If He Was a Woman
By Olivia Salter
Word Count: 938
If he was a woman, the thought struck him like a sudden gust as the subway lurched forward. Across the aisle, a man leaned too close to the woman beside him. She shrank, her knees drawn together, her shoulders curling inward. Headphones hung loosely around her neck, as though she'd been caught between wanting to block out the world and needing to stay alert to its dangers.
He shifted in his seat, deeply aware of his own sprawl: legs wide, arms draped over his knees, body unapologetically taking space. His eyes flicked to his reflection in the window, faint and distorted by the dim lights outside. Would he still sit this way if he were her? Would his body be his own, or would it feel like an offering the world kept trying to claim?
The train screeched to a halt, his stop. He stood abruptly, glancing at the woman as he moved to the door. Her shoulders were still hunched, her eyes fixed downward. He thought about saying something—what, though? Are you okay? Do you need help? The words felt clumsy, their weight more for him than for her.
He stepped off and climbed the stairs into the night. The cold air pressed against him, sharp and clear, but the thought stayed tangled in his chest. A group of men laughed loudly on the corner, their voices cutting through the quiet like glass breaking. Without thinking, he crossed to the other side of the street. Only after his feet hit the pavement did he realize how easily he had moved—without hesitation, without fear.
If he was a woman, would his breath have quickened? Would his hand have gone to his keys, the metal biting into his palm like a prayer? He looked back at the men briefly. Their laughter wasn’t meant for him, but he could still feel its edges.
At home, he dropped his bag by the door and sank into the couch. The quiet of the room pressed down on him. He stared at his hands—broad, rough, the hands of someone who never thought twice about how they gripped the wheel of a car or the edge of a bar. He flexed his fingers, trying to picture them differently: softer, painted nails catching the light, the hands of someone who might know how to braid hair or cradle a child. The image felt foreign, like it belonged to a stranger.
His phone buzzed, breaking the silence. A work email from his boss. He swiped it away without opening it. His mind drifted to the woman in his office, the one who always spoke deliberately, her words carefully weighed. She was sharp, brilliant, but he’d seen how often her ideas were interrupted, her voice lost in the noise of men claiming the space she carved.
He hadn’t done it himself, but he’d never stopped it either. The thought tightened in his chest. If he was a woman, would he know how to fight for his voice? Or would he have learned to let it go, to swallow his thoughts and wear a smile that didn’t reach his eyes?
He stood and paced the room, the question cutting deeper. If he was a woman, would he know how to scream? Not in the way he sometimes did into the quiet of his apartment, but a scream that filled the air and left a scar in the silence. Or would the world have taught him to bury it, to tuck it away like a secret, hidden even from himself?
The subway woman came back to him, her shrinking frame, her silence. What would she think of him? Not the man sitting across from her, but him—as he was, with all his good intentions that never seemed to leave his chest. Would she see an ally? Or just another man who noticed too late?
His mind shifted to his sister, his mother, the women he knew. They carried themselves not with fragility, but with a strength he couldn’t name, something unyielding despite its quietness. If he was a woman, would he find that strength? Would he take the sharp pieces of what the world handed him and build something whole from the wreckage?
The thought sat heavy, unmoving. He moved to the window and looked at his reflection again, faint but steady against the backdrop of the city lights. He hadn’t noticed before how his outline blurred at the edges, fractured by the uneven glass.
His hands gripped the sill, and he imagined the subway woman’s voice—what she might have said if she had looked up. Would she have asked for help? Would she have told him she didn’t need it? Or would she have said nothing, the weight of silence easier than risking the wrong words?
He let out a slow breath, his chest tightening as the thought settled into something sharper. If he was a woman, his life wouldn’t belong entirely to himself. It would be borrowed, shared, chipped away in ways he never had to consider. But maybe—just maybe—it would teach him to claim it piece by piece, to carve out space no matter how often it was stolen.
He turned from the window and sank back into the couch. The image of her lingered in his mind—her face tilted up this time, her gaze meeting his. Her expression wasn’t fear or anger, but something unreadable, something that left him wondering if she would ever trust someone like him.
The thought lodged deeper. It wasn’t understanding—not yet—but it was a beginning. And maybe that was enough.
