If you had the choice, would you be a man or a woman? That can be a tough question to answer, but sociologists now have access to a fantastic source of data on the topic--the profusion of online chatrooms that allow you to decide who and what you want to be within their limited domains.

In Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Professor Sherry Turkle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discusses an Japanese online community called Habitat. Data showed that while the actual ratio of males to females among Habitat's 1.5 million members was 4:1, the ratio of male to female avatars was only 3:1. Turkle's unavoidable conclusion was that a significant number of the men in the community had chosen to undergo an online "sex change."

Turkle then created a male avatar for herself, and for the first time in her life experienced a freedom of action that had been unavailable to her as a woman in the real world. When people rattled on at "him" online, "he" could simply tell them, "I don't have time for this" and be done with it, without feeling obligated to act with the warmth and patience of a woman. (Perhaps the conventional wisdom on marriage--that men wish to flee and women wish to hold on--isn't the natural order of things after all?)

Naturally, there are plusses and minuses to this feeling of liberation from gender. A woman playing a man online must prepare herself--among other things, she'll have to deal with all her problems on her own, without any men gallantly taking her side.

Reality can be hard to discern in the virtual world, and guessing the gender of an online interlocutor is something of an art. Men become women. Women become men. Some become androgynous. Some play at both genders, choosing a different one for each community in which they participate. On the one hand, these people are having fun with gender-switching. On the other, they are getting a crash course in what life is like for the opposite sex. For example, the self-esteem of a virtual woman who inadvertently shows too much male independence and resolve may suffer when "she" is dumped by an online lover.

Gender-bending is hardly unique to the online community. After all, wasn't the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara both male and female? S/he simply manifested in the form that would best alleviate a supplicant's suffering, given the latter's situation and needs.

We may not be bodhisattvas, but gender-bending does meet a contemporary need. In today's postmodern world, boundaries are everywhere imploding. At work and at home, roles have fragmented and diversified. Fathers come home not just to eat dinner, but to prepare it, along with their children's lunch for the following day. Women holding management positions take business trips abroad, hammering out deals in the conference room by day before going back to their hotels to prepare, freeze, and express ship their breast milk home to their infant children.

On reading this month's cover story, "Crossing the Workplace Gender Divide," at the same time as admiring those who transcend stereotypes and express themselves to the fullest, one can't help being a little saddened. Not at these people's success, but at their limited numbers. More often, women wear themselves out burning the candle at both ends, while men struggle with worries both about their careers and about living up to the "new man" ideal. It's clearly not a good thing to create a new kind of sexism based on the demands of gender-neutral roles.

This issue of Taiwan Panorama is exceptionally rich in content. It includes a continuation of last month's "Lives of Courage" story on mountaineer Makalu Gau; "The Orange Growers of Hsitiyao," a story about organic farming and community building; "A Tale of Turtle Mountain Island," which discusses the next wave in marine conservation; and a worrying piece on the status of children's healthcare. Together, they show something of the many faces of Taiwan, to allow those of us who live here to share in our common concerns and identity, and to enable our overseas readers to better understand this beautiful island and its hardworking inhabitants, and feel a greater sense of connection to us, so that they won't forget us in our moment of truth.