social norms

Someone's gender was once something that one could judge very easily. An easy assumption that someone could make in a split second. With this judgment came a slew of assumptions about one's personality, likes and dislikes, mannerisms, ideas, morals, etc. It was the easiest assessment to make, and for the information that you would "receive" from this initial split-second judgment, it seemed like a pretty good deal. As we learn more and more about our bodies and minds, gender norms and roles are broken down. The work of millions of people have made it more acceptable for people to explore their gender and sexual identities, and it is no longer as easy to make these snap judgments, and the assumptions acquired from making these judgments are increasingly incorrect, so that making these snap judgments are no longer as effective as they seem to have been in the past.

By making gender norms and identities more fluid, we are breaking down a social structure that we have relied on for a long enough time for our judgments to be innate. I wonder though, whether breaking down this fundamental social organization will encourage us to latch onto another social norm and intensify it. Under the premise that we as a society need social organization and structure, it may be possible that with the breaking down of one social norm, we may augment another. I think it would be hard to argue that society and we as individuals need some structure in our lives. During times of chaos, we have always turned to something stable (e.g. religion, family, etc) to cope with the disorder. It is more interesting to discuss how we as a society will cope with the fluidity of gender norms, and whether other norms will be created or augmented because fundamental gender norms have been disturbed.