I’ve been struggling to understand this and the conversations are happening more and more frequently, I see myself putting my foot in it. I’d like to try and avoid that.
For context: I have been brought up in a household that just encouraged us to do what ever we enjoyed; i am a woman and that saw me racing quad bikes, surfing, mountain walking and gardening to name a few. Until I actually went into a mainly male dominated field of work mid twenties I hadn’t experienced any sort of gender bias (from customers, not the company itself).
Now I’m finding it ever more complicated and I can’t help but see it as the more we enforce someone to be ‘gender fluid’ or choose a gender that day/week/what ever the question is then aren’t we enforcing the gender roles rather than abolishing them?
When do I identify as male? When I’m quad biking?
When do I identify as female? When I’ve put make up on?
What is the point of being fluid if not to ‘act out’ (sorry that maybe a bad way of explaining it but best I could come up with) that gendered task/action/look?
To abolish the gender stereo types don’t we need women doing typically male activities and vice versa? Rather than a woman saying she is male today to do the activity?