The only way to preserve my mental well–being was to abandon that box and to give up the idea of gender as binary, to give up the idea of gender as a system of dominance, to give up even the idea of gender as a spectrum, and to see gender as a complex system of people in motion, exploring a vast untraveled common ground together.

The woman has called into question the masculinity of the man’s interests simply by showing an interest in it. The gender binary is composed largely of arbitrary oppositions and exclusions; the extreme logical extension of this is that men and women should never share interests. Aside from being a terrible guideline for partnerships, this makes any approach into a perceived male space by a woman yet another threat to the masculinity of the man or men in question.

Ultimately, though, the Box is, as with every other Man Box, under siege from other anxious men and from the binary–policing society at large. This need for constant vigilance is stressful, and masculinity is a stress–related anxiety disorder.

women and housewives have totake on many of the tasks traditionally assigned to men like paying bills,attending to bank business, dealing with car mechanics, daily shopping,taking children from school, or going to government offices.

she is merely an artifact used by men to display their prowess.

The girls unanimously agree that this is a constant problem in their work and they feel helpless to combat it.

The girls hesitate to use such tactics against some men and fall back on feminine displays of weak­ness and helplessness to get them to move.

the customer won't leave her alone and she must do her best to ignore him....

Having descended from a long line of mothers who nursed, fed, cleaned, carried, comforted, and defended their young, we should not be surprised by gender differences in human empathy, such as those proposed to explain the disproportionate rate of boys affected by autism, which is marked by a lack of social communication skills.

The result? Students’ sense of vulnerability is skyrocketing.

without qualitatively changing enough to warrant a new name

a feminine speaking style

Perhaps a belief endures in these women that sidling up to men with power, rather than organising for it collectively, will yield individual gains.

The recognition of feminism is that women exist at a social disadvantage to a history that privileges and resources men at their expense.

The researchers linguistically coded job descriptions found in a U.S. Department of Labor database that were predominately populated for masculine-themed words such as active, ambitious, analytical, competitive, dominate, challenging, confident, decisive, determined, independent, leader, objective, etc., as well as feminine-themed words such as committed, connected, cooperative, dependable, interpersonal, loyal, responsible, supportive, trust, etc. The results confirmed that job descriptions for male-dominated jobs contained more masculine-themed words associated with male stereotypes than job descriptions from female-dominated jobs and vice versa.

Of course, the radical feminist position that masculinity is natural and healthy, and femininity artificial and harmful, is also inherently sexist