The other day on tik tok I came across a girl talking about how "gender neutral" is always just the masculine version of something and it really opened my eyes. It always defaults to the masculine version, never the feminine.
- Gender neutral uniforms at a fancy restaurant? a button up with pants.
- Gender neutral baby products? green, grey, navy. colors still primarily associated with boys.
- Gender neutral greeting for a group of people? "hey guys".
- Gender neutral names? Alex, Sam, Riley.
- Gender neutral clothing? "unisex" t shirts default to body shapes that don't account for curves.
This tik tok perfectly sums up this phenomenon. Women are expected to default to more masculine traits, but if men were expected to default to feminine features that would be a problem. idk maybe I'm too woke, but this is something I've genuinely never noticed before.
I also saw another video that didn't exactly talk about gender neutral defaults but it tackled a similar issue. A girl discussed how pink is the only color deemed "unprofessional" in a work place setting and life in general. She was explaining how she wanted to make her PowerPoint slides pink but subconsciously told herself she can't do that because it will look unprofessional. She then went through all the colors in her head and realized all the other colors would be acceptable except pink. She asked if it's because it's generally most associated with women and femininity. I think she's absolutely correct. And this connects to what I was saying about "gender neutral" being masculine and masculine being the norm in society. It's a man's world.
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