What did you assume?

Tweet

One of my recent posts, "Are you sure you are a teacher?" or something like that as the title, made me remember this little riddle. A father and son were out on a drive. They get into an accident and the father dies and the son is in critical condition and rushed to the hospital. He is rushed into surgery and the surgeon goes, "I cannot operate on this boy, he is my son" who is the surgeon? I won't answer in case you wanted to guess the riddle but this riddle was created as a research for gender biases. In my post about the teacher so many people were calling the professor a "him" I mostly used the title professor instead of teacher but majority kept saying "him" even though I am pretty sure I put "she" and "her" pronouns. We have a long way to go to accept gender identity. I still have a couple of friends who cannot adapt to different pronouns of their trans friends. I used to be like that until I was around 12 when I realized that people are not always what they seem. I started learning about trans-genders and non-binary people. This was just before the internet was going crazy about it. of course there were marches and such for trans rights, but they were not heard very well. This was only 10 years ago. But it was from that point on, I always addressed people as "they" or "them" unless i heard their gender before. If someone is called Mom, I will say her, if someone says "that girl" then i will say She. but if I only hear of "That police officer" "the professor" "That server" I will just say "they" or "Them" That was one part of the post. The second part is, why do people assume certain professions with certain genders. If you say mechanic, what do you think of? A man. I say professor, people say, Him. A person works as a pastor, they think, a man. A nurse is a woman. A teacher is a woman. A baby sister is a woman. A housekeeper is a woman. This is a gender bias. You are assuming roles to certain genders. What is a mechanic is gender fluid but uses she/her pronouns? I have had many male teachers. I have see many male nurses. Professors are not just men, i had more female professors than I did male. And this was as an art school. the film industry is mostly men! But I had more female professors that were writers! I feel like it is so much easier saying they/them when it comes to unknown genders or people who are non-binary, trans, gender fluid, or really don't know what gender they really are and are in that confusion state. We live with pink is for girls and blue is for boys. dresses are for girls, action figures are for boys. We tell girls to be teachers and nurses and boys for the doctors and lawyers. One day that little boy will come out and realize they identify as a girl. One day that little girl will be a pastor and wear pants and play on the church's football team and can get along better with guys than she does girls. I know it is very snowflakey to say the "Did you assume my gender?" But it is a real thing. Names, careers, religion, race, all those other things do not identify genders. And even if someone is born as one gender, they could always identify as another one or none at all. It is so easy to understand.