We’ve been following rules we never chose.
Hi friend,
Last week I had a bit of a “coming out” about the pivot I’m making in the direction of my work, brand, and business, and today I want to share more about the new “problem” I’ve identified as the root of most of our insecurities, feelings of inadequacy, and shame—including body image issues, but also including so much more!
Before I dive in however, I want to acknowledge that I sent my big announcement on an absolute banger of an election day, and the blue tsunami that followed was a very welcome distraction for a lot of us!! (But in case you missed it, you can go back and read last week’s blog post here.)
Ok, so the term I’ve come up with (for now) to talk about this deeper underlying problem leading to so much shame and insecurity in our culture is: “gender conditioning issues.”
I’m open to using a different term in the future, but I’m choosing this term for now because “gender conditioning” refers to the sum total of everything that an individual has learned and believes about gender.
This includes any beliefs or “rules” about which traits, qualities, behaviors, aesthetic/style choices, or roles in society are considered normal, correct, or ideal for a person (and which ones are considered wrong, bad, or shameful), based on their gender.
Most of the time, our gender conditioning has been so complete and so effective that we move through the world embodying, abiding by, and upholding any number of gendered “rules” for how a woman or a man is supposed to look and behave without even being consciously aware that we’re doing it!
These rules may come from our social conditioning, but most of the time they’ve been so thoroughly brainwashed into us that we tend to just think of them as personal preferences.
A man might say he prefers long hair on women (while keeping his own hair short), without ever thinking too deeply about where that preference comes from, for example, and a woman might say she prefers to keep her hair long because it “makes her feel more feminine” or “looks prettier.”
And while these personal preferences are totally valid, it’s also true that hair is one of the most common ways in which we culture express and communicate our gender to others in our culture.
That makes the length and style of our hair a part of the way many of us habitually conform to the gender ideals that we’ve been indoctrinated into. (The “ideal woman” generally has long flowing hair, while the “ideal man” has a closer crop.)
To be clear, there is nothing inherently negative about people expressing or communicating their gender to others, as long as it feels authentic and empowering.
But our social conditioning about what it means to be a man or woman, and how each is “supposed to be,” is rooted in the false, toxic, and oppressive framework of patriarchy.
So more often than not, this conditioning does, in fact, lead to negative, harmful, and dangerous thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
We may have been so thoroughly programmed that we don’t even realize what’s influencing us, but our gender conditioning under patriarchy is so strict, rigid, binary, prescriptive, unrealistic, and oppressive that it simply can’t help but lead to personal and societal struggles with shame, judgment, insecurity, frustration, self-esteem, toxicity, and violence.
This false and noxious belief that there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to embody and express one’s gender will affect everyone in different ways, but it has some pretty devastating effects on both our relationships with ourselves, and our relationships with others.
For example:
It makes women feel bad about not being thin, young, or attractive enough, and it makes men feel bad about not being strong, tall, or muscular enough.
It makes women feel ashamed for being both too sexually experienced, while it makes men feel ashamed for not being sexually experienced enough.
It makes women feel selfish for having needs and boundaries, and it makes men feel like their emotions and vulnerability make them weak.
I could go on forever, because the list for how our conditioning—about what gender means, how it’s supposed to look, and whether or not someone is doing it "correctly"—is negatively impacting all of our mental health, confidence, relationships, and lives.
From now on, I’ll be using the term “gender conditioning issues” to refer to these negative effects, problems, and personal struggles that come from an individual’s beliefs about gender norms, roles, rules, and ideals.
“Gender conditioning issues” are very similar to “body image issues” in a lot of ways.
When someone is struggling with body image issues, it’s because of what their (false or inflated) social conditioning taught them about the importance of looking a certain way, and what different kinds of bodies mean about who we are, and what we deserve.
Likewise, when someone is struggling with “gender conditioning issues,” it’s because their (false or inflated) social conditioning taught them about the importance of conforming to gender norms, and what different kinds of gendered traits, qualities, aesthetics, and behaviors means about who we are and what we deserve.
If you’ve read my book Body Neutral, you can probably tell why I’m so interested in this, and immediately see the parallels between this “new” issue, and the work I’ve been doing around body neutrality for years.
In fact, if “gender neutrality” wasn’t already a well-known term that means something completely different (and would therefore be wildly confusing), I would have probably started writing about this topic a long time ago!
The truth is, the “new” issues I’m describing here work the exact same way that body image issues do—by convincing us to compare ourselves against a rigid, prescriptive, and unrealistic “ideal,” and find ourselves wanting—and the work required to heal and liberate ourselves from them will actually be very similar to body neutrality.
The one big difference, I think, is that we already have a cultural understanding of what it means to “struggle with body image,” while the negative effects of internalized gender roles, rules, and ideals are very rarely talked about.
Due to the popularity of body image as a mainstream topic of conversion, most people will recognize that they have body image issues if they’re experiencing intense shame, anxiety, insecurity, or distress about the way they look.
But the shame, anxiety, insecurity, or distress that’s being caused by our beliefs about the “right” way for a woman or a man to look and behave is far more likely to fly under the radar, and get mistaken for other issues.
The manosphere, for example, is a toxic swamp of men who are experiencing what I would call gender conditioning issues, because they are obsessed with trying to conform to (and police other men into conforming to) the “masculine ideal.” And any ways in which they may feel themselves to be failing that ideal creates shame and panic about their identity, value, and status… which then leads to toxic, violent, and misogynistic behavior meant to overcompensate for their failures and convince others of their masculinity.
Likewise, a lot of women struggling in their intimate relationships with men are also experiencing what I could call gender conditioning issues, because their internalized conditioning about gender roles and the “ideal woman” is causing them to over-function, put themselves last, and accept less than they deserve.
As far as I’m concerned, women wouldn’t be carrying the mental load, taking on the lion’s share of domestic/emotional labor, having sex she doesn’t want just to keep her partner happy, or disappearing into the role of wife or mother, if it weren’t for what she learned about gender-specific roles, norms, and ideals.
A woman in this position generally doesn’t realize that her relationship problems are being influenced by her own beliefs about gender roles and ideals, however.
Instead of googling “how to stop trying to conform to gender ideals,” she’s much more likely to google things like “marriage advice,” “how to get husband to do more chores,” and “couple’s therapists near me.”
Do you see why I’m so passionate about this? These issues are hurting all of us, and we’re not usually even aware that they’re happening!
If we want to stand any chance of overcoming our anxiety and insecurity, breaking free from shame, improving our relationships with ourselves and others, moving the culture in a less toxic direction, and thriving… we must figure out how to liberate ourselves from these overly rigid, prescriptive, and unrealistic beliefs about gender.
And that means we have to start by talking about the existence of our gender conditioning, identifying our own internalized beliefs about how a woman or a man is “supposed to” look and be, and exploring the ways in which our beliefs about gender are leading to negative or toxic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Then and only then do we have any chance to heal and break free.
So with all that in mind, I want to offer you something special:
I’m offering 5 free coaching sessions (one each per person, for new clients) to anyone who wants to dip a toe into this topic and explore their own relationship to gender roles, norms, ideals, or performance!
These sessions will be first-come-first-serve, so if you want to take advantage of this offer, just hit reply if you’re receiving this as an email, or shoot me a message here if you’re reading this on the blog, to let me know now!
Note: These sessions are open to any person of any gender, and you do not need to have a specific problem you want to work on yet.
You can just show up for the session, and together we’ll explore things like:
The ways in which you might be unconsciously performing your gender for others, and how that feels.
Any gender-specific “rules” you follow that feel inauthentic, obligatory, or fear-based.
Your specific understanding of the “ideal” for your gender, and how you feel about yourself in comparison.
Any beliefs about yourself or your gender that are leading to shame, insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, or toxic behaviors.
I’m so excited to introduce the concept of gender conditioning issues to the world, and to shine a light on the previously invisible obstacles that have been standing in the way of your ability to feel authentic, empowered, worthy, and confident in yourself!
Big hug,
Jessi
PS. I just found out that my last podcast episode for This Is (Not) About Your Body was accidentally cut off halfway through! The episode was called 29 Things That Would Put My Former Self-Objectifier Self Into a Coma, but I only made it through #14!
So now I’m calling that one “Part 1,” and I just released the second half, marked as “Part 2.” You can watch the full video to the new one on my YouTube channel here, or listen wherever you get your podcasts!
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