which for me means being a main character and responsible for making things happen... in the past Ive felt like it's femme to be weak and need help and just *exist* rather than DO stuff, and kinda subconsciously let myself not follow through or act helpless so men can be the hero

shifting perspectives has left me feeling kinda sad abt my past lack of accomplishments and anxious abt getting things done in the future; idk quite what to do about the anxiety

to ppl questioning my gender, understand that I was raised with a *lot* of religion by a big conservative family ... I wore little house on the prairie homemade dresses to church, read the Bible cover to cover twice, was hit with a ruler for whittling because it was unfeminine

But my parents were principled abt teaching me to think for myself and make my own choices, and gave me unsupervised access to the library and internet, so I ended up a vegan quaker techbro anyway...

but you're speaking from a very particular liberal culture when you say that gender roles don't exist or aren't a big deal to violate or that "everyone" believes men & women are equal