What if you were raised to believe that women are supposed to be (ridiculous, or better than men) or whatever?

I don’t understand your question @flo.

Being raised a certain way is nt an excuse for clinging to ridiculous, outdated, sexist notions.

Some people go around connecting to whichever characteristics to one’s anatomy. If you’re sympathetic it must be because you’re a woman. ..and on and on.

At some point you would become mature enough to see the errors of some of the capricious lessons you were taught.
Absent that you are a moron.
History is full of morons

I was raised by the expectations of society, and with no correction from my parents that boys were smarter than girls. I always knew it wasn’t true.

My parents taught me, via their words and actions, that women lie to those they care about regularly and often, that fathers get high while caring for their child, that women are emotionally unhinged, manipulative, and prone to self medication, and that men are fearful of being alone and will thus be doormats to their women. This is how I was raised.

I never once believed any of that crap.

That women are a “civilizing force” to men. That we owe it to them to beautiful, sexy, compassionate, and loyal no matter how poorly they treat us or our children. That our worth is inherently tied to our bodies and that our weight and appearance reflects positively or negatively on our family. That we should be smart but not smarter than men so we don’t scare them away. That it’s our job to be strong when men are weak, but not to show that strength too much lest it make us unfeminine.

Over time, through observation, you start to go with reality—hopefully.

There is the problem of confirmation bias. There also is the problem of sometimes in your immediate circles some stereotypes seem to be proven. Many people stay within what is familiar to them.

No, I wasn’t.

Times change. Attitudes that my father and mother might have held are not appropriate now. I’ve had a different and better education than he did. Women’s roles have changed dramatically. So just because something seemed right to my parents, doesn’t mean I should agree with or uphold their attitudes.

There is a simple way of combating stereotypes. Treat each person individually. Suppose that it is actually true that a majority or a substantial minority of a group act in some way. You still keep an open mind. What you will most likely find is that there is a great variation within any given group.

@LeavesNoTrace Women ARE the civilizing force and the drivers of evolution and change.
Were it not for the exhortation of women we would still be living in caves and that big rock we sit on would still be in exactly the same location that it had been for eons; in front of the fire.

I think it was part of the community where I grew up. I looked around at the boys and saw that they were the ones who got to go on the camping trips, climb trees, and generally seemed to have more fun. Little girls were not encouraged to do those things. We wore dresses! I looked into joining Campfire Girls, until I found out that they had nothing to do with camping or campfires! What a misleading name!

Nobody ever said this, but I felt inferior because those fun activities were “for boys”. Add to it that I was bullied all through school, and I always wanted to be a boy because they somehow had a “better life”.

I now know that was an illusion. Boys didn’t have a better life- just a different one than mine. And I grew up skiing, playing with bugs, toy trucks and tractors climbing trees (anyway), and doing all sorts of “boy” stuff, but I still wish I had been able to go camping as a child.

@rojo I think you and I are thinking of that in different ways. On a micro level, my mother thought it was wife’s jobs to basically pick up where their husband’s mothers had left off and make sure their clothes are cleaned, they get a hot meal, live an ideal of domesticity of all times with no effort from them on the homefront.

My father was a boorish man who chewed his own toenails and would stick his entire hand down his pants to scratch an itch. My mother was well-heeled and elegant and saw nothing amiss about this arrangement. (At least initially)

Girl Scouts went camping @Snowberry. But mostly we sewed stuff. I think.
Yeah I had to wear dresses all through elementary school which sucked when I was on the swings or the slide or the monkey bars. Boys trying to see your underwear. They didn’t even know what was so exciting about it then. Just was I guess. We girls didn’t even know why we had to clock them on it but we did.

@Dutchess_III LOL nobody told me that back then.

Told you what?

@Dutchess_III When I was a child. nobody told me that Girl Scouts offered camping.

Oh! I’m sorry. I did love the camping. Got kind of homesick at night, though.

@everyone
What are the examples of things that that would lead to? How about the mistaken believe that you have you undergo surgery to become the opposite of one’s anatomy.

Why would that be a mistaken belief? What if it was the correct belief, and one that the person in question wanted to do?