Now instead of a working-class man taking the actions and briefly meeting and helping a young woman who inspires him to think in a more revolutionary way, the genders are reversed.
It wasn't too cumbersome a task when the story is under 3000 words. The main difficulty was in how to refer repeatedly to an unnamed young man. When the genders were the other way around, 'girl' worked conveniently enough, but there isn't quite a male equivalent, is there? 'Man' sounds too old, 'young man' is a little clunky, and 'boy' sounds like a child. I switched between 'man,' 'young man,' and 'youth,' a little awkwardly. I made the protagonist's co-worker, who gets in a physical conflict with the protagonist, female as well.
To me, the story felt a bit less gloomy when all the words were the same except the protagonist's gender. As this story is after all meant to be a gloomy one, it's strange and annoying how a woman just seems happier than a man if you don't pay special mind in your narration to the character's brooding, or at least that is the impression I get.
I was surprised, though, how much the story still makes sense when the genders are flipped— I'd thought some reactions and motives would need to be explained more explicitly since they'd just be expected in a male character due to typical narratives but might not be familiar in a female. As it turned out, I didn't feel the need to explain anything more. The things my female protagonist did were slightly unexpected, and I think most people in English-speaking society would primarily cast the genders the original way when considering this plot, but not hard to understand.
I like to think of writing stories as a way in which I can exercise a little agency, and here I went for a subtle, not radical, alternative to following exactly what the most mainstream of culture would have me do. It's not much, but I think it's something.
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