OP, I will admit that, even though I would always have considered myself a feminist ‘(‘I believe women are equal to men’ being my simple starting point, I read Germaine Greer etc. as a young woman), as I got older I would fall into maybe ‘lazy thinking’, especially as the parent of a boy, married to a man, seeing myself as the only one ever tidying up anything (do the different sexes notice jobs (e.g. multitasking) differently, I would wonder), realising how much I wanted to stay home with my child to the detriment of my career (women must be more nurturing, to some extent from a biological drive, I would think), and at my work being told how ‘boys and girls learn differently’ and seeing it in my pupils and my son (scrappy pieces of lost homework vs. colour coded notes produced well before the exams: surely too much of a pattern to be a coincidence?).
It was probably TRAs who made me start to question the lines my thinking was subconsciously running on. Despite my sort of ‘oh men!’ small talk with other women, and the proliferation of ‘women can’t read maps!’ and ‘men can’t remember birthdays!’ comments around me in real life, in the media and in literature, I did not believe that having a penis meant you couldn’t like flowers and pink, and not having one meant you did, so I had to question what other things I was putting down to sex when it made no sense to do so - including the inability to put a cup in the dishwasher. I was alarmed at the threats to women’s rights I saw in some TRA suggestions. I had also been unhappy at the way schools I worked at were swallowing the ‘sex is changeable, gender is immutable and innate’ line, which made no sense to me as a feminist, mother and educator and safeguarder of all pupils in my care. I started to google and found my way here. I mostly read threads here and found them so illuminating.
One thread recommended Cordelia Fine’s ‘Delusions of Gender’ as a starter-read for how gender characteristics could seem innate, and yet be socially created (the brain’s plasticity and our need as social beings to conform to divisions we are raised with being a key part of this). I also read ‘How Not to Be A Boy’ by Robert Webb which gave me insight into what is was like for my husband being born under the patriarchy and really made me see how men suffer under this gender insanity as well as women (I already knew, as a woman, how much we suffered under it, having experienced overt and hidden sexism of many kinds over the years - I am really surprised you don’t feel you have. As I approach my 40s it is now invisibility I have most which is sometimes a relief (though also heinous) compared to the threats and slurs of my youth).
I have just finished ‘Delusions of Gender’ and am having a massive kick to my backside for thinking that a few kitchen toys and gender neutral clothes given to my son could really undo the gender bias and gendering all over society. Why didn’t I realise this when he, aged about 4, mentioned that ‘daddy has a real job’ because I worked part time and his father in an office (despite my husband always treating my job as equal in all respects, even if it’s part time and much less lucrative than his)? So much of what I put down to ‘surely innate?’ is shown to be ubiquitous societal influence at an incredibly young age.
I can’t recommend that book enough for making you question the hidden assumptions about sex vs gender which the status quo and controlling powers would rather we didn’t even see. My husband is now reading my copy and I’m going to order ‘Testosterone Rex’, the follow-up.