Gender stereotypes in your culture

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3-4 generations ago, women used to take the husband FIRST name.

Belinda Smith would be known as Mrs. John Smith if her husband was named John.

My mother kept my father’s last name—even 40 years after her divorced. She is a fully “liberated” woman who is a psychoanalyst.

I think a lot of women prefer the "ditzy" stereotype because they either don't want to take responsibility for being intelligent and well-informed, or they are afraid that men will find them intimidating and therefore not be attracted to them.

I remember when I was in high school there was a girl in one of my classes who strongly protested when people told her she was smart because she got a high test grade. "No I'm not!" she said in a whiny, high-pitched voice. It was like she was taking their words as an accusation rather than a compliment. I can only guess that she thought that it was somehow bad or dangerous for people to perceive her as intelligent.

American women are stereotyped to be emotional, sociable/extroverted, fashion and shoe-obsessed, sex-hating, sports-hating beings. These stereotypes are most salient to me because I'm more logical, reserved, less fashion conscious, sex-loving, and sports-loving. I don't fit. The sex-loving part is especially challenging because conservatives expect women to hate all aspects of sex (except emotional bonding) whereas liberals expect all women to be victims of sexual harassment or abuse, and neither side EVER seems look at women's sexuality from ANY other angle than those two. They cannot understand or accept that some of us like to visually stare at men naked and thoroughly enjoy the physical aspects of sex. They're scared by it, both conservatives and liberals. It goes against their agendas, and they totally cannot handle it.

Throughout my life, I have found that women run the gamut.

Many of my lovers did not fulfill all the "requirements" of femininity----but they certainly were feminine enough!

I'd prefer it if a woman liked sports. I see many couples at ballgames having fun.

We never had the first name change here.
Changing last name is prevalent, of my friends, even feminists did it.
I never thought of it much...
I adopted my husband's name - double surname would be too long and unpronounceable (famous Polish last names ) and not changing my last name would be to me like not getting completely married.
Officially, before marriage, we signed a declaration about last names for us and our children - the options were: keeping your own, adopting your spouse's or combining both to make double surname. So the law does not make gender difference here, indeed, one of my friends adopted his wife's last name because he liked it more than his own.

There's actually a good deal of "hyphenated" last names here in the US, reflecting both the surnames/last names of the married couple. It seemed to have been a little more common in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

Oh, another stereotype of my culture:
Sweets are for women, meat is for men.
My marriage has it exactly the opposite

I like beer and steak. And the "masculine" ribeye cut, no less!

But I do also like salads. That's one feminine food I like.

The kitchen belongs to women. The grill or BBQ belongs to men.

I talked with a younger couple what admitted that after they got married, they then realized that neither one knew how to cook! We were both on vacation in Maine and he spotted my car and left a note! So we had dinner together!

In our American Culture, women are considered weak and men are considered strong so therefore it's unacceptable for men to cry and show their emotions. Male rape is not taken seriously and it's taken as a joke in TV shows and movies, there is no support for men of domestic abuse. Men are seen as being horny creatures and male victims of sexual abuse isn't taken as seriously.

There is lot of misandry and misogyny in our culture and it's very pervasive and normalized. But misandry is more socially acceptable than misogyny. It's okay to generalize men and bad talk about them but it's not okay to do that about women. I say misogyny is pervasive and normalized because reason why why have support for female domestic abuse victims and while we take female rape more seriously and why we shun male pedophiles and not female pedophiles is because it's implying that women are weak and it's acceptable for us to be cute and show our emotions because we are considered weak so hence the double standard with sex. Female pedophilia is totally okay by lot of peoples standards because we are so weak and the male victims must have taken advantage of us because we are so weak if a woman sexually abuses a male minor.

We have come a long ways for women because we have more rights now as women but there is still a conception that we are fragile and weak because of the double standards make that so obvious.

Sometimes, they do.

I feel like this is absolutely foolish.

I like women who are "for real."