Apocalyptic Daydreams

Gender Sucks

So I really, really hate gender.

I hate hearing friends, female friends, talk about how girls are more emotional or needy or shopping oriented or group oriented or empathetic or fashion conscious or more likely/less likely to pursue certain careers or how we talk a certain way or behave a certain way or any of the numerous gender-defined stereotypes that are ingrained in us by our culture without any awareness that they are talking about stereotypes that are ingrained in us by our culture. (And ditto to hearing them describe men that way, or automatically use male or female pronouns depending on the career or activity or interest they’re describing.)

It frustrates me so much that I can’t just make everyone understand that gender and sex are two very different things, that 99% (if not more) of what they think are the differences between the sexes are purely socio-cultural constructs that have no relation to biology and could be eliminated if our culture would stop basing its judgement of a person based on outdated ideas of gender that have no bearing on reality.

Just once, I’d like to be seen as an individual who happens to have been born to the female sex, but is in every other way not defined by my ‘gender’, but rather by who I am, what I say, what I do, and how I think.