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!