Being a woman or being a man used to mean that you had a certain code of behavior that you had to follow especially when interacting with the other sex. It meant that you had a particular set of responsibilities, a list of DOs & DON’Ts and that your lifestyle had to reflect those ‘rules of engagement’. This is what we call gender roles. Men had to be this way and women had to be that way.

Of course, the gender roles would vary across different cultures and across different generations. But within every generation they were quite clearly laid out.

Today, in western industrialized societies, gender roles are still present but they are far less pronounced and people are generally free to decide for themselves what code of behavior they will follow.

But some gender codes remain with us and are unlikely to change anytime soon - particularly those that have an evolutionary background. For women, physical beauty is and probably always will be a deciding factor in her social status. Likewise, for men, their social status is highly dependent on their performance of useful tasks. In short, a woman’s status is heavily dependent on her beauty and a man’s status is heavily dependent on his productivity. And no amount of campaigning or awareness-raising will change these things. But that doesn’t mean you have to live by those rules yourself nor does it mean that you need to let them affect you though it is hard to ignore them entirely.