bit like a token - for a long time I was the only female with real power in... basically the whole of Defenderdom But hey, better than having no women active in leadership at all... I think it's a shame that there are so few of us around. But there's always room for more <3