Originally Posted by
LaTeeDa 
This is how it was in my family, too. Males were always more important than females. Nobody came right out and announced it, but it was obvious. My sister and I were "the girls," but my brother had a name.
Humongous Disclaimer!! Take what you like and leave the rest!! Pet soapbox topic of BuffaloGal's!
It wasn't this way in my family, which I thank God for. I was raised by my dad after my mother died-- and I would give
anything for that not to have happened, and yet, because of it, I didn't have the chance to learn what I began calling "feminine bulls**t" in my teens. My dad never treated me the least bit like a second class child nor cut me any slack because I was a girl (and the only child at that). He made me learn to cook. He also made me learn to change a tire, and he treated both chores the same.
Funny, I was considering this topic this morning: I think females tend to base their sense of self on their relationship a good bit more than males do, in general. But I was never taught to do that. It never occurred to me that I should tolerate my aexh's peculiarities simply because we were married... and my unwillingness to shut up and take it was the catalyst for the end of the cohabitating portion of our marriage. A psychiatrist said to me during that period, referring to my anger at the damage caused by his alcohol and pornography abuse: "Can't you just love him unconditionally?" I replied: "I do love him unconditionally. But I won't live with him unconditionally."
Now, can you see that conversation happening with a male client? I have a hard time picturing it.
So looking from the outside... and I was raised on the outside of the general current American culture this way... lord, yes, females do get trained to be nice and smooth over and take care and definitely do the heavy lifting, emotionally. I'm sorry to say that I think that marriage as an institution would probably go belly up if women didn't largely subconsciously believe that it was their job to keep it going. Would most men you know make all those adjustments for another person? Generally, do they compromise their standards for true luuurrrrrvve? It doesn't look like it to me, for the most part (yes, there are exceptions, I've seen a few. But in general. In general.) Males are taught to value themselves, which is a good thing. We can take a lesson about how to treat our daughters from that.