While a person’s sex is a label that’s given “by a doctor at birth based on genitals and chromosomes,” gender is a construct, meaning it's based on completely made-up societal expectations.
Gender can be extremely limiting and harmful. Socializing boys to only like blue, for example, could cause a boy who likes pink to feel like something’s wrong with him. Because of how deeply ingrained gender norms are in our society, he may even be a target of ridicule.
Or a little girl who's socialized to dress in what society considers “feminine” clothing could view her desire to dress differently as not normal, causing her deep emotional stress.
The last thing we need are more limits on which genders can do what. Gender expectations don’t just cause individuals to suffer, but society as a whole!
So let’s look at how ridiculous some of these gender norms actually are. Here are 28 people who tried their hardest to gatekeep gender and tell us all the things men and women "should" or "shouldn't" do:
Note: This post focuses only on male and female genders, but there are, of course, more gender identities out there!
1. This person who really believes women shouldn't wear pants:
2. This person who thinks laughing too much isn't manly:
3. This person who infantilizes women and thinks that we should keep traditions from...the Middle Ages:
4. This person who thinks men can't eat crab legs:
5. This person who thinks music is gendered:
6. This person who equates "feminine" with "juvenile":
7. This person who thinks houses — HOUSES — are for women:
8. This person who wants men to suffer from the summer heat in board shorts:
9. This person who thinks horses care about the gender of the person who shoes them:
10. This person who's trying to not only gatekeep gender, but sexual orientation, too:
11. This person who wants to live in a world where women can't deadlift:
12. This person who clearly doesn't say "please" and "thank you" to their barista:
13. This person who's trying to gender having pets:
14. This person who thinks a person's gender is related to their height:
15. This person who wants to gatekeep different car brands:
16. This person who thinks video games aren't for women:
17. This person who thinks men are required to have tattoos:
18. This person who really thinks gender has something to do with what you drink:
19. This person who thinks boys don't cook food:
20. This person who's really trying to gender...sleeping:
21. This person who thinks men can't use emojis:
22. This person who thinks a fantasy book series, with a huge collection of novels based on an extremely popular board game, is exclusively for men:
23. This person who thinks snacks can be "feminine":
24. This bathroom that thinks men don't ever need to see what they look like:
25. This person who's just a straight-up chauvinist:
26. And finally, this person who thinks men can only cry if a family member dies, if his dog dies, or if his truck breaks down:
