Ah, but the gender-conformant thing in the Department where I was a student would be to have a man buy a copper rod. Which seemed to be the understanding of all those people. One of which offered to buy me coffee. But he was drunk, so there's that.

Generally, yes, I think it best to just disregard gender-conformity, but in a non-obvious way (for example, many women have backpacks, and many women do think handbags more feminine, and I have been advised to have a handbag, but nobody really would go to the trouble of making me do it. I had thought that small task would be just as neutral.)