Actually, we all have masculine and feminine aspects, it is just that Western society squishes the feminine from men and the masculine from females. When one realizes this and works to get both sides in balance, it is amazing what can be accomplished.

This is something that Susan and I both work on and we sometimes joke how we have swung past each other: there are many ways where she is more masculine and I am more feminine. No, this isn't just about sex; it is/can be played out in all parts of life.

How long does the paper need to be?

Yeah, I do almost all the cooking and some of the cleaning around here...

Regarding "throwing like a girl", remember that the pendulum is working it's way the other way in some respects. Men are supposedly unempathic, forget anniversaries, care only about sports, dress like slobs, unhygenic, have no sense of taste or class, etc etc, and if a woman has any of these "negative" aspects they're told they're "just like a man".

Just a few pages. Nothing too long...

I've always considered myself very fortunate that a good portion of my friends don't require an adherence to one stereo type or another.

One of the topics I had considered was the male taboo of displaying emotion... how little boys are told not to cry. It always seemed strange to me, and yet "boys don't cry" is so ingrained into our culture. Boys are told to "toughen up." Why?

In my experience, some of the most brave people, men and women, have been those who were unafraid - and most importantly, unafraid of their emotions. Not necessarily meaning that the cried all the time, but they were in tune with themselves in such a way that it's not about can or cannot show emotion.

I always tell my son tough doesn't mean you don't get hurt or you don't cry, it means you're willing to keep going and try again.

I was never discouraged from crying. There just came a point that I didn't any more.

I'm not withholding anything by not having cried* in almost exactly 20 years (I do remember the last time I did), I have just never had any urge to do so and wouldn't stop myself if I did. When my great-grandmother died it was emotionally very difficult for me but I never had any urge to cry that had to be withheld. And same for many other personally sad moments as well as tearjerker movies.

What I hate is that is that for many people you apparently aren't actually sad unless you are crying.

I amended my earlier post, because I don't mean that crying and outward displays are the only way to have emotion - that just wouldn't be true. For me, I guess it's the countless times I heard the boys in the neighborhood I grew up in, and the little boys I see from time to time out and about, being told not to cry after being hurt, or hearing other children slur to a boy that's crying "You're such a giirrrlll!"

Don't gender stereotypes typically have some sort of basis in fact? Not all certainly, but a lot of them?

For example, isn't it true that men are typically physically stronger than women? I could walk down the street, of course, and find a given woman stronger than a given man, but for the most part, men are stronger.

Aren't women typically more able to multitask than men? Same disclaimer as above.

Well, I'll admit to thinking differently about crying from physical pain versus emotional pain.

Not that physical pain can't lead to crying, just that not all pain should result in it. But I don't think about that in a gendered way. Then again, I enjoy a little pain now and then.