Why don't you fit in with the norm?

 Gender roles aren't important, right? I mean that what we hear from mainstream media is that gender roles, and in general, genders are not significant. I hope that you will take my writing on this subject with a grain of salt and sugar. What I mean by this is to find a takeaway lesson for yourself.

However, I'm not a professional in the field of gender roles and gender. Many times we have to deal with delicate problems. Gender roles and gender itself are some of the most delicate issues in our society today. I am a simple-minded person. Please reach out if there is anything I say that is blatantly wrong or confusing to understand. Most likely I wasn't trying to communicate that message.

Many times we take the roles gender plays as dominantly nature or dominantly nurture. Nature is simply what you were born with, and nurture is the environment in which you are raised. Many religions also use agency, or choice, as part of the nature and nurture graph to help understand many of the problems and how to fix them. I believe through my studies that gender is a complex web of nature, nurture, and choice. These three together make up something I call the X factor in our lives.

Throughout human history, some have argued that there are no major differences between men and women. I wholeheartedly agree that in most aspects of life, men, and women are equal. Women can be just as good as computer designers as men, and men can be just as good teachers as women. Many women, though, tend to be better at multitasking than men. Well, men tend to be better at physical labor.

Some women are better at physical labor than some men, and some men are better at multitasking than some women. Generally, though women can multitask better than men and men are better at physical labor. A great example of this is ballroom dancing. For the most part, women can pick up the dance moves much faster than men. Men, on the other hand, tend to be better and doing lifts and dips compared to women.

If a man is raised his whole life doing ballroom dancing, then he will be better at learning new moves than a woman who is just new to dancing. In comparison, if a woman spent the majority of her life lifting and squatting heavy objects, then she would be better at doing lifts and dips compared to a man who has never lifted or squatted heavy objects before. Our environment plays just as much of a key role in our preference for a role as does how we were born. Nature makes it easier or harder to learn a certain skill set. Well, nurture makes it easier to cultivate a skill set.

Choice brings an interesting philosophy to the table. We add choice to the complex problem of gender roles. Just like with nature and nurture, it changes how we see the situation. When we use choice, we see that we can choose our outcome. We are not being simply acted upon, but we can shape nurture and, to some extent, nature.

If you come from a family that struggles with alcoholism, you can decide whether to drink or not. It can be very different to make a choice when your environment and genetics play against you. You can decide however whether you will go along with your nature and or nurture or reject them if you want to decide on another path.

Gender roles are not as cut and dry as sometimes we would like to believe. This is a complicated problem with many solutions to the problem. None of which works for everyone. You have to figure out for yourself what role you will play in life.

To enable you to make effective decisions about your role you have to consider three things. One, I'm really happy now because of my role. Two, how will this lead to me being happier in 10 to 20 years? Third, what am I giving up to achieve the new desired goal?

Thanks for reading to the end, see you all next week!