My (admittedly relatively hot) take as a younger millennial indoctrinated by the 2nd wave feminists (who weren’t huge on the third wave) is that what gender means has shifted. I didn’t experience myself as particularly gendered growing up in the 90s and early 00s and certainly wouldn’t consider it part of my inner essence. I don’t give a shit how strangers refer to me or whether they think I’m a dude or not. I found it to be a slightly annoying category imposed by everyone else. Something I needed to understand because it impacted how I was received by others, but not something that was core to my self-understanding. In school I studied the humanities which reaffirmed to me that gender was an annoying external category that put people in boxes—we didn’t want gay female CEOs, we wanted to get rid of gender altogether.
I think gen Z actually has a similar thought but instead of doing away with the gender categories many have chosen, on an individual level, to make them their own a bit more in line with 3rd wave ‘boss bitch’ vibes. This still undermines the oppressive nature of the gender roles because it it kind of divorces gender from the societal gender role.
My (admittedly relatively hot) take as a younger millennial indoctrinated by the 2nd wave feminists (who weren’t huge on the third wave) is that what gender means has shifted. I didn’t experience myself as particularly gendered growing up in the 90s and early 00s and certainly wouldn’t consider it part of my inner essence. I don’t give a shit how strangers refer to me or whether they think I’m a dude or not. I found it to be a slightly annoying category imposed by everyone else. Something I needed to understand because it impacted how I was received by others, but not something that was core to my self-understanding. In school I studied the humanities which reaffirmed to me that gender was an annoying external category that put people in boxes—we didn’t want gay female CEOs, we wanted to get rid of gender altogether.
I think gen Z actually has a similar thought but instead of doing away with the gender categories many have chosen, on an individual level, to make them their own a bit more in line with 3rd wave ‘boss bitch’ vibes. This still undermines the oppressive nature of the gender roles because it it kind of divorces gender from the societal gender role.
Well said