argumate:

the-grey-tribe:

This enforcement in turn means that the group differences are larger than those we started with – if most people are expending effort to seem more masculine or feminine, the observed difference between them on that gendered trait will be larger than they would be in the absence of enforcement.

Because of this gender inflation, it is extremely normal to have gendering for traits which is more or less invented out of thin air, because a small gendering occurs which we then inflate it into a large one.

These small genderings can come up in all sorts of ways, but the easiest way is just chance. Culture is formed mostly out of memetic evolution (that is, people copy behaviours from others, and retain behaviours that in some sense work well), and as a result is highly contingent – often the reason why people behave in a particular way is the result of some random variation years back. There’s no intrinsic difference that leads to, say, the distinction between English and French, we just made different choices generations back which have been built on over time.

seems related to the theory that once you notionally weaken gender roles it can actually lead to a paradoxical increase in gender segregation as people work harder to emphasise their gender identity that previously would have simply been assumed based on long or short hair or dress vs. trousers.