How important is gender identity, in one's self actualization process?

Answer 1

Knowing you're human is first and what sex you are is second. Very important, I think.
I am a good woman. I was a good wife and I am still a good mother. I see the world through the eyes of a woman who sacrificed her happiness to maintain a poor excuse for a marriage, because I believed that that was my duty to my family. I realized a big part of my misery was caused by my husband's hatred of women, in general. I had to believe I could make a different life, on my own. I can't say I am happy, but I certainly am not as miserable.
C. :)!!

Answer 2

Pretty important in most cultures for most people. Try the book 'Middlesex' by an author whose last name is something like Eugeneides - While it appears to be a true accounting written in a fictionalized setting, there is so much fact in it relating to your Q that you may well be interested in reading it.

While I've always considered myself and everyone else human first - before I separate it into gender, or race, or sect, or age, or ability, etc. - that has proven to be a difficult way to proceed on this planet.

Thanks for an interesting Q

Answer 3

Interesting Q. It was for me, back in my teens in WWII. I was a tomboy growing up in the country. Married a kid, bright and also from the country and who enlisted in the Army and went through training and became a 2nd Lt. I HATED those officers' wives club parties, but for my husband, I had to bend and be socially pleasant and partially adapt to the social expectations for women in the early 1950's. In the early '60's, we divorced and I went back to graduate school at UC Berkeley. All of society was blown wide open--and I felt free to be myself and LOVED learning!! All without the need for alternate highs--other than my prefered drug of recreational alcohol. For the first time in my life, I became comfortable with myself and did not try to force myself into some expected mold! Of course, I stayed in Berkeley and did not returen to the Midwest!! I've had a terrific life; have a child, her family and my Grandchildren--and have been eternally thankful for the wonderful opportunities of Berekeley and the '60's!!!

Answer 4

Not very important. Your psychical characteristics shouldn't be a label of your personality or define you, unless you count hormones. I mean, you don't go "I'm female, now I know exactly what I have to do in life!". Unless, of course, you're from the Renaissance and you're part of that religion (I don't remember what it was) that believed women had to have at least 11 children and that's what they were here for.

Answer 5

I'd say fairly important. With out a such gender idenity, you would probaly have a difficult time tell males apart from females because there would be no 'defining line'.

Answer 6

because society has made it that way. if i sleep with 3 guys im a whore if my boyfriend sleeps with 10 girls he's a man. unfair aint it?