I make tea when guests come over. Even when I’m tired. Even when my brother is sitting right there. I do it without thinking, like it’s stitched into my spine.

And he, he reaches for the heavier suitcase when we travel, moves the furniture, opens the stubborn jar. Not because he enjoys it. Because that’s what men do, right? That’s what he’s supposed to do.

Muscle Memory of Womanhood and Masculinity

In moments when I can watch myself from the outside, I feel an odd kind of betrayal; like I’ve let go of the version of me who stands tall for equality, who earns her own money, who refuses to wait for permission. But when guests walk in, that girl disappears. The tea gets made. The house gets cleaned. My body moves before my brain catches up.

And he too wonders, sometimes, late at night, why he’s expected to be strong all the time, why asking for help feels like weakness, why carrying the weight of “being the man” feels so damn heavy, even when no one’s watching.

Wanting What We Were Taught to Want

Still, in the same breath, I want flowers. I want someone to walk me home when it’s late, to lift the heavy boxes, to pick me up from a shady auto stand. Not because I can’t do it myself but because somewhere, I’ve been taught not to want to.

And he, too, wants to be seen beyond the strength expected of him, beyond the rules he never chose to follow.

Perhaps it sounds a lot like hypocrisy but I believe this is inheritance. It’s centuries of conditioning tangled into the scripts we don’t even realize we’re reading.

Roles That Outlive the People Who Wrote Them

We like to think we’ve moved forward. That with a few conversations, a few policy changes, a few Instagram posts, we’ve left the past behind and well on our way to a “woke” future. But gender roles don’t vanish just because we understand they’re outdated.

They live in our bodies.

They live in our silence.

They live in the moments we don’t even notice.

You don’t remember learning them, but you follow them like a sleeper agent who was told the password.

“Clean the house before the guests arrive.”

“Don’t speak too loudly.”

“Expect strength from men, softness from women.”

“Smile. Nod. Serve.”

You were rewarded for being obedient and he was praised for being tough.

You were taught to soften your voice and he was told to speak with authority.

You were shown how to make a home. While he was told to provide one.

These things are not always taught with cruelty. Sometimes they’re passed down with care, under the guise of “protection,” “respect,” or “tradition.” And so we internalize them as part of our identity and they become who we think we are.

Psychology, Culture, and the Gendered Brain

Psychology calls this gender schema theory. Basically, it means the internal map we start drawing in early childhood that tells us how boys and girls “should” behave. These frameworks are shaped by family, media, religion, and culture. They tell us what’s appropriate, acceptable, attractive.

They might begin as suggestions but over time, they harden into expectations. And once those expectations are ingrained, they become habits- automatic, and unthinking. That’s why even when we know better, we often don’t act differently. But we’re just defaulting, not failing.

The toughest part is the cognitive dissonance because even when we know gender roles are outdated, there’s guilt in not following them. Like feeling selfish for not helping or cold for not nurturing. Maybe you feel some kind of entitlement for expecting emotional support from your partner. Or disappointed when they don’t fit the gendered fantasy that you thought you outgrew.

This push and pull makes us feel like frauds, like imposters. Because we say we want equality, but we still crave the emotional rewards of old roles: the chivalry, the service, the power.

Religion and the Divine Order of Gender

Every major religion has played a part in reinforcing gender roles. Perhaps not always maliciously, but deeply and consistently. Gender roles were never just about personality or choice. It had so much to do with order, survival, and in many cases, power. Over centuries, those roles got baked into traditions, reinforced by stories, and eventually passed down like family heirlooms.

Across belief systems, be it Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism or any other,  you’ll find gendered ideals:

The devoted wife.

The noble protector.

The obedient daughter.

The authoritative father.

And while some of these roles may have served a purpose in historical contexts, they too have, in many ways, outlived their usefulness and instead, become prisons.

Religion codified these roles into something sacred. This meant that disobeying them wasn’t just a simple rebellion, it felt like SIN.

Ritual became rule. Rule became virtue. Virtue became shame.

But even when we begin to unlearn what religion, tradition, and family once taught us, the residue doesn’t wash off so easily.

These beliefs aren’t just in sermons or rituals but in every pause when we speak. Shame creeps in when we disobey and we feel like we are betraying our lineage for simply choosing differently.

And so, even with awareness, we are heavy leaden with the weight of roles we no longer believe in, feeling torn between who we are becoming and who we were told we must be.

The Guilt of Knowing Better

Many of us identify as progressive, independent, and empowered and maybe we really are.

But why do we still feel a jolt of disappointment when a man doesn’t offer to pay? Why do men still feel pressured to be providers?

Why is it that even today, we raise daughters to dream big, but still teach them to say “sorry” too much.

Or tell sons to express themselves, but still stiffen when they cry too easily.

The truth is, we are quick to say “be who you are,” but we quietly celebrate when they stay in line.

And here lies the heart of the conflict:

We know the roles aren’t real. But we still feel guilty when we don’t play them. And the worst part is that, we sometimes resent others when they don’t play them either.

We expect ourselves to be evolved, but somewhere deep inside, we still want the roles to be filled. Maybe by us, by our partners, or by the world.

We feel like imposters in our own beliefs and constantly feel like we’re betraying something but we’re just not sure what.

Gender Role or Sex Role? Words That Define Us

Some roles are written into our bodies: chromosomes, hormones, anatomy. These are sex roles.

But most of the roles we live come from stories. Stories that shape our gestures, expectations, desires. Stories about what it means to be a woman or a man, soft or strong, nurturing or assertive. These are gender roles- taught, repeated, enforced. It’s what is stitched into lullabies, textbooks, temple rituals, and sitcom punchlines.

Some schools of psychology and sociology lean toward this understanding: most of what we think of as “natural” behavior is actually modeled, rewarded, and reinforced. In other words, behaviour is built, not born. Biology may set the stage, but culture writes the script. And we’ve all been cast before we even knew we were in a play.

How We Begin to Unlearn

You don’t need to burn the kitchen down just because you found yourself doing the dishes.

You don’t need to exile your dad or rewrite your childhood in a rage.

You don’t even have to stop liking flowers, or wanting someone to walk you home.

But you can notice.

You can pause before you perform.

You can ask: Is this who I am, or who I was trained to be?

You can name the double standards.

You can say no even when your upbringing tells you to smile and nod.

You can be both: loving and loud, soft and self-defining.

Because that guilt, the friction and the ever present internal tug-of-war is not a sign of failure but a sign that signals you are waking up inside a system that wants you asleep.

We might still make the tea. We might still carry the heavy boxes. But we’ll do it awake.

The post Why Do I Still Want to Be Picked Up From the Auto Stand? first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.