“Our poll highlights that equality is a serious issue for children and it is disappointing to see that, even at this young age, most children feel they are being treated differently due to their gender. We need to ensure that young people are equipped with the knowledge and information they need to feel confident about themselves."

In high school, Mireille found that teachers and students took for granted that the head of a club should be a boy. When she would stand up in front of her class and ask, "Why can't the head be a girl?" they would tell her, "That's for Americans. You're trying to be an American." Mireille would stand in front of her high school class and ask why the head of a club couldn't be a girl. They'd tell her, "That's for Americans." Michael May/NPR Being "American" was shorthand for being too aggressive, too liberated, too selfish. The message was clear: You're doing this for yourself, not for the good of your country. "They'd say, 'You don't belong in Rwanda,' " Mireille recalls. " 'You don't even belong in Africa!' "

Americans say they look up to masculine men more than feminine women, according to a Pew study released this month. But it’s not just gender that dictates these beliefs. Racial makeup and political affiliation play a role: Republicans are more likely than Democrats to describe themselves as masculine. Black men and women are also more likely than whites and Hispanics to identify as “very masculine” or “very feminine,” Pew found from its survey of 4,573 people across the nation.

The other day I found myself telling my four-year-old daughter that there’s no such thing as “boys colors” and “girls colors.” My favorite shirt is pink; my favorite shoes have pink soles. As soon as I started reading fairy tales to my daughter I knew that atavistic gender ideas would be omnipresent, but I didn’t realize how much they would come to permeate my existence. She likes pink; that’s fine, I do too. She likes ballet and ballet clothing, that’s great. But it comes freighted sometimes with expectations for who can and can’t like these things. I was wondering where that feeling comes from.

When asked whether boys and girls are either born or taught to like different kinds of toys, Americans in 2017 answered almost identically to those in 2015, with just over half saying that it’s a learned choice and approximately 30% saying it’s inborn. What has changed is how women think toys should be distributed among kids. In 2015, 36% of women felt that boys and girls should be raised with different toys and play activities; in 2017, only 26% of women feel that way. The numbers for men have remained relatively stable.

As a society, we love labels. Labels make things easier to categorize and allow us to apply a wide array of expectations without having to invest much energy. Thinking of gender as a distinct binary of female XX or male XY rather than a female-male spectrum limits our appreciation for the range of humanity. If I can’t label you as a man or a woman, by what other method can I determine how to treat you? Right? Read that last sentence out loud again…it’s ridiculous how much of our daily exchanges with other humans are influenced by such an arbitrary factor.

How can these women who live at the proverbial intersection of race and sexism, who grew up crossing that corner, ever be a part of the national #MeToo conversation when they can’t be heard in their own community? The intersection of race, class, sexism and power is dangerous, and the most vulnerable women among us must navigate it alone.

Jackson Katz, an author and filmmaker who studies gender and violence, said giving boys more positive role models and getting them to think critically about gender stereotypes is a key component to violence prevention. “Boys growing up in the U.S. are taught from the earliest ages the quickest way to gain respect is through violence,” Katz said. “For boys … who have had no access to validation and respect, violence is the quickest and most accessible means at proving your manhood.” If these definitions of manhood and strength are redefined and expanded, and boys see those traits in men, violent images of manhood could fall away, he said.

Maybe, some suggest, behaviors like sexual harassment and violence towards women are the result of millions of years of evolution. Maybe the selection pressures of men and male competition, in tandem with the need to reproduce, have perhaps led to the entrenchment of bad behaviors in men. Maybe it is part of our biology, our DNA — and us men cannot help ourselves. It is asked: Can we simply say “boys will be boys” and explain sexual harassment as the natural extension of maleness? The answer is no. We cannot.

Reclaiming space for boys to be boys, the Sire campaign asked parents ‘Are You Giving Your Boys Enough Chance to Be Boys?’. The campaign implied that the way parents are being asked to raise boys is more neutering than neutral. Other parents, however, are relieved that non-gender-specific marketing has finally arrived. ‘Tough luck for the ‘women belong in the kitchen and boys don’t cry’ believers,’ says Sanne Botterweg from Amsterdam, an urban developer and mother of two.