History SoYouWantTo / WriteACharacterOfTheOppositeGender

This article has been accused of having a feminist bias. [[BluntYes It does]]. The thing is, there is no such thing as an unbiased version of this article. The traditional viewpoint -- the "patriarchal" viewpoint, as feminists describe it -- is the MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: men and women not only do not understand each other, but ''cannot''; therefore, this page is futile, and should be added to the Administrivia/PermanentRedLinkClub because nothing useful can be said on the subject. According to the traditional viewpoint, you cannot learn to write a character of the opposite gender, and we cannot teach you.

In this way, feminism is revealed to be the NecessaryWeasel that allows this article to even ''exist''.

This is also why the Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment is important, and why contributors to this article have been instructed to break the rule about conversations in the main page. Since we cannot overcome bias, we must allow this article to be 100% biased -- in favor of ''both'' the traditional and the feminist viewpoint. It is only through total subjectivity that we can achieve anything approaching objectivity.

!A Foreward

!!!An Afterward
This article has been accused of having a feminist bias. [[BluntYes It does]]. The thing is, there is no such thing as an unbiased version of this article. The traditional viewpoint -- the "patriarchal" viewpoint, as feminists describe it -- is the MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: men and women not only do not understand each other, but ''cannot''; therefore, this page is futile, and should be added to the Administrivia/PermanentRedLinkClub because nothing useful can be said on the subject. According to the traditional viewpoint, you cannot learn to write a character of the opposite gender, and we cannot teach you.

In this way, feminism is revealed to be the NecessaryWeasel that allows this article to even ''exist''.

This is also why the Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment is important, and why contributors to this article have been instructed to break the rule about conversations in the main page. Since we cannot overcome bias, we must allow this article to be 100% biased -- in favor of ''both'' the traditional and the feminist viewpoint. It is only through total subjectivity that we can achieve anything approaching objectivity.

Now, let's get to the writing.

There are more ways of looking at it. ''VideoGame/TheSims'' has a maximum of eight biological needs, partially based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs]].

It might also be worth checking out ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' and ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', because their showrunners were men. Two of the most prominent female-centric shows in recent history were run by men. Comparatively, the documentary ''Film/TheRedPill'', focusing on Men's Rights, was made by a woman. Though it does feature scripted characters, the representation is pro-men (though this had not been the filmmaker's initial intention, it's an interesting case)--showing that a female lens to a subject does not necessarily make it female-biased. These productions prove that it is possible to do a good job writing or representing people of the gender you are not.

Here is where we start getting into the territory of {{Double Standard}}s: those old chestnuts that dominate so much of gender politics. Women are expected to be one thing and men another, because male and female personalities are completely, polar-opposite, YinYangClash- or MarsAndVenusGenderContrast-level different. This is the fundamental belief of patriarchy: that men and women are DifferentAsNightAndDay, and '''''never''''' the twain shall meet. A great deal of social conditioning goes into programming people to believe this. [[CaptainObvious This logic sucks]], but it is nevertheless useful to us as writers because it lets us apply the vast majority of our experiences. Whatever we were taught to be, we just [[InvertedTrope do the opposite]].

This article has been accused of having a feminist bias. [[BluntYes It does]]. The thing is, there is no such thing as an unbiased version of this article. The traditional viewpoint -- the "patriarchal" viewpoint, as feminists describe it -- is the MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: men and women not only do not understand each other, but ''cannot''; therefore, this page is futile, and should be added to the PermanentRedLinkClub because nothing useful can be said on the subject. According to the traditional viewpoint, you cannot learn to write a character of the opposite gender, and we cannot teach you.

-->--Creator/VictorBorge

There are more ways of looking at it. ''VideoGame/TheSims'' has a maximum of eight biological needs, partially based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs]].

** PinkIsForSissies. Women can wear just about any color, but any colors strongly associated with women (which is mostly {{pink|MeansFeminine}} in America, and [[GracefulLadiesLikePurple purple to a lesser extent]]) are completely off-limits for men. The same is true for clothes; it's almost a DeadHorseTrope that Scottish men wearing traditional garb (i.e. kilts) are considered unmanly simply because a kilt is similar--''similar''--to a skirt. (And men from the 1600s would be laughed at by today's population for wearing high heels, even though high heels started out as a men-only accessory, simply because [[ValuesDissonance today they are the opposite]].) Hobbies and other lifestyle choices are segregated in this way, too: knitting, crocheting, dancing, flower arranging and other stereotypically female pastimes are simply off the table for men. And let's not even ''get'' into names! Many names that started off as male-exclusive--[[http://www.disneybaby.com/blog/25-names-that-used-to-be-boy-names/ Meredith]], [[http://firsttoknow.com/13-girls-names-used-exclusively-male/ Evelyn]], [[http://nameberry.com/blog/unisex-baby-names-names-that-morphed-from-blue-to-pink Ashley]]--are now only seen on women, and a number of other {{Gender Blender Name}}s are likely to follow.

And spend some time, additionally, thinking about what your definition of "the opposite gender" even ''is'', because you should subvert it in your writing as much as possible. If not, it'll show. Consider ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the [[{{Doorstopper}} 14-book (!!!)]] magnum opus of author Robert Jordan. Almost every female character in it is a harsh (''tsun'') {{Tsundere}}, simply because [[WriteWhoYouKnow that's what Jordan's wife is like]], and readers noticed quickly. Jordan ''did'' go to some lengths to justify his female characters being more comfortable with power and authority: his world is much more gender-even because, [[EternalRecurrence during the last Final Boss Fight]], the BigBad cursed all male wizards to go [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity batshit insane]]. 3,000 years later, male channelers are hunted down--by women--and "[[{{Depower}} gentled]]" in service of TheNeedsOfTheMany. When only women can use magic, of ''course'' patriarchy goes out the window. But even in a world where women can and do hold positions of enormous power (like "Amyrlin Seat," the elected president of the WitchSpecies and probably the single most powerful person on the continent), they wouldn't all have ''the same exact personality''. Robert Jordan's writing made it clear that while he understood ''a'' woman, he did not understand ''wom'''e'''n''.

!!!'''A Foreward'''

!'''Necessary Tropes'''

This is even true in historical contexts. Look around at the people you are near. Most of them are not 100% masculine or 100% feminine. They exhibit at least a couple traits that are (traditionally) ascribed to the other gender. And if that’s true today, it was probably true in the past, because the thing about human nature is that it doesn’t change. (If it does, why do we still read works that are OlderThanDirt?) True, people were much less likely to ''display'' their differences in public, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

!!! An Afterward
This article has been accused of having a feminist bias. [[BluntYes It does.]] The thing is, there is no such thing as an unbiased version of this article. The traditional viewpoint -- the "patriarchal" viewpoint, as feminists describe it -- is the MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: men and women not only do not understand each other, but ''cannot''; therefore, this page is futile, and should be added to the PermanentRedLinkClub because nothing useful can be said on the subject. According to the traditional viewpoint, you cannot learn to write a character of the opposite gender, and we cannot teach you.

!'''Choices, Choices'''

# Benevolence: preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is in frequent personal contact (the ‘in-group’).

"But that doesn't help me at all," we can hear you protest. "I'm a man trying to write a woman/a woman trying to write a man! My own experience doesn't apply at all! It’s DifferentForGirls!" And to that we would reply: Nonsense. You, like your opposite-gender character, are subject to societal pressure. From the day you were born, you have dealt with the same social conditioning everyone has. What you were conditioned ''to be'' is different, but ''the conditioning itself'' is omnipresent.

** UglyGuyHotWife: Women are much more encouraged to [[MenAreStrongWomenArePretty fit into their culture’s standards of physical attractiveness]]. If a man doesn’t, he gets negative attention for it, but rather less of it; it's okay for men to deviate from the norm. (Proof of concept: during her 2016 campaign for the American presidency, how many times did [[UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton Hillary Clinton]] get criticized for not smiling enough? More times than all of her competitors combined.)
** Women are discouraged from having bodily functions. If a man farts or burps in public, it’s typically PlayedForLaughs; if he smells like sweat, it’s not a big deal (though it can lead to him being shunned). But if a woman farts, or burps, or ''talks'' about farting or burping or--gasp!--pooping, then clearly she is an uncivilized savage. She must smell perfect at all times, even if she's still in the gym and just finished running five miles. And God ''forbid'' she [[NoPeriodsPeriod admit that she menstruates]]. This is because...

** SatelliteLoveInterest. Women are socialized to define themselves according to their romantic lives and romantic partners. At a time when boys are throwing Franchise/{{GI Joe}}s or Franchise/PowerRangers toys at each other’s faces, girls spend time thinking about the trappings of a relationship--house, kids, the husband’s career, and especially the White Wedding she hopes to have one day. (CommonKnowledge insists that men are completely disinterested in any aspect of the wedding except for [[AllMenArePerverts the consummation]].) And almost every lifestyle choice a woman makes--hairstyle, make-up and clothing, hobbies and pastimes, career, exercise and eating habits--will be judged in terms of whether it furthers her ability to get a man. A woman never does things just because she ''wants'' to do them; it's all part of her plan to get a man.

** MoustacheDePlume. For a woman to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field, she has to hide her femininity. She might also have to over-compensate for it, at which point she’s likely to be considered a bitch. And she'll ''still'' be asked why she didn't choose to StayInTheKitchen.

** CampGay. Homosexual men are weird because being gay involves--guess what?--''having feminine traits''. Even worse, it involves a man being the receiving partner in a sexual transaction--in other words, being powerless, instead of being powerful, the way a "''real'' man" should. (Lesbians, on the other hand, get off scot-free, because their sexual interactions don’t involve [[SarcasmMode perverting Sacred Masculinity]] and thus are morally irrelevant. Well, aside from men's cherished belief that [[ItsAllAboutMe truly satisfying sex must involve a penis]].)

If you defy these, you’ll likely feel pressure--some from your peers, some from society, and some that may even have been ''{{internalized|Categorism}}'' into your personality due to your culture’s (successful) brainwashing--to conform. After all, ''you’re not fitting your gender roles!!'' Almost everyone feels this pressure, and the question of how they resist or adapt to it, and ''which parts'' they resist or adapt to, is fertile ground for CharacterDevelopment.

Walking in these shoes can be, well, daunting. Fortunately, you have an imagination, which will allow you to walk in the shoes of someone else who has lived under these double standards, under different ones from you. You've also probably noticed some of them at work, or heard people you are close to talking about them. If you have friends of the opposite sex (you probably do), you can ask them for help. Finally, there's always the {{Double Standard}}s article here on TV Tropes to help you out--that’s where ''we'' got the above list. Study them and pay attention to the ones we’ve talked about.

!'''Pitfalls'''

[[SincerityMode No, seriously.]] There are things you can ask people about social conditioning and the double standards, but matters of mere physicality are a bit harder to pin down. The problem with weighted opposites is that in order to describe one, you have to be able to describe the other. We can't ask you whether you're "austrepidacious" if you don't even know what it means to be ''not'' austrepidacious. Weighted-opposites states need to be before-and-after before we can really make a comparison. And, until and unless somebody perfects some sort of magic GenderBender ray, we're not going to have much in the way of understanding what it's like to be a woman one day and a man the next.

First off, there is a stereotype that men are totally unconcerned about their appearance, and will happily go out in public unshaven, with mismatched socks, and generally in an unfinished state that no self-respecting woman would allow herself to be seen in. This leads a lot of women to believe that men are simply immune to the body-image issues epitomized by tropes like HollywoodHomely or HollywoodPudgy. The truth is, men ''do'' have body-image issues. But once again, men are trained [[TheStoic not to show their emotions]], especially not their insecurities. Additionally, it can be much harder for men to get any sort of grounding in the area because they are expected to be islands unto themselves. If a woman were to go to her girl-friends and say, “I’m concerned that my arms have too much fat on them,” they will be able to point out a dozen other women around her who have fatter ones. Male friends would not be able to, because men are not actually allowed to look at each other, not in the frank assessments necessary to get any grounding as to what actual human beings look like these days. So they keep it to themselves. But that doesn't mean they don't feel it.

Facial hair is both a blessing and a curse. A well-created and distinguished [[BadassBeard beard]] or [[BadassMustache moustache]] can add enormous presence and dignity to a face... but a wimpy one just looks dumb. And facial hair is not created equally: some people just don’t have a lot of it, and can’t grow it fast or thick enough to be presentable in public.

And a man’s genitals are not between his legs, they are in front of them. It is in fact possible for a man to sit cross-legged, but most don't, because 1) the risk is not worth the effort, and 2) ''women'' sit cross-legged, and men aren't allowed to do anything women do. (It's kind of interesting how patriarchy, an attitude that supposedly is all about promoting male freedom at the expense of female freedom, actually restricts both.)

Walking around with breasts means walking around with things sagging off the front of your chest. While they are not very dense, this just makes it easier to fling them around if you need to move quickly. Most men believe that women wear bras primarily to accent their assets, but the truth is that they’re also the best way to keep the darn things from escaping. Most of the time, though, women don't really notice their breasts, unless something draws attention to them (the same way men don't really notice their genitals unless something draws attention to them, like an erection or injury). A lot of times you'll see a female character who has these [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/tahliapritchard/women-describing-themselves-as-male-authors-would random sensuous thoughts]] [[https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/comments/740ypq/she_breasted_boobily/ about her tits]]. This is what men think women do because it's what a man would do if he were [[GenderBender womanified]]; and if he ''were'' womanified, he probably ''would'' notice his new tits... for a while. But gradually they'd just become a part of his body. For a female character to do this well into her... whatever-age-she-is-when-the-story-starts... is heteronormative thinking, pure and simple.

Periods suck. Your body is expelling a piece of itself, and it’s coming out all gory and sticky, and you have to walk around with a chunk of wet cotton pressed against your downstairs to absorb it--how good a mood would ''you'' be in? Even worse, there are a lot of aches and pains associated with it: aside from the cramps as your uterus tears its own insides apart, you can have acne breaking out, you can get headaches, your breasts can get extremely sensitive or even feel like they're burning, you can feel sluggish and depressed, you can start [[WackyCravings craving certain foods]] (chocolate, salts, fats) to the point that it becomes an obsession, your sex drive can go completely off the charts in ''either'' direction... Of course, every woman’s different. Some remain chipper while some get really emotional. Some have pain while some don’t. The length of the process is different from person to person. Even the ''quantity'' of discharge can vary: Wiki/TheOtherWiki claims that the average volume is 35 milliliters but that anything from 10 to 80 mL is still “considered typical.”

And spend some time, additionally, thinking about what your definition of "the opposite gender" even ''is'', because you should subvert it in your writing as much as possible. If not, it'll show. Consider ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the [[{{Doorstopper}} 14-book (!!!)]] magnum opus of author Robert Jordan. Almost every female character in it is a Type A {{Tsundere}}, simply because [[WriteWhoYouKnow that's what Jordan's wife is like]], and readers noticed quickly. Jordan ''did'' go to some lengths to justify his female characters being more comfortable with power and authority: his world is much more gender-even because, [[EternalRecurrence during the last Final Boss Fight]], the BigBad cursed all male wizards to go [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity batshit insane]]. 3,000 years later, male channelers are hunted down--by women--and "[[{{Depower}} gentled]]" in service of TheNeedsOfTheMany. When only women can use magic, of ''course'' patriarchy goes out the window. But even in a world where women can and do hold positions of enormous power (like "Amyrlin Seat," the elected president of the WitchSpecies and probably the single most powerful person on the continent), they wouldn't all have ''the same exact personality''. Robert Jordan's writing made it clear that while he understood ''a'' woman, he did not understand ''wom'''e'''n''.

!'''Potential Subversions'''

And here's the fun part: [[TakeAThirdOption Take a]] ''[[TakeAThirdOption fourth]]'' [[TakeAThirdOption option]]! Which characters will provide support, and which will provide scorn? And why? As an author you can have a ''great'' deal of fun subverting expectations by mixing and matching characters, roles, and motivations. The muscle-bound quarterback who tries to scare Alexis off the field: maybe he's a ShellShockedVeteran who has seen too many friends injured while trying to play, and is concerned that a girl--typically the more fragile of the human species--will get not so much "injured" as "paralyzed from the neck down." And the one who is supportive and encourages her: perhaps he's secretly a male supremacist and is trying to get her in over her head so that she ''does'' get hurt, and he can point and laugh later. Motivation is motivation, but it can be expressed in a myriad of different ways, and you don't by any means need to stick to the stereotypes or traditions. Alexis sure isn't.

!'''Writers' Lounge'''
!!'''Suggested Themes and Aesops'''

!!'''Potential Motifs'''

You could probably spend a ''lot'' of time on color motifs. Remember all that stuff about PinkGirlBlueBoy? Now, colors are a cultural thing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them. Heck, depending on your setting, you could even start making things up!

!!'''Suggested Plots'''

!'''Extra Credit'''
!!'''The Greats'''

!!'''The Epic Fails'''

!!'''Directed Research'''

This article has political elements to it, because in our day and age, sex and gender are inherently political topics. As such, you may see things in this article that you disagree with and want to refute. When you do, please employ the RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment.

This is also why the RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment is important, and why contributors to this article have been instructed to break the rule about conversations in the main page. Since we cannot overcome bias, we must allow this article to be 100% biased -- in favor of ''both'' the traditional and the feminist viewpoint. It is only through total subjectivity that we can achieve anything approaching objectivity.

There are more ways of looking at it. ''Franchise/TheSims'' has a maximum of eight biological needs, partially based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs]].

Let's take a simple example: [[TearTropes crying]]. When you cried, how were you treated? If you were a boy, you were probably told to man up and stop being a wimp, because MenDontCry, you pansy. Thus, you learned to control your tears. If you were a girl, you were probably ignored and remained uncommented on... though not always. In private, you may have been ''encouraged'' to cry, since TenderTears can be used to CharmPerson. And, as such, you were conditioned to be more generous with your sobbing. And thus society proceeded along logical and accepted lines. After all, emotionality is ''good'' in a women... but bad in a man.

Walking around with breasts means walking around with things sagging off the front of your chest. While they are not very dense, this just makes it easier to fling them around if you need to move quickly. Most men believe that women wear bras primarily to accent their assets, but the truth is that they’re also the best way to keep the darn things from escaping. Most of the time, though, women don't really notice their breasts, unless something draws attention to them (the same way men don't really notice their genitals unless something draws attention to them, like an erection or injury). A lot of times you'll see a female character who has these random sensuous thoughts about her tits. This is what men think women do because it's what a man would do if he were [[GenderBender womanified]]; and if he ''were'' womanified, he probably ''would'' notice his new tits for a while. But gradually they'd just become a part of his body. For a female character to do this well into her... whatever-age-she-is-when-the-story-starts... is heteronormative thinking, pure and simple.

What we ''are'' saying is that what counts as "feminine" and what counts as "masculine" is by no means universal; they change depending on the ''where'' and the ''when''. So do the ''responses'' to [[MasculineGirlFeminineBoy feminine men and masculine women]]. In some places, deviation is [[SeriousBusiness punished severely]]--there are constant tales out of the Middle East and India about people doing savage things to women because she acted on her sexual desires. In some places, people turn a blind eye; in AncientGrome, nobody cared who you slept with as long as you knocked up your wife. (Mythological Greece was very patriarchal; their word for wife, "gynē," also meant "womb" and gives us the modern word "gynecology". This tells you something about what Achaean men thought their women were good for.) And in some places you might even get applause for it: in feudal Japan, BoysLove was considered ''virtuous'' because it meant you were so RatedMForManly that women couldn't satisfy you! ...Of course, you were expected to be the {{seme}}. (We must have ''some'' standards here-AncientGrome felt the same way.) And this gets us right back to the first point about how the definitions of masculinity and femininity change depending on time and place. In most locales, the {{uke}}--the gay man who plays the role of the girl when it comes time for sexual intercourse--is considered perverted. On occasion, he is venerated, as he was in Shogunate Japan, but not most of the time. Think about modern American culture, where the idea of the seme does not even really ''exist'' (the closest is HardGay, which itself is almost a caricature), and the CampGay--you know, the effeminate one?--is the typical stereotype. When two Camp Gays get together, who's on top? American Homophobia would prefer we not answer that question (Which is a little hypocritical of American Homophobia, since it's them who insist that the dilemma exists by refusing to admit that gay men can be masculin, But we digress).

And spend some time, additionally, thinking about what your definition of "the opposite gender" even ''is'', because you should subvert it in your writing as much as possible. If not, it'll show. Consider ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the [[{{Doorstopper}} 14-book (!!!)]] magnum opus of author Robert Jordan. Almost every female character in it is a Type A {{Tsundere}}, simply because [[WriteWhoYouKnow that's what Jordan's wife is like]], and readers noticed quickly. Jordan ''did'' go to some lengths to justify his female characters being more comfortable with power and authority: the world is much more gender-even because, [[EternalRecurrence during the last Final Boss Fight]], the BigBad cursed all male wizards to go [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity batshit insane]]. 3,000 years later, male channelers are hunted down--by women--and "[[{{Depower}} gentled]]" in service of TheNeedsOfTheMany. When only women can use magic, of ''course'' patriarchy goes out the window. But even in a world where women can and do hold positions of enormous power (like "Amyrlin Seat," the elected president of the WitchSpecies--note the [[LegendFadesToMyth similarities]] between the title "Amyrlin" and the name "Merlin"), they wouldn't all have ''the same exact personality''. Robert Jordan's writing made it clear that while he understood ''a'' woman, he did not understand ''wom'''e'''n''.

Of course, it can be even more blunt than that. Examine the plot structure of your story and where your conflict comes from. If you are a man, are you constantly writing events where a female character screws up and a man has to fix it? If you are a woman, are all your male characters chowderheads being kept on the straight and narrow by their CloserToEarth female counterparts? It goes without saying that none of this is realistic. In the vast majority of social relationships--be it a friendship, a romance, a sexual relationship, or even just two people who happen to sit next to each other at work--''both'' parties make mistakes at different times, concerning different issues. Most people are right about some things and wrong about others. If characters who are right are always of one gender--whether or not it's the one you share--there's a blindspot in the way you think, and you might want to examine yourself.

It might also be worth checking out ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' and ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', because their showrunners were men. Two of the most prominent female-centric shows in recent history were run by men. This says a lot about patriarchy, but--more importantly for our purposes--proves that it is possible to do a good job writing characters of the gender you are not. Comparatively, the documentary ''Film/TheRedPill'', focusing on Men's Rights, was made by a woman. Though it does feature scripted characters, the representation is pro-men (though this had not been the filmmaker's initial intention, it's an interesting case)--showing that a female lens to a subject does not necessarily make it female-biased.

There is a fascinating book called ''[[http://amzn.com/0143038702 Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man]]''. The author, Norah Vincent, is a ButchLesbian who did a real-life SweetPollyOliver for 18 months for the purposes of journalism. It's one of the closest things we're going to get to a magical gender-flip ray; Vincent talks candidly about how men treat each other, and the perspective it gave her on being a woman. Sadly, no parallel book about men passing as women yet exists. (Note, in fact, that DudeLooksLikeALady is almost always PlayedForLaughs; there are very few dramas in which a man dresses as a woman.) However, the blog "Single Dad Laughing" did release an amusing entry on wearing sanitary napkins, "[[http://www.danoah.com/2015/06/a-letter-to-men-the-lesson-of-the-saggy-burrito-in-my-pants.html A Letter to Men: The Lesson of the Saggy Burrito in my Pants]]." Also check out the controversial but informative film, Film/TheRedPill.

It might also be worth checking out ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' and ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', because their showrunners were men. Two of the most prominent female-centric shows in recent history were run by men. This says a lot about patriarchy, but--more importantly for our purposes--proves that it is possible to do a good job writing characters of the gender you are not.

There is a fascinating book called ''[[http://amzn.com/0143038702 Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man]]''. The author, Norah Vincent, is a ButchLesbian who did a real-life SweetPollyOliver for 18 months for the purposes of journalism. It's one of the closest things we're going to get to a magical gender-flip ray; Vincent talks candidly about how men treat each other, and the perspective it gave her on being a woman. Sadly, no parallel book about men passing as women yet exists. (Note, in fact, that DudeLooksLikeALady is almost always PlayedForLaughs; there are very few dramas in which a man dresses as a woman.) However, the blog "Single Dad Laughing" did release an amusing entry on wearing sanitary napkins, "[[http://www.danoah.com/2015/06/a-letter-to-men-the-lesson-of-the-saggy-burrito-in-my-pants.html A Letter to Men: The Lesson of the Saggy Burrito in my Pants]]."

** AllGirlsWantBadBoys: {{Nice Guy}}s [[NiceGuysFinishLast finish last]] because kindness is feminine, and thus unmanly (see below). Additionally, women are too stupid to think with their big heads and will go for JerkWithAHeartOfJerk types ''because'' {{jerkass}}ery is manly. Finally, this can result in EntitledToHaveYou attitudes from men both Nice and Bad, precisely ''because'' they fit the stereotype.

** Women are discouraged from having bodily functions. If a man farts or burps in public, it’s typically PlayedForLaughs; if he smells like sweat, it’s not a big deal. But if a woman farts, or burps, or ''talks'' about farting or burping or--gasp!--pooping, then clearly she is an uncivilized savage. She must smell perfect at all times, even if she's still in the gym and just finished running five miles. And God ''forbid'' she [[NoPeriodsPeriod admit that she menstruates]]. This is because...

** AllMenArePerverts vs AllWomenArePrudes: [[AManIsAlwaysEager A real man participates in sex]] while [[MyGirlIsNotASlut a real woman abstains]]. Women are taught that they should only have sex with their husbands, and that being sexually active before then makes them DefiledForever. ''Men'' are taught that having an active pre-marital sex life makes them awesome, and ''failing'' to do so puts them straight into LoserArchetype territory.
*** A supertrope to the above; male sexuality is ''always'' considered laudable, regardless of what it is. Today we believe AllWomenArePrudes, but in AncientGrome, it was believed that AllWomenAreLustful; they were sexually out of control the way men are believed to be today. It was the man's job to have enough self-control for both of them, just as it is for women today. If he did this, he was considered studly and awesome. When a woman of today does it, she barely breaks even.

# [[GirlShowGhetto Being feminine is unmanly]]. Some things are feminine in nature, so men are not allowed to do them; if they do, they are sissies. Due to the influence of feminism, women are less limited in this way, but they pay other prices for it.

(Vaginas, though... Who knows. They are the source of all mysteries.)

Another potential source are post-op transgender people. They've lived in both bodies and can definitely provide you with some insight into the differences. However, there is a limit to what modern medicine can do; we can surgically alter the cosmetic aspects of the body (turn penis into vagina or vice versa), but actually shifting the ''function'' is beyond us. Someone who was born a man will never have a period or get pregnant, which is a ''bit'' of a big deal. Likewise, a female-to-male trans person can have phalloplasty and end up with a penis, but will not ejaculate (no testicles or prostate gland exist) and may have trouble achieving an erection--which is also something of a big deal, since [[RagingStiffie the darn thing gets hard at random times for no reason]]. Now, if you're sane, you're probably happy to ''not'' have to deal with that, and most guys probably would be too... but the point is, it ''happens'', and learning to deal with it is part of the experience of being male. Maybe one day science will bring that part of the experience to us, but right now there are limits.

For women, this is a little easier, since [[MostWritersAreMale the larger majority of fiction is written by men for men]]. Almost every BuddyCopShow, almost every {{Western}}, almost every action movie, ''huge'' swaths of ScienceFiction and {{Fantasy}}... (For those latter two, you can always just check out anything nominated by the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies," a politically-conservative voting bloc that attempted to control the nominations slate of the 2015 {{Hugo Award}}s.)

->''"My youngest granddaughter, when she ''was'' my youngest granddaughter, went to a birthday party. And after she came home, I asked her, were there many boys or many girls? And she said that she didn't know, because [[PinkGirlBlueBoy none of them had any clothes on]]!"''

!'''A foreward'''

Human beings are fairly simple creatures. We ''all'' want a few things:

There are more ways of looking at it; ''Franchise/TheSims'' has a maximum of eight biological needs[[note]]Sleep, Hunger, Comfort, Social Interactions, Fun, Hygiene, Excretion (I.E. pooping) and an Environment that is pleasant[[/note]], themselves based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs]] which assume that certain things are ignored if other, more important things are unfulfilled. (Maslow's work has been [[ScienceMarchesOn partially deprecated]], but nobody's been able to come up with anything better.) The point is that there are things that basically everybody wants to have, regardless of what those things are.

Look at your life, right now. Don't those needs basically consist of almost everything you do? Guess what: they're what almost ''everybody'' spends time on, regardless of whether they're male or female. And what that means for you is that men and women are ''a lot'' more similar than we are sometimes willing to credit.

Of course, these base drives raise a new question: now that we know what a person wants, how is he or she going to ''get'' it? And here's where gender starts to come in, because it has a big impact on ''execution''. To get food, water, shelter and money, a man is typically expected to go out and learn an industry; a woman is typically expected to... marry a man (GoldDigger, MRSDegree, etc). So this is where the differences come in.

"But that doesn't help me at all,” we can hear you protest. “I'm a man trying to write a woman/a woman trying to write a man! My own experience doesn't apply at all! It’s DifferentForGirls!" And to that we would reply: Nonsense. You, like your opposite-gender character, are subject to societal pressure. From the day you were born, you have dealt with the same social conditioning everyone has. What you were conditioned ''to be'' is different, but ''the conditioning itself'' is omnipresent.

It's hard to make generalized statements about All Women Everywhere and All Men Everywhere, because--again--all these opinions are at least partially dependent on place and time. But there are a few very general rules that define double standards:

If you look at the personalities around you, the ones owned by your friends and family, you will see this played out. Almost all (actual-people) personalities are a combination of masculine and feminine traits. Some of them may repress those traits to a greater or lesser extent (more on that later), but by and large they are combinations. The reality of the situation is that much of gender is culturally based; what counts as "masculine" or "feminine" depends on who you ask, and where you ask them, and when (more on that later, too). When you get down to it, people are people; write your character as a person first, a gender second, and you're good to go.

Additionally, we need to make a distinction ''between'' sex and gender, because many people conflate them. Your "sex" involves your chromosomes, from which descends your genitalia and a few other things (like boobs). Your "gender" involves, well, your gender role--how society trains you to act ''in light of'' your chromosomes and all the stuff that dangles from them. But, again, ''gender is very cultural''. Just take PinkGirlBlueBoy. It's NewerThanTheyThink; pink--an offshade of the very masculine red--used to be a male color, while blue--associated with IncorruptiblePurePureness via the TrueBlueFemininity exhibited by [[Literature/TheBible the Virgin Mary]]--is still at least partially female. In Asia, the Communist Party of China abolished the "StayInTheKitchen" mentality and encouraged women to become equal partners, with equal pay, in the economic process. (It worked, as it happened.) In South America, machismo is in... but includes being sensitive to one's partners and being a kind and loving father, something that stoic models of North-American masculinity do not include. It's all relative.

So: the definitions of "masculine" and "feminine", and reactions to people who break the mold, will change depending on the culture and time period your story is set in. You know what this means: ''research''. What ''did'' men do, in your setting? And what did women do? If, for instance, you set your story in AncientGrome, it might be tempting to shoot for the MenAreUncultured trope; your heroic Grecian or Roman of course wants to prove himself a rough-and-tumble son-of-a-bitch with no interest in mental exercise when he could be engaging in ''physical'' exercise--right? Nope; Ancient Greece had one of the highest per-capita ratios of {{Cultured Badass}}es and {{Genius Bruiser}}s in recorded history, and having both physical and mental fortitude was considered a mark of excellence. Creator/{{Socrates}}, ''the'' Philosopher and the father of [[ContemplateOurNavels Contemplating Our Navels]], served with distinction in several battles and is believed to have made his living as a stonecutter (navel-contemplation not being very profitable). Your epitome of MenAreUncultured would be considered in Greece what he's considered today: an idiot. And not in a good way.

Say you have Alexis, who has decided to go against the flow. Maybe she's a girl who wants to play AmericanFootball. Or maybe he's a boy who wants to learn ballet. (Aren't androgynous names fun?) How are the people ''around'' Alexis going to respond? The obvious answer is to say that all of them will disapprove, because [[RuleOfDrama that creates tension in the story]]... but since we all know Alexis is going to soldier on and become the best football dancer the world has ever seen, that opposition feels hollow. Perhaps, then, universal approval? Well, that too is unrealistic, not to mention a very poor {{Conflict}}-generator. There's probably ''some'' hide-bound conservative near Alexis who will protest their atypical proclivities.

This article has been accused of having a feminist bias. [[StrawmanHasAPoint It does.]] The reason it does is a practical one: feminism is the NecessaryWeasel that allows this article to exist. A more traditional (IE less liberal) view believes that men and women not only do not understand each other, but ''cannot''; this page is futile, and should be added to the PermanentRedLinkClub because nothing useful can be said on the subject. A traditional viewpoint insists that it is impossible to write a character of the opposite gender. For fairly obvious reasons, we have decided not to adhere to that viewpoint.

This is also why the RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment is important, and why contributors to this article have been instructed to ''break'' the rule about conversations in the main page. Feminism, for all its good works, ''is'' biased, and facing those biases is a part of how people experience gender today. It is important that the opposite viewpoint be heard. But we cannot start without feminism.

There are ''some'' workarounds. Most of your female friends once did not have breasts, and can probably tell you something about the changes caused by the changes. Male-to-female transsexuals have probably had similar experiences. And if you know anyone who has had to have a radical mastectomy--Creator/AngelinaJolie, for instance--she will have even more immediate recollections. These people can probably tell you something useful about how having breasts, or no longer having them, altered their behavior. Finding men who have had all their junk removed--or are willing to admit it--may be harder (again, manliness is all about sex), but they can provide similar insight in the new ways they were able to sit down after they no longer had extremely-easy-to-hurt things dangling between their legs.

Another potential source are post-op transsexuals. They've lived in both bodies and can definitely provide you with some insight into the differences. However, there is a limit to what modern medicine can do; we can surgically alter the cosmetic aspects of the body (turn penis into vagina or vice versa), but actually shifting the ''function'' is beyond us. Someone who was born a man will never have a period or get pregnant, which is a ''bit'' of a big deal. Likewise, a female-to-male transsexual can have phalloplasty and end up with a penis, but will not ejaculate (no testicles or prostate gland exist) and may have trouble achieving an erection--which is also something of a big deal, since [[RagingStiffie the darn thing gets hard at random times for no reason]]. Now, if you're sane, you're probably happy to ''not'' have to deal with that, and most guys probably would be too... but the point is, it ''happens'', and learning to deal with it is part of the experience of being male. Maybe one day science will bring that part of the experience to us, but right now there are limits.

Periods suck. Your body is expelling a piece of itself, and it’s coming out all gory and sticky, and you have to walk around with a chunk of wet cotton pressed against your downstairs to absorb it--how good a mood would ''you'' be in? Even worse, there are a lot of aches and pains associated with it: aside from the cramps as your uterus tears its own insides apart, you can have acne breaking out, you can get headaches, your breasts can get extremely sensitive or even feel like they're burning, you can feel sluggish and depressed, you can start [[WackyCravings craving certain foods]] (chocolate, salts, fats) to the point that it becomes an obsession, your sex drive can go completely off the charts in ''either'' direction... Of course, every woman’s different. Some remain chipper while some get really emotional. Some have pain while some don’t. The length of the process is different from person to person. Even the ''quantity'' of discharge can vary: TheOtherWiki claims that the average volume is 35 milliliters but that anything from 10 to 80 mL is still “considered typical.”

And that's why the list of necessary tropes is "None." There is almost nothing a woman is ''guaranteed'' to be, nor a man either. If a person would ''like'' to fit into traditional gender roles, he or she has the freedom to do so; and if he or she would not, that is also allowed. Feminism still has a long way to go, but this particular victory has been won, and should not be understated--particularly because it makes ''your'' job as a writer much easier. You will be trained to act a certain way depending on what genitals you have, but you are no longer obliged to accept that training.

Of course, these base drives raise a new question: now that we know what a person wants, how is he or she going to ''get'' it? And here's where gender starts to come in, because it has a big impact on ''methods''. To get food, water, shelter and money, a man is typically expected to go out and learn an industry; a woman is typically expected to... marry a man (GoldDigger, MRSDegree, etc). So this is where the differences come in.

Once again, we have good news for you: your opposite-gender character ''is not required to be {{troperiffic}}.'' As explained in the previous section, he or she today has a ''choice'' of what gender s/he presents to the world. If a woman wants to go out and be a high-powered business executive, she ''can'' be. If a man wants to be a househusband, he ''can'' be. Both of them are going to get odd looks whilst doing it, because patriarchy is not dead, but the option is open.

Few. In fact, none.

This makes the hardest kind of sense. In fact, we can hear you protesting now: "But there are clear and evident differences between men-folk and women-folk! What do you mean that this involves ''no'' necessary tropes? Surely there are things that are AlwaysFemale and AlwaysMale! --Heck, there must be, or else those would be redlinks!" Well, yes, there are such categories... but even the "Always Female" page proclaims that tropes can only make it onto that pages if they are "90% of the time" female-oriented. There isn't really anything that is now, these days, 100% female--nor anything that is 100% male either.

If you look at the personalities around you, the ones owned by your friends and family, you will see this played out. Almost all (actual-people) personalities are a combination of masculine and feminine traits. Some of them may repress those traits to a greater or lesser extent (more on that later), but by and large they are combinations. The reality of the situation is that much of gender is culturally based; what counts as "masculine" or "feminine" depends on who you ask, and where you ask them, and when. (More on that later.) When you get down to it, people are people; write your character as a person first, a gender second, and you're good to go.

Hell, "masculine" and "feminine" may not be the whole story. There's one in the middle, called "androgyny," a lack of male ''and'' female gender characteristics, which both men and women engage in at will. Business suits, for instance, are basically androgynous these days, because both men and women are expected to wear them; {{bishounen}} characters are often androgynous, having a mix of feminine traits (long hair; pretty facial features) and masculine traits (tall, lithe, martially talented). And if three isn't enough, some say there's more positions on the feminine-masculine spectrum than just those three.

The point we're trying to make here is this: sex is "assigned" to you in the womb, but ''gender'' is something you are ''taught''. (Okay, that too is a gross oversimplification, but it works for the purposes of this article.) This is how we have tropes like TomboyAndGirlyGirl, GenderBlenderName, MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: just because a person ''has'' girl-parts doesn't mean she has to ''play'' girl parts in her social life, or vice versa. Historically, women (and men!) would get in trouble for trying to do things that were traditionally arrogated to the AlwaysMale or AlwaysFemale category, but the fact that they tried to do so ''at all'' just proves our point: You can ''choose'' whether you want to be masculine or feminine, regardless of what junk you have.

''People are people''. Write your character as a person first, a gender second, and you're good to go.

So how do you write a character of the opposite sex? Simple: write one of your own sex, and then go from there.

There are more ways of looking at it; ''Franchise/TheSims'' has a maximum of eight biological needs[[note]]Sleep, Hunger, Comfort, Social Interactions, Fun, Hygiene, Excretion (IE pooping) and an Environment that is pleasant[[/note]], themselves based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs]] which assume that certain things are ignored if other, more important things are unfulfilled. (Maslow's work has been [[ScienceMarchesOn partially deprecated]], but nobody's been able to come up with anything better.) The point is that there are things that basically everybody wants to have, regardless of what those things are.

But let's assume that you want to write a character who is "stereotypical" in their gender--who sticks to the gender roles associated with their sex. How do we we write this person? The first step, paradoxically, is to examine yourself.

"But that doesn't help me at all,” I can hear you protest. “I'm a man trying to write a woman, or a woman trying to write a man! My own experience doesn't apply at all! It’s DifferentForGirls!" And to that I would reply, nonsense. You, like your opposite-gender character, are subject to societal pressure. From the day you were born, you have dealt with the same social conditioning everyone has. What you were conditioned ''to be'' is different, but ''the conditioning itself'' is omnipresent.

Let's just take crying. When you cried, how were you treated? If you were a boy, you were probably told to man up and stop being a wimp, because MenDontCry, you pansy. So, you learned to control your tears. If you were a girl, you were probably ignored and remained uncommented on... though not always. In private, you may have been ''encouraged'' to cry, since TenderTears can be used to CharmPerson. And, as such, you were conditioned to be more generous with your sobbing. And thus society proceeded along logical and accepted lines. After all, emotionality is ''good'' in a women... but bad in a man.

Here we start getting into the territory of {{Double Standard}}s, those old chestnuts that dominate so much of gender politics. Women are expected to be one thing and men another, because male and female personalities are completely, polar-opposite, YinYangClash- or MarsAndVenusGenderContrast-level different. This is the fundamental belief of patriarchy: that men and women are DifferentAsNightAndDay, and '''''never''''' the twain shall meet. A great deal of social conditioning goes into programming people to believe this. [[CaptainObvious This logic sucks]], but it's useful to us as writers because it lets us apply our experiences. Whatever we were taught to be, we just do the opposite.

# Women are kind, men are mean. If a thing involves being nice, men should not do it; if a thing involves being mean, women should not do it.
** ARealManIsAKiller, ManlyMenCanHunt: men are encouraged to find their capacity for violence. This is valid if you live in a hunter-gatherer society, but is ValuesDissonance in any society that has evolved into something more complex (and if you can read this, yours probably has). Meanwhile, women can only inflict AmusingInjuries, and any attempt to do so is PlayedForLaughs (DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale, CatFight, etc).
** AllGirlsWantBadBoys: {{Nice Guy}}s finish last because kindness is feminine, and thus unmanly (see below). Additionally, women are too stupid to think with their big heads and will go for JerkWithAHeartOfJerk types ''because'' jerkery is manly. Finally, this can result in EntitledToHaveYou attitudes from men both Nice and Bad, precisely ''because'' they fit the stereotype.
** UglyGuyHotWife: Women are much more encouraged to fit into their culture’s standards of physical attractiveness. If a man doesn’t, he gets negative attention for it, but rather less of it; it's okay for men to deviate from the norm. (Proof of concept: during her 2016 campaign for the American presidency, how many times did Hillary Clinton get criticized for not smiling enough? More times than all of her competitors combined.)

** Women are inherently dirty. There are a ''lot'' of body-shaming messages that go towards women, many of them contradictory: BuxomIsBetter, but if you ''do'' have nice tits, you're encouraging male attention. A woman should be perfectly hairless ''and'' should be an ungroomed Amazon. A woman should have children, but never menstruate (or enjoy sex). A woman should exhibit IncorruptiblePurePureness ''and'' BeAWhoreToGetYourMan. Men can ''do'' dirty things (work with their hands, fart, belch, scratch themselves in public), but women ''are'' dirty ''by existing'', and often overcompensate in their grooming habits.
** MenDontCry vs TenderTears, as covered above. As [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Sansa Stark]] was taught, "Tears are a lady's weapon." In a man they are a sign of weakness. More generally, men are expected to be TheStoic whilst women are allowed to use their emotions to get their way.
# Men are powerful, women are powerless. BrainsAndBrawn; MenActWomenAre; MenAreStrongWomenArePretty. Women need men to do things for them. This not only means that women should StayInTheKitchen, and that there’s NeverASelfMadeWoman, it also enforces WomenAreWiser (BumblingDad, MachoDisasterExpedition, MenCantKeepHouse, etc).
** AllMenArePerverts vs AllWomenArePrudes: A real man participates in sex while a real woman abstains. Women are taught that they should only have sex with their husbands, and that being sexually active before then makes them DefiledForever. ''Men'' are taught that having an active pre-marital sex life makes them awesome, and ''failing'' to do so puts them straight into LoserArchetype territory.
*** A supertrope to the above" male sexuality is ''always'' considered laudable, regardless of what it is. Today we believe AllWomenArePrudes, but in AncientGrome, it was believed that AllWomenAreLustful; they were sexually out of control the way men are believed to be today. It was the man's job to have enough self-control for both of them, just as it is for women today. If he did this, he was considered studly and awesome. When a woman of today does it, she barely breaks even.
** SatelliteLoveInterest. Women are socialized to define themselves according to their romantic lives and romantic partners. At a time when boys are throwing {{GI Joe}}s or PowerRangers toys at each other’s faces, girls spend time thinking about the trappings of a relationship--house, kids, the husband’s career, and especially the White Wedding she hopes to have one day. (CommonKnowledge insists that men are completely disinterested in any aspect of the wedding except for [[AllMenArePerverts the consummation]].) And almost every lifestyle choice a woman makes--hairstyle, make-up and clothing; hobbies & pastimes; career; exercise & eating habits--will be judged in terms of whether it furthers her ability to get a man. A woman never does things just because she ''wants'' to do them; it's all part of her plan to get a man.

# Being feminine is unmanly. Some things are feminine in nature, so men are not allowed to do them; if they do, they are sissies. Due to the influence of feminism, women are less limited in this way, but they pay other prices for it.
** PinkIsForSissies. Women can wear just about any color, but any colors strongly associated with women (which is mostly pink in America, purple to a lesser extent) are completely off-limits for men. The same is true for clothes; it's almost a DeadHorseTrope that Scottish men wearing traditional garb (IE kilts) are considered unmanly simply because a kilt is similar--''similar''--to a skirt. (And men from the 1600s would be laughed at by today's population for wearing high heels, even though high heels started out as a men-only accessory, simply because [[ValuesDissonance today they are the opposite]].) Hobbies and other lifestyle choices are segregated in this way: knitting, crocheting, dancing, flower arranging and other stereotypically female pastimes are simply off the table for men. And let's not even ''get'' into names! Many names that started off as male-exclusive--[[http://www.disneybaby.com/blog/25-names-that-used-to-be-boy-names/ Meredith]], [[http://firsttoknow.com/13-girls-names-used-exclusively-male/ Evelyn]], [[http://nameberry.com/blog/unisex-baby-names-names-that-morphed-from-blue-to-pink Ashley]]--are now only seen on women, and a number of other {{Gender Blender Name}}s are likely to follow.

** A related but prevalent trope: being male is the default setting in many workplace environments, and women are evaluated on how well they can be male. And when, as you might expect, they're not the greatest at it, they are ''penalized'' for failing to be male. Meanwhile, if a male colleague were to display identical behavior, his coworkers would HandWave it as him, y'know, [[TriviallyObvious having a personality]].
** CampGay. Homosexual men are weird because being gay involves--guess what--''having feminine traits''. Even worse, it involves a man being the receiving partner in a sexual transaction--in other words, being powerless, instead of being powerful, the way a "''real'' man" should. (Lesbians, on the other hand, get off scot-free, because their sexual interactions don’t involve [[SarcasmMode perverting Sacred Masculinity]] and thus are morally irrelevant. Well, aside from men's cherished belief that [[ItsAllAboutMe truly satisfying sex must involve a penis]].)
** Part of the reason men are required to be TheStoic is because women are allowed to show emotions; consequently, emotions are a feminine thing, and men must not show them. This becomes an even ''bigger'' DoubleStandard when we point out that women who ''do'' use their emotions to get their way are considered weak and undisciplined, especially if this takes place in a workplace environment. (And while [[DumbassHasAPoint there is something valid to be said about professionalism]], that still leaves the problem of punishing women for ''conforming'' to societal norms.) The UnfortunateImplications are, simply, that ''emotions'' are a sign of weakness; the reason women are allowed to exhibit them is that they're [[StayInTheKitchen weak to begin with]].
** And, let's face it: ''femininity itself is seen as a negative quality''. One of the worst things you can call a(n American) woman is a [[CountryMatters cunt]], to indicate that she is cruel and unpleasant--or, in other words, unkind; one of the worst things you can call a(n American) man is a pussy, to indicate that he is weak and cowardly--or, in other words, not mean. ''Both'' are slang terms for the vagina. In and of itself, "pussy" is not a particularly shocking word; it has been acceptable on television ever since [[Series/AreYouBeingServed 1972]]. The C-word, on the other hand, is the dirtiest word in the English language, surpassing even the PrecisionFStrike.[[note]]The N-word is a strange case; its potency depends on [[NWordPrivileges who says it]].[[/note]] This says something about how much derogation women are thought to need. And the fact that the most hated and derision-worthy element of a woman is her vagina--not her uterus or ovaries, from which she brings forth life; not her [[BuxomIsBetter breasts]] or [[StuffyOldSongsAboutTheButtocks rear]], which are her most visible symbols of femininity; but her vagina, the organ with which she interacts sexually with men--points out how deeply misogyny is built into English-speaking culture, values and language.

If you defy these, you’ll likely feel pressure--some from your peers, some from society, and some that may even have been ''internalized'' into your personality due to your culture’s (successful) brainwashing--to conform. After all, ''you’re not fitting your gender roles!!'' Almost everyone feels this pressure, and the question of how they resist or adapt to it, and ''which parts'' they resist or adapt to, is fertile ground for CharacterDevelopment.

Walking in these shoes can be, well, daunting. Fortunately, you have an imagination, which will allow you to walk in the shoes of someone else who has lived under these double standards, under different ones from you. You've also probably noticed some of them at work, or heard people you are close to talking about them. If you have friends of the opposite sex (you probably do), you can ask them for help. Finally, there's always the {{Double Standard}}s article here on TVTropes to help you out--that’s where ''we'' got the above list. Study them and pay attention to the ones we’ve talked about.

There's one issue we've dodged so far in the article: the ''physical'' differences between men and women. Anyone with breasts can tell you that you have to learn to manage them in your everyday life, as can anyone with testicles. They change your posture, your clothing, your movement, your sense of personal space... And, if you're writing a {{lemon}} or some other form of ExplicitContent, they have very serious ramifications. What's that ''like''? '''How does it feel to have a body of the opposite sex?''' How do I write that?

No, seriously. There are things you can ask people about social conditioning and the double standards, but matters of mere physicality are a bit harder to pin down. The problem with weighted opposites is that in order to describe one, you have to be able to describe the other. I can't ask you whether you're "austrepidacious" if you don't know what it means to be ''not'' austrepidacious. Weighted-opposites states need to be before-and-after before we can really make a comparison. And, until and unless somebody perfects some sort of magic GenderBender ray, we're not going to have much in the way of understanding what it's like to be a woman one day and a man the next.

There are ''some'' workarounds. Most of your female friends once did not have breasts, and can probably tell you something about the changes caused by the changes. Male-to-female transsexuals have probably had similar experiences. And if you know anyone who has had to have a radical mastectomy--AngelinaJolie, for instance--she will have even more immediate recollections. These people can probably tell you something useful about how having breasts, or no longer having them, altered their behavior. Finding men who have had all their junk removed--or are willing to admit it--may be harder, but they can provide similar insight in the new ways they were able to sit down after they no longer had extremely-easy-to-hurt things dangling between their legs.

Another potential source are post-op transsexuals. They've lived in both bodies and can definitely provide you with some insight into the differences. However, there is a limit to what modern medicine can do; we can surgically alter the cosmetic aspects of the body (turn penis into vagina or vice versa), but actually shifting the ''function'' is beyond us. Someone who was born a man will never have a period or get pregnant, which is a ''bit'' of a big deal. Likewise, a female-to-male transsexual can have phalloplasty and end up with a penis, but will not ejaculate (no testicles or prostate gland exist) and may have trouble achieving erection--which is also something of a big deal, since the darn thing gets hard at random times for no reason. Now, if you're sane, you're probably happy to ''not'' have to deal with that, and most guys probably would be too... but the point is, it ''happens'', and learning to deal with it is part of the experience of being male. Maybe one day science will bring that part of the experience to us, but right now there are limits.

The good news, though, is this: you don't know the answers to any of these questions, or perhaps you know them as well as anyone can. ''Everyone else is in the same boat.'' There '''is''' no authority about the differences between living in a male body vs living in a female body, so it kind of doesn't matter if you get it wrong; getting it right is physically impossible. Now, certain choices are likely to be incorrect--men are unlikely to be blase about wearing tight underwear because they could easily jam something in an uncomfortable position; women with large bosoms will not elect to go bra-less in any situation where their breasts might swing around loose--but by the same token, every person is different, and there are no rules that are 100% true about every woman or every man. For every well-endowed woman who wears a bra almost all the time, there's one who prefers not being restricted, regardless of the inconvenience. ...Well, maybe ten to one, but the simple fact is that such a person ''could'' exist, and--if you're a good writer and can provide good CharacterDevelopment--you can justify her unusual behavior.

First off, there is a stereotype that men are totally unconcerned about their appearance, and will happily go out in public unshaven, with mismatched socks, and generally in an unfinished state that no self-respecting woman would allow herself to be seen in. This leads a lot of women to believe that men are simply immune to the body-image issues epitomized by tropes like HollywoodHomely or HollywoodPudgy. The truth is, men ''do'' have body-image issues. But men are trained not to show their emotions, especially not their insecurities. Additionally, it can be much harder for men to get any sort of grounding in the area because they are expected to be islands unto themselves. If a woman were to go to her girl-friends and say, “I’m concerned that my arms have too much fat on them,” they will be able to point out a dozen other women around her who have fatter ones. Male friends would not be able to, because men are not actually allowed to look at each other, not in the frank assessments necessary to get any grounding as to what actual human beings look like these days. So they keep it to themselves. But that doesn't mean they don't feel it.

Facial hair is both a blessing and a curse. A well-created and distinguished beard or moustache can add enormous presence and dignity to a face... but a wimpy one just looks dumb. And facial hair is not created equally: some people just don’t have a lot of it, and can’t grow it fast or thick enough to be presentable in public.

It is difficult to describe the sensation of a GroinAttack. The instantaneous reaction is the "Fight or Flight" instinct which often manifests as anger. In addition to the standard pain due to a strike anywhere else on the body, there is an intense, throbbing pain that makes one feel like vomiting, similar to being punched in the stomach, that encompasses everything between the groin and the stomach, especially in the stomach and testicles. Even a glancing blow is enough to cause this sort of reaction, but other times even a fairly solid blow can surprisingly fail to connect just right. Prolonged unsatisfied arousal (a.k.a. "blue balls") can also cause very similar effects.

Periods suck. Your body is expelling a piece of itself, and it’s coming out all gory and sticky, and you have to walk around with a chunk of wet cotton pressed against your downstairs to absorb it--how good a mood would ''you'' be in? Even worse, there are a lot of aches and pains associated with it: aside from the cramps as your uterus tears its own insides apart, you can have acne breaking out, you can get headaches, your breasts can get extremely sensitive or even feel like they're burning, you can feel sluggish and depressed, you can start craving certain foods (chocolate, salts, fats) to the point that it becomes an obsession, your sex drive can go completely off the charts in ''either'' direction... Of course, every woman’s different. Some remain chipper while some get really emotional. Some have pain while some don’t. The length of the process is different from person to person. Even the ''quantity'' of discharge can vary: TheOtherWiki claims that the average volume is 35 milliliters but that anything from 10 to 80 mL is still “considered typical.”

Another pitfall is the social differences between men and women. We've covered them to a certain extent, in terms of gender roles, but here we're going to tackle something else: ''how men and women treat each other''. Much of gender politics is tied up in these things, and much of the hard work of repairing or undoing the current state of gender politics will take place here. There is much that could be said, but here's some basics:
* In mixed-gender social situations, men are typically accorded the place of dominance. This happens in overt ways--most highly-paid corporate executives are men; women get paid less; men still dominate the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math), not to mention politics, media and religion--but also in subtle ways, like the catcalling thing described above where men are allowed to sexually appraise just about any woman they want to.
** Additionally, many cultures believe that the "JustFriends" or "LikeBrotherAndSister" tropes are bullshit--including, in some cases, the tropes themselves. Men and women, it's believed, cannot coexist for much time before flirting begins (whether one-sided or mutual). This is an extension of the whole MarsAndVenusGenderContrast thing; women and men are ''so'' different, it's believed, that the only thing they have in common, or ''can'' have in common, is that they want to have sex with each other. (And even then there will be arguments. Doesn't that sound like a pleasant marriage, by the way?--disagreeing with your spouse about every single thing, and never being able to find common ground? Because, according to patriarchy, that's a correct marriage.)
* In single-gender social situations, it's a RunningGag that men don't really talk about things. This is partially because of all them double standards. If a man is pleased, or offended, or dismayed, he goes out of his way ''not'' to show it to other men... because, remember, displaying emotion is a ''giiiiirl'' thing. And even if he's right, other men will still shame him for having feelings at all. However, this does not mean that men do not and cannot have meaningful conversations; it just means that a man is more likely to be careful about whom he has those conversations ''with'', since he needs to trust that the other party will listen to him and/or not make fun of him.

Yet ''another'' pitfall is culture. Much of the above draws from American culture, but each nation and culture has its own standards about what's normal for men and what's normal for women, and they don't always match: hence ValuesDissonance. Even worse, cultures ''evolve''. As mentioned above, what's normal for American women today would have been unthinkable in the 1910s or even the 1950s. More change from place to place and time to time.

Now, we are not saying that there are certain things a person just can't do in time-and-place combinations. The literature supports this: almost every culture ever has stories about {{Action Girl}}s, and most of them have stories about feminine boys too who were celebrated for their willingness to follow their hearts. People want to be who they want to be, and typically they will find ways to do so.

What we ''are'' saying is that what counts as "feminine" and what counts as "masculine" is by no means universal; they change depending on the ''where'' and the ''when''. So do the ''responses'' to feminine men and masculine women. In some places, deviation is punished severely--there are constant tales out of the Middle East and India about people doing savage things to women because she acted on her sexual desires. In some places, people turn a blind eye; in AncientGrome, nobody cared who you slept with as long as you knocked up your wife. (Mythological Greece was very patriarchal; their word for wife, "gynē," also meant "womb" and gives us the modern word "gynecology". This tells you something about what Achaean men thought their women were good for.) And in some places you might even get applause for it: in feudal Japan, BoysLove was considered ''virtuous'' because it meant you were so RatedMForManly that women couldn't satisfy you! ...Of course, you were expected to be the {{seme}}. (We must have ''some'' standards here-AncientGrome felt the same way.) And this gets us right back to the first point about how the definitions of masculinity and femininity change depending on time and place. In most locales, the {{uke}}--the gay man who plays the role of the girl when it comes time for sexual intercourse--is considered perverted. On occasion he is venerated, as he was in Shogunate Japan, but not most of the time. Think about modern American culture, where the idea of the seme does not even really ''exist'' (the closest is HardGay, which itself is almost a caricature), and the CampGay--you know, the effeminate one?--is the typical stereotype. When two Camp Gays get together, who's on top? American Homophobia would prefer we not answer that question. (Which is a little hypocritical of American Homophobia, since it's he who insists that the dilemma exist by refusing to admit that gay men can be masculine. But we digress.)

So: the definitions of "masculine" and "feminine", and reactions to people who break the mold, will change depending on the culture and time period your story is set in. You know what this means: ''research''. What ''did'' men do, in your setting? And what did women do? If, for instance, you set your story in AncientGrome, it might be tempting to shoot for the MenAreUncultured trope; your heroic Grecian or Roman of course wants to prove himself a rough-and-tumble son-of-a-bitch with no interest in mental exercise when he could be engaging in ''physical'' exercise--amirite? No, you're not; Ancient Greece had one of the highest per-capita ratios of {{Cultured Badass}}es and {{Genius Bruiser}}s in recorded history, and having both physical and mental fortitude was considered a mark of excellence. Creator/{{Socrates}}, THE Philosopher and the father of [[ContemplateOurNavels Contemplating Our Navels]], served with distinction in several battles and is believed to have made his living as a stonecutter (navel-contemplation not being very profitable). Your epitome of MenAreUncultured would be considered in Greece what he's considered today: an idiot. And not in a good way.

Be very, very wary of getting {{Mode Lock}}ed. When you're starting out, it's easy to just stick to that which is stereotypical about women (catty, judged by society, concerned with male attention) and men (sloppy, obsessed with sports and cars, disinterested in his emotions). But this can get old quickly, not to mention undermine the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. "StopBeingStereotypical" is difficult to take seriously if a character says it; if ''the reader'' says it, you're in serious trouble.

And spend some time, additionally, thinking about what your definition of "the opposite gender" even ''is'', because you should subvert it in your writing as much as possible. If not, it'll show. Consider ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the 14-book (!!!) magnum opus of author Robert Jordan. Almost every female character in it is a Type A {{Tsundere}}, simply because [[WriteWhoYouKnow that's what Jordan's wife is like]], and readers noticed quickly. Jordan ''did'' go to some lengths to justify his female characters being more comfortable with power and authority: the world is much more gender-even because, [[EternalRecurrence during the last Final Boss Fight]], the BigBad cursed all male wizards to go [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity batshit insane]]. 3000 years later, male channelers are hunted down--by women--and "[[{{Depower}} gentled]]" in service of TheNeedsOfTheMany. When only women can use magic, of ''course'' patriarchy goes out the window. But even in a world where women can and do hold positions of enormous power (like "Amyrlin Seat," the elected president of the WitchSpecies--note the [[LegendFadesToMyth similarities]] between the title "Amyrlin" and the name "Merlin"), they wouldn't all have ''the same personality''. Robert Jordan's writing made it clear that while understood ''a'' woman, he did not understand ''women''.

Of course, it can be even more blunt than that. Examine the plot structure of your story and where conflict comes from. If you are a man, are you constantly writing events where a female character screws up and a man has to fix it? If you are a woman, are all your male characters chowderheads being kept on the straight and narrow by their CloserToEarth female counterparts? It goes without saying that none of this is realistic. In the vast majority of social relationships--be it a friendship, a romance, a sexual relationship, or even just two people who happen to sit next to each other at work--''both'' parties make mistakes at different times, concerning different issues. Most people are right about some things and wrong about others. If characters who are right are always of one gender--whether or not it's the one you share--there's a blindspot in the way you think, and you might want to examine yourself.

You have your character, Alexis, who has decided to go against the flow. Maybe she's a girl who wants to play AmericanFootball. Or maybe he's a boy who wants to learn ballet. (Aren't {{Gender Blender Name}}s fun?) How are the people ''around'' Alexis going to respond? The obvious answer is to say that all of them will disapprove, because that creates tension in the story... but since we all know Alexis is going to soldier on and become the best football dancer the world has ever seen, that opposition feels hollow. Perhaps, then, universal approval? Well, that too is unrealistic. There's probably ''some'' hide-bound conservative near Alexis who will protest their atypical proclivities.

And here's the fun part: TakeAThirdOption ''again''. Which characters will provide support, and which scorn? And why? As an author you can have a ''great'' deal of fun subverting expectations. The muscle-bound quarterback who tries to scare Alexis off the field: maybe he's a ShellShockedVeteran who has seen too many friends injured while trying to play, and is concerned that a girl--typically the more fragile of the human species--will get not so much "injured" as "paralyzed from the neck down." And the one who is supportive and encourages her: perhaps he's secretly a male supremacist and is trying to get her in over her head so that she ''does'' get hurt, and he can point and laugh. Motivation is motivation, but it can be expressed in a myriad of different ways, and you don't by any means need to stick to the stereotypes or traditions. Alexis sure isn't.

Another possible subversion is for Alexis to try out their new cross-gender-role experience and then decide it's ''not'' everything it's turned out to be, that sticking to traditional gender roles are more preferable. This runs a heavy risk of becoming a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop, but it ''is'' a legitimate decision. There's still a battle going on within feminism over the "StayInTheKitchen" trope: some feminists believe that a woman voluntarily choosing to be a housewife or homemaker is immoral and reactionary[[note]]A "reactionary" holds the position that society should ''regress'' to a former state[[/note]]. Your story could take the opposing attitude; its {{Aesop}} could be, "It's okay to stick to tradition, if that's what you genuinely want." (And, for the record, most feminists would agree with this; it's only the ''really'' radical ones who believe that you are morally obligated to ignore your own desires in favor of embracing progress.)

!'''Departments'''
!!'''Set Designer''' / '''Location Scout'''
!!'''Props Department'''
!!'''Costume Designer'''
!!'''Casting Director'''
!!'''Stunt Department'''

For women, this is a little easier, since the larger majority of fiction is written by men for men. Almost every BuddyCopShow, almost every {{Western}}, almost every action movie, ''huge'' swaths of ScienceFiction and {{Fantasy}}... (For those latter two, you can always just check out anything nominated by the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies," a politically-conservative voting bloc that attempted to control the nominations slate of the 2015 {{Hugo Award}}s.)

Additionally, we need to make a distinction ''between'' sex and gender, because many people conflate them. Your "sex" involves your chromosomes, from which descends your genitalia and a few other things (like boobs). Your "gender" involves, well, your gender role--how society trains you to act ''in light of'' your chromosomes and all the stuff that dangles from them. But, again, ''gender is very cultural''. Just take PinkGirlBlueBoy. It's NewerThanTheyThink; pink--an offshade of the very masculine red--used to be a male color, while blue--associated with IncorruptiblePurePureness via [[Literature/TheBible the Virgin Mary]]--used to be female. In Asia, the Communist Party of China abolished the "StayInTheKitchen" mentality and encouraged women to become equal partners, with equal pay, in the economic process. (It worked, as it happened.) In South America, machismo is in... but includes being sensitive to one's partners and being a kind and loving father, something that stoic models of North-American masculinity do not include. It's all relative.

* Food, water, shelter and sleep, so that we can continue to live, and in some comfort. Money, by extension, because it can be exchanged for such things.
* Companionship: friendship, love, family, sex. (This one is probably the most variable, as there are definite archetypes of people who [[IWorkAlone don't want friends]] or [[UsefulNotes/{{Asexual}} sex]]).

* Order: a sense that all is right with the world. We occupy our proper place, we are appropriately respected for what we do, and the same is true for others. If we don’t feel this, the urge to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong can emerge, and can lead to both bad things ([[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} The Tragedy of Macbeth]]) and good ( [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement The American Civil Rights Movement]]).

There are more ways of looking at it; ''Franchise/TheSims'' has a maximum of eight biological needs[[note]]Sleep, Hunger, Comfort, Social Interactions, Fun, Hygiene, Excretion (IE pooping) and an Environment that is pleasant[[/note]], themselves based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs]] which assume that certain things are ignored if other, more important things are unfulfilled. (Maslow's work has been [[ScienceMarchesOn partially deprecated]], but nobody's been able to come up with anything better.) The point is that there are things that basically everybody wants to have.

Of course, these base drives raise a new question: now that we know what a person wants, how is he or she going to ''get'' it? And here's where gender starts to come in, because it has a big impact on ''methods''. To get food, water, shelter and money, a man is typically expected to go out and learn an industry; a woman is typically expected to... [[GoldDigger marry a man]]. So this is where the differences come in.

** UglyGuyHotGirl: Women are much more encouraged to fit into their culture’s standards of physical attractiveness. If a man doesn’t, he gets negative attention for it, but rather less of it; it's okay for men to deviate from the norm. (Proof of concept: during her 2016 campaign for the American presidency, how many times did Hillary Clinton get criticized for not smiling enough? More times than all of her competitors combined.)
** Women are discouraged from having bodily functions. If a man farts or burps in public, it’s typically PlayedForLaughs; if he smells like sweat, it’s not a big deal. But if a woman farts, or burps, or ''talks'' about farting or burping or--gasp!--pooping, then clearly she is an uncivilized savage. She must smell perfect at all times, even if she's still in the gym and just finished running five miles. And God ''forbid'' she [[NoPeriodsPeriod admit that she menstruates]].

*** To an even more general extent, male sexuality ''at all'' is considered laudable, regardless of what it is. Today we believe AllWomenArePrudes, but in AncientGrome, it was believed that AllWomenAreLustful; they were sexually out of control the way men are believed to be today. It was the man's job to have enough self-control for both of them, just as it is for women today. If he did this, he was considered studly and awesome. When a woman of today does it, she barely breaks even.

** And, let's face it: ''femininity itself is seen as a negative quality''. One of the worst things you can call a(n American) woman is a [[CountryMatters cunt]], to indicate that she is cruel and unpleasant--or, in other words, unkind; one of the worst things you can call a(n American) man is a pussy, to indicate that he is weak and cowardly--or, in other words, not mean. ''Both'' are slang terms for the vagina. In and of itself, "pussy" is not a particularly shocking word; it has been acceptable on television ever since [[Series/AreYouBeingServed 1972]]. The C-word, on the other hand, is the dirtiest word in the English language, surpassing even the PrecisionFStrike.[[note]]The N-word is a strange case; its potency depends on [[NWordPrivileges who says it].[[/note]] This says something about how much derogation women are thought to need. And the fact that the most hated and derision-worthy element of a woman is her vagina--not her uterus or ovaries, from which she brings forth life; not her [[BuxomIsBetter breasts]] or [[StuffyOldSongsAboutTheButtocks rear]], which are her most visible symbols of femininity; but her vagina, the organ with which she interacts sexually with men--points out how deeply misogyny is built into English-speaking culture, values and language.

** And, let's face it: ''femininity itself is seen as a negative quality''. One of the worst things you can call a(n American) woman is a [[CountryMatters cunt]], to indicate that she is cruel and unpleasant--or, in other words, unkind; one of the worst things you can call a(n American) man is a pussy, to indicate that he is weak and cowardly--or, in other words, not mean. ''Both'' are slang terms for the vagina. In and of itself, "pussy" is not a particularly shocking word; it has been acceptable on television ever since [[Series/AreYouBeingServed 1972]. The C-word, on the other hand, is the dirtiest word in the English language, surpassing even the PrecisionFStrike.][[note]]The N-word is a strange case; its potency depends on [[NWordPrivileges who says it]].[[/note]] This says something about how much derogation women are thought to need. And the fact that the most hated and derision-worthy element of a woman is her vagina--not her uterus or ovaries, from which she brings forth life; not her [[BuxomIsBetter breasts]] or [[StuffyOldSongsAboutTheButtocks rear]], which are her most visible symbols of femininity; but her vagina, the organ with which she interacts sexually with men--points out how deeply misogyny is built into English-speaking culture, values and language.

** And, let's face it: ''femininity itself is seen as a negative quality''. One of the worst things you can call a(n American) woman is a [[CountryMatters cunt]], to indicate that she is cruel and unpleasant--or, in other words, unkind; one of the worst things you can call a(n American) man is a pussy, to indicate that he is weak and cowardly--or, in other words, not mean. ''Both'' are slang terms for the vagina. In and of itself, "pussy" is not a particularly shocking word; it has been acceptable on television ever since [[Series/AreYouBeingServed 1972]. The C-word, on the other hand, is the dirtiest word in the English language, surpassing even the PrecisionFStrike.[[note]]The N-word is a strange case; its potency depends on [[NWordPrivileges who says it]].[[/note]] This says something about how much derogation women are thought to need. And the fact that the most hated and derision-worthy element of a woman is her vagina--not her uterus or ovaries, from which she brings forth life; not her [[BuxomIsBetter breasts]] or [[StuffyOldSongsAboutTheButtocks rear]], which are her most visible symbols of femininity; but her vagina, the organ with which she interacts sexually with men--points out how deeply misogyny is built into English-speaking culture, values and language.

** Women are much more encouraged to fit into their culture’s standards of physical attractiveness. If a man doesn’t, he gets negative attention for it, but rather less of it; it's okay for men to deviate from the norm.
** Women are discouraged from having bodily functions. If a man farts or burps in public, it’s typically PlayedForLaughs; if he smells like sweat, it’s not a big deal. But if a woman farts, or burps, or ''talks'' about farting or burping or--gasp!--pooping, then clearly she is an uncivilized savage. She must smell perfect at all times, even if she's still in the gym and just finished running five miles. And God ''forbid'' she ever admit that she menstruates.
** MenDontCry vs TenderTears, as covered above. As [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Sansa Stark]] was taught, “Tears are a lady’s weapon.” In a man they are a sign of weakness. More generally, men are expected to be TheStoic whilst women are allowed to use their emotions to get their way.
# Men are powerful, women are powerless. BrainsAndBrawn, MenActWomenAre, MenAreStrongWomenArePretty. Women need men to do things for them. This not only means that women should StayInTheKitchen, and that there’s NeverASelfMadeWoman, it also enforces WomenAreWiser (BumblingDad, MachoDisasterExpedition, MenCantKeepHouse, etc).

*** To an even more general extent, male sexuality ''at all'' is considered laudable, regardless of what it is. Today we believe AllWomenArePrudes, but in AncientGrome, it was believed that AllWomenAreLustful; they were sexually out of control the way men are believed to be today. It was the man's job to have enough self-control for both of them, just as it is for women today. But the rewards are completely different. When an ancient-Greek man did this, he got bonus points on his KarmaMeter. When a modern woman does it, she barely breaks even.
** SatelliteLoveInterest. Women are socialized to define themselves according to their romantic lives and romantic partners. At a time when boys are throwing {{GI Joe}}s or PowerRangers toys at each other’s faces, girls spend time thinking about the trappings of a relationship--house, kids, the husband’s career, and especially the White Wedding she hopes to have one day. (CommonKnowledge insists that men are completely disinterested in any aspect of the wedding except for [[AllMenArePerverts the consummation]].) And almost every lifestyle choice a woman makes--hairstyle, make-up and clothing; hobbies & pastimes; career; exercise & eating habits--will be judged in terms of whether it furthers her ability to get a man. A woman never does things just because ''she'' wants to do them.

** MoustacheDePlume. For a woman to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field, she has to hide her femininity. She might also have to over-compensate for it, at which point she’s likely to be considered a bitch. This segues into a separate but prevalent trope: being male is the default setting in many workplace environments, and women are evaluated on how well they can be male. And when, as you might expect, they're not the greatest at it, they are ''penalized'' for failing to be male, whereas a male colleague displaying identical behavior would simply be written off as, y'know, [[TriviallyObvious having a personality]].

** And, let's face it: ''femininity itself is seen as a negative quality''. One of the worst things you can call a(n American) woman is a [[CountryMatters cunt]], to indicate that she is cruel and unpleasant--or, in other words, mean; one of the worst things you can call a(n American) man is a pussy, to indicate that he is weak and cowardly--or, in other words, not strong. ''Both'' are slang terms for the vagina. In and of itself, "pussy" is not a particularly shocking word; it has been acceptable on television ever since [[Series/AreYouBeingServed 1972]]; the C-word, on the other hand, is the dirtiest word in the English language, surpassing even the F-bomb.[[note]]The N-word is a strange case; its potency depends on [[NWordPrivileges who says it]].[[/note]] This says something about how women are valued compared to men. And the fact that the most derision-worthy, most hated element of a woman is her vagina--not her uterus or ovaries, from which she brings forth life; not her [[BuxomIsBetter breasts]] or derriere, which are the most visible symbols of femininity; but her vagina, the organ with which she interacts sexually with men--points out how deeply misogyny is built into English-speaking culture, values and language.

Another potential source are post-op transsexuals. They've lived in both bodies and can definitely provide you with some insight into the differences. However, there is a limit to what modern medicine can do; we can surgically alter the cosmetic aspects of the body (turn penis into vagina or vice versa), but actually shifting the ''function'' is beyond us. Someone who was born a man will never have a period or get pregnant, which is a ''bit'' of a big deal. Likewise, a female-to-male transsexual can have phalloplasty and end up with a penis, but will not ejaculate (no testicles or prostate gland exist) or have erections--which, as any male will tell you, is also something of a big deal, since the darn thing gets hard at random times for no reason. Now, if you're sane, you're probably happy to ''not'' have to deal with that, and most guys probably would be too... but the point is, it ''happens'', and learning to deal with it is part of the experience of being male. Maybe one day science will bring that part of the experience to us, but right now there are limits.

The good news, though, is this: you don't know the answers to any of these questions, or perhaps you know them as well as anyone can. ''Everyone else is in the same boat.'' There ''is'' no authority about the differences between living in a male body vs living in a female body, so it kind of doesn't matter if you get it wrong; getting it right is physically impossible. Now, certain choices are likely to be incorrect--men are unlikely to be blase about wearing tight underwear because they could easily jam something in an uncomfortable position; women with large bosoms will not elect to go bra-less in any situation where their breasts might swing around loose--but by the same token, every person is different, and there are no rules that are 100% true about every woman or every man. For every well-endowed woman who wears a bra almost all the time, there's one who prefers not being restricted, regardless of the inconvenience. ...Well, maybe ten to one, but the simple fact is that such a person ''could'' exist, and--if you're a good writer and can provide good CharacterDevelopment--you can justify her unusual behavior.

Additionally, we need to make a distinction ''between'' sex and gender, because many people conflate them. Your "sex" involves your chromosomes, from which descends your genitalia and a few other things (like boobs). Your "gender" involves, well, your gender role--how society trains you to act ''in light of'' your chromosomes and all the stuff that dangles from them. But, again, ''gender is very cultural''. Just take PinkGirlBlueBoy. It's NewerThanTheyThink; pink--an offshade of the very masculine red--used to be a male color, while blue--associated with IncorruptiblePurePureness via [[Literature/TheBible the Virgin Mary]]--used to be female. In North America, women get paid about 75% of men do even when they perform the same jobs; but in Asia, the Communist Party of China abolished the "StayInTheKitchen" mentality and encouraged women to become equal partners, with equal pay, in the economic process. (It worked, as it happened.) In South America, machismo is in... but includes being sensitive to one's partners and being a kind and loving father, something that stoic models of North-American masculinity do not include. It's all relative.

->"My youngest granddaughter, when she ''was'' my youngest granddaughter, went to a birthday party. And after she came home, I asked her, were there many boys or many girls? And she said that she didn't know, because [[PinkGirlBlueBoy none of them had any clothes on]]!"

It might also be worth checking out ''Series/SexAndTheCity'' and ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', because their showrunners were men. Two of the most prominent female-centric shows in recent history were run by men. This says a lot about patriarchy, but--more importantly for our purposes--proves that it is possible to do a good job writing characters of the gender you are not.