How to Break Free from Gender Conditioning

Gender disclaimer: this article focuses on social gender conditioning and uses she/her pronouns. This clearly doesn’t mean gender conditioning doesn’t impact men, trans, gender-fluid, or non-binary individuals including those who have transitioned later in life…this is written from and about my experience.

Culturally, women in the West are raised to be complacent, kind, unassuming, gentle. This is especially true in the South, where I grew up. Some of this messaging is explicit, as in…

“be a good girl.”
“Be nice.”
“Don’t make people feel uncomfortable.”
“You should smile more.”

Perhaps equally as impactful are the subtle messages. Social pressure to shave your legs early and look presentable for others. Seeing your Mom/Aunt/teacher/random woman at the grocery store move around the world in a borderline-apologetic way. Seeing men in your surroundings dominate the conversation. Seeing women in caregiver-oriented careers that require nurturing traits, not one’s that require aggression and dominance. 

I am not arguing in this post against the role of biology and temperament in influencing personality and behavior. At the same time, there are absolutely sociocultural factors that influence us in ways that are not always helpful for our psychological development. 

In my practice and in my own life, I frequently work with women trying to undo their social conditioning around gender roles in order to become more integrated and better able to live according to their values. Whether it be the woman learning to set boundaries with her abusive ex-husband, the woman learning to take credit for her contributions with a colleague at work, or the woman learning to assert her needs in a friendship that feels off balance, I see the ways gender conditioning impacts women on nearly a daily basis in my practice.

It is not an easy feat to break free from social conditioning. I do not believe we can ‘undo’ or ‘unlearn’ these narratives. That is not how learning works. However, I wholeheartedly believe we can add to the narratives that have shaped us and are no longer serving us. We can learn to notice remanences of our old conditioning and choose whether or not we want to allow this to inform our current and future actions.

Here are my tips on how to reshape your relationship with gender conditioning. We learn best when we do, so I encourage you to grab your pen, paper, and shoes to take bold action. Get ready to experiment!

1. Notice where you feel stuck. Some indicators of being ‘stuck’ might include:
   -you find yourself on edge in certain situations or with certain people
   -you find yourself disconnecting or ‘zoning out’ in some contexts
   -you find yourself engaging in the same patterns over and over again, perhaps without intending to or realizing this.
   -you notice you say some phrases without even meaning to. Common gender-conditioning phrases I’ve observed in myself and others include “I’m sorry”, minimizing statements like “kind of”, “I don’t mean to be a bother but…”.
2. Once you find an area you perpetually get stuck in, define it. Challenges grow and take on a life of their own when they are out of sight and in the dark. The better you can shine a light on where you are stuck and understand what it is about, the better you will be able to free yourself of it.
   Some common areas of stuckness women experience due to gender conditioning include:
   -it’s more important to be kind and amenable than to assert ones needs
   -a women’s role is to be nurturing.
   -a woman shouldn’t be too physically aggressive
   -a woman should effortlessly balance being just attractive enough, but not calling attention to them in a way that might tempt men or ’cause’ them to behave badly
   -a woman should be able to perfectly juggle a meticulous home, a well rounded family, an impressive career, and a life of service to those around her without ever dropping the ball
   -a woman should not be negative or complain
   You may consider this catch phrase used by Dan Siegel (a psychiatrist specializing in neuroscience) who often refers to this when we’re experiencing a strong emotions: Name it to tame it.
3. Consider where this area of stuckness came from. You might consider:
   -What did you learn about this area of stuckness from your parents?
   -How did your primary caregivers and early mentors model and signal to you what it means to be a woman?
   -What did they tell you explicitly?
   -What did you observe?
   -What were the consequences if a women deviated from societal explications in this area?
4. Attempt to take a step back from your learning and observe this learning from a birds eye view. This can allow you to see your learning more clearly. Through seeing it more clearly, you have more agency to choose how you want to proceed right now. Some ways you might create distance are to consider:
   -If your conditioning were a film, what would it be called?
   -If it were a character, what would she be like?
   -How could you sum up this learning in a catch-phrase or mantra?
   -If you blindly aligned your action with this learning, what would you do?
5. Now that you can see your gender conditioning, you know that you are not your conditioning. This may sound like semantics, but it is important so let me repeat it. Now that you can see your gender conditioning, you know that you are not your conditioning.
   If you are not it, you can change it.
   Notice when you feel trapped by your gender conditioning. See if you can take a step back, noticing it like you might watch a movie. Notice what it tells you to do…what the predictable ending of said movie might be. and then notice what other options you have. Like a choose your own ending book, get creative here!
6. Now comes a critical step. Free from believing as Fact what you have learned about being a women, think about what being a woman means to you.
   -What does femininity mean to you?
   -When do you feel most alive in your body?
   -When have you felt most empowered as a woman?
   -What women inspire you? These can be people you know, celebrities, artists, characters, women in history, etc.
   -If you have a young woman or girl in your life (daughter, niece, mentee, etc), what do you hope they will see in you as a woman? What do you hope to model for them about what it means to be a woman?
   -With gender in mind, what kind of legacy do you want to leave when you are gone?
   Perhaps some of your concepts are parallel to gender norms and that’s okay. The important thing here is that are your freely choosing how you want to experience and express this aspect of your identity. 
   Summarize in one sentence what being a woman means to you. You can always expand and revise this sentence, but distilling it down can be a helpful anchor.
7. Now act! Make a list of some ways your concept of what being a woman means to you could be enacted in your life right now. You don’t have to do all of these, but make as big of a list as you can manage. Then, choose one and go for it!
   Often times, we learn best by doing, so revisit and add to this list of potential actions after you have taken some action.