gender roles in our society are broken

this entry is still VERY MUCH under construction, but i'd like some commentary on it anyway
it is in many ways a continuation of the thoughts of this rough draft post made a year ago: http://illicitlearning.livejournal.com/56126.html

as this reddit comment illustrates:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/f4f8d/we_think_were_protecting_our_kids_by_treating_all/c1d7t6h

there is a process occurring in our society, where the roles of men and women are being redefined. in the past, women were considered very much to be second class citizens, and the woman's sphere was kept very separate from the man's sphere. feminist activism has attempted to merge the male and female spheres, with varying degrees of success. in some ways, it has been extremely successful. in others, it has been less so.

the current problem as i see it is this one: women have increasing (but still limited) access to the men's sphere - it is becoming more and more okay for a woman to do "masculine" things. but less progress has been made on giving men access to the woman's sphere. this is, as far as i can tell, based on the very fundamental idea that femininity is worse than masculinity. it is understandable for women to want to have access to masculine things. it is not understandable for men to want to have access to feminine things. in short, because the female sphere is seen as undesirable and relatively unimportant, less work has been made to grant men access to it than has been done to grant women access to the male sphere.

it seems like most gender stereotypes in our society are two faces of the same bad coin. some examples of how gender role segregation hurts both men and women:

if a man
likes children
can cook
can clean up after himself
knows how to do laundry
doesn't like sports
is unemployed
wears makeup
wears 'feminine' clothing
has long hair
follows fashion
isn't interested in sex
he is treated with surprise and suspicion.

if a woman
doesn't like children
can't cook
doesn't keep a tidy house
can't do laundry
has a demanding job
likes sports
has a high sex drive
doesn't wear makeup
wear 'masculine' clothes
has short hair
doesn't follow fashion
she is treated with disbelief and derision.

women are discouraged from pursuing careers that would make it harder for them to care for their presumed children (even if they would make more money to provide for their children). they are granted extended maternity leave. men are discouraged from pursuing careers that would prevent them from providing for their presumed children (even if they would have more time to spend caring for their children). they are granted no paternity leave.

divorce and single parenting - men are expected to be providers and are not granted time to spend with their children. women are assumed to lack sufficient financial resources to provide for their children, and are granted caretakership over them.

this sort of thing is also related to the concept of chivalry - men would do certain things for women because it was assumed that women were incapable or needed the help. and women were reluctant to give up those benefits because they were nice, even though they were based on negative views of the feminine. in this case, men are reluctant to assume feminine roles, seeing that

when a news article is posted about a man being raped (especially if it was by a woman, ESPECIALLY if it was by a young, thin, conventionally attractive woman), people don't react with horror and sympathy. the overwhelming response is disbelief and patronizing envy - he must have wanted it. it is seen as masculine to want sex with young, thin, conventionally attractive women. thus, those men who don't - those who like older, or fatter, or less attractive women, or men - are seen as less masculine. men who were raped by young, thin, attractive women are seen as crazy or lying. furthermore, masculinity entails strength - it is assumed that a man could physically stop his rape "if he really didn't want it". if he couldn't, he is considered weak and unmasculine.

http://www.femulate.org/2010/03/what-will-men-wear-when-women-wear.html
-since the beginning of the feminist movement, there has been a fear that men will be made to play the woman's role. this fear persists, and it is one of the main problems with the redifinition of the male gender role. men feel like women are taking over their role and making them irrelevant, but men taking on the feminine role is not seen as an option.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5708
when a trans woman is seen as male, she is seen as a threat to other women.

Other reading to do before I write the final version:
http://www.alternet.org/sex/148291/why_do_we_demonize_men_who_are_honest_about_their_sexual_needs?page=2
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2009/10/18/questions-i-want-to-ask-entitled-cis-het-men-part-1/
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2009/10/20/questions-i-want-to-ask-entitled-cis-het-men-part-2-mens-rights/
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2009/10/24/questions-i-want-to-ask-entitled-cis-het-men-part-3-space-for-men/
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2009/12/09/manliness-and-feminism-the-followup/
http://thecurvature.com/2009/03/20/when-a-man-is-the-victim-a-second-study-in-rape-apology/
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/things-cis-het-men-are-afraid-to-talk-about/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html?c=y&page=1

THIS IMAGE: http://carovisi.tumblr.com/post/4441982078/the-person-owning-thirdw0rld-tumblr-com-says-this

This post sums up kyriarchy as it applies to self expression pretty well: http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/gn2sq/this_is_such_a_depressing_social_truth/c1osnpi