Since it’s so ingrained into EVERYTHING in our societies, cultures, and religions, I don’t think that most people are even conscious that gender identity is CREATED – it tends to be one of those situations where saying something repeatedly and presenting it as fact makes the general population believe it’s true.

There have been numerous studies about gender identity issues in the expectation of different behaviors. For example, I recently read about a study on male and female assertiveness. They followed a group of men and women in both a male dominant society and a female dominant society, to see if there was a difference. Of course there was! In the male dominated society, the men – who were brought up to believe it was OK to be assertive – were generally more assertive than women; the kicker was that in the female-dominated society, it was just the opposite – the women were brought up to be more assertive.

From an early age, I’ve told my 2 children – both girls, ages 11 and 13 – the following, with all sincerity:

1) They don’t have to ever get married, if they don’t feel like they haven’t met someone with whom they want to spend their lives.

2) I don’t want them even BREATHE the “M” word until they’re done with college, started in their career, and decided on where they’d like to live – and understand who they are. This would bring them to (hopefully) their late 20’s, early 30’s. Plus, I told them I wanted them to live on their own for awhile, including for a period by themselves (no roommates) before ever living with a man;

3) I wholeheartedly want them to elope if/when they do get married. With all honesty, I HATE traditional weddings, largely for the reasons you cite here; the other part is the fact that it’s too much of a waste of good money to be starting out a life together with all that stress! I’ve told them that if/when the time comes, to let me know, and we’ll pay for them to fly to a breathtakingly beautiful place to do it – the only thing I ask is that I get to see it, and then I’ll leave.

4) They can choose whatever name they’d like if/when they get married. There’s nothing that says they have to take anyone’s name… heck, if they want, they can even combine their names and make a new one!

I can go on and on about the marriage criteria I’ve given them… but there are so many other things, too!

I do explain that they have proven we’re “wired” differently, and though we can do the same things, we can approach the genders differently because of that. However, I do also explain that having those differences in no way makes one superior over the other – the whole ying/yang concept.

Anyway, other things I’ve taught them include not ever making fun of a boy/man who cries, not to equate lack of emotion in a boy or man as acceptable, and to not ever label anything as “boy” or “girl” – such as colors, toys, careers, etc.

There’s just so much!

I’m definitely considered a die-hard in my circle, but as I said, many people don’t even hear themselves, and have just accepted that the “social norm” is fact. I will take us being clear about all of this and bringing up our children and grand-children one family at a time to make a difference!