The following article discusses the rhetoric of Michael Psellos in light of his construction of a rhetorical gender. Focusing on one of his letters (to Ioannes Doukas, Sathas 72) where Psellos declares that he is female, the article proceeds to identify his textual source as Synesios of Kyrene (ca. 370-413). The comparison of text and intertext shows that, while Synesios uses femininity as a rhetorical motif, Psellos elevates it to a tool of a rhetorical self-identification defined by the specific social context of the eleventh century.