GUARD YOUR daughters closely. On Wednesday, Batwoman will come out as a lesbian. No, it's not as big a deal as if, say, Strawberry Shortcake were appearing on the cover of Out. Most people — myself included — don't really know who Batwoman is. But the media have been all over this for months, and I'd be remiss if I didn't jump on the bandwagon (make that the Subaru station wagon; I used to own one, so I'm allowed to say this).

I don't know if the new Batwoman will be bulletproof, elastic or able to fly, but if Kane's manicured appearance is any indication, I don't think she'll be using power tools or even playing acoustic guitar. So unless there's an abrupt character change, it looks like DC will steer clear of the stereotypes I've invoked in the preceding paragraphs.

The other day, I visited my local comic book store to inquire about the cultural significance of Batwoman's coming out. That should give you an idea of just how committed I am to this column. If there's anything more intimidating than the kind of used-record store that only seems to sell Radiohead albums, it's a comic book store. You can multiply that by 20 if you walk in wearing a peasant blouse and flip flops, using words like "signifier" and trying to act all informed by mentioning that Batwoman hasn't been around since 1979, when she was killed by a bronze tiger (I swore I'd read that in one of the news articles).

Suffice it to say that I was upbraided by the clerk, who told me that a) superheroes rarely die but are instead transported to other realms (or something like that), and b) there are lots of gay comic book characters and the fixation on Batwoman was just another example of the media exploiting a topic it knows nothing about. We then proceeded to have a conversation about "Commissioner Barbara Gordon," and it took me several minutes to realize he was talking about a comic book character and not an actual politician.

So, yes, I'm a dope when it comes to comics (also apparently about city government). But I'm not a dope about that 51% of the population known as women, many of whom seem to be undergoing a sexual identity crisis without even knowing it. Maybe baby-doll dresses, chick lit and the Olsen twins have infiltrated our consciousness to the point of oblivion. Whatever the reason, it appears that there are only two ways to go about being female these days: You are either a midriff-bearing, gum-snapping, engagement ring-chasing girly girl or you are a probable lesbian.

We used to think of this dichotomy in terms of "separating the women from the girls." Perhaps you remember how this went. Teenagers and early twentysomethings wore nameplate necklaces and waited for the phone to ring, and adult women owned condos and knew how to unclog a toilet without losing their sex appeal.