Episode 34
Questioning Traditional Gender Roles? It's Okay If You Redefine What Fits
So many of us were handed quiet scripts about how we’re supposed to be — based on gender, tradition, or outdated expectations. Be tough. Be agreeable. Be a provider. Be selfless. Achieve success in a particular way.
This short reflection reminds you that questioning those roles isn’t rebellion — it’s self-discovery. You’re allowed to unlearn the rules that never felt true. You’re allowed to explore softness, vulnerability, creativity, and your own definitions of what it means to be whole.
There’s no one way to be enough. You get to decide what fits you now.
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Transcript
00:07
Hey, this is It's Okay If, bite-sized permission slips. I'm Matt Gilhooly, and today's permission? It's okay if you question traditional gender roles and your place in
00:20
I grew up with some pretty clear ideas of what it meant to be a man, be tough, be stoic, don't show too much emotion, get the stable job, provide. But the older I got, the more those expectations started to feel pretty limiting, like trying to fit into a box that was never ever built for me. And it's weird, right? Because these ideas get handed down quietly through culture, through family, through...
00:49
television through what we see and what we don't see, but they shape us. They tell us who we're supposed to be, even if that version of supposed to doesn't actually fit. I've spent so many years unlearning some of those expectations and giving myself permission to feel, to be soft, to change my mind about what success looks like, to create, to connect, to not have it all figured out.
01:18
And maybe you felt that too. Maybe you're questioning the roles you were handed, the scripts you've been following out of habit. It's okay to ask those questions. It's okay to rewrite the rules for yourself. There's no single way to be a man or be a woman or be successful or be enough. You get to define that for yourself.
01:45
So if you have it in you, tell yourself, give myself permission to question old roles, to redefine what fits me now. That's your permission slip friend. Tuck it in your pocket and I'll see you next time.
