Benefits of gender distinctions?

[AllyCat]

Here's a question that occurred to me in this discussion thread.

What social benefits do you gain from social gender expectations? If you lived in a society with different gender expectations or no gender expectations, would there be a different way of getting those same or similar benefits?

My answer: Being in a heterosexual relationship, I think living in two-gender system is able to provide me with some useful stuff. I have a set of female friends who hold female-only events, and my husband has a close male friend who is perfectly happy to invite me out beer-brewing or whatever, but doesn't mind if I'm too busy. And having these gender-segregated circles of friends serves an important social function: it lets makes sure get away from each other when necessary. That probably wouldn't be a need in the first place if "(usually heterosexual) couple" were not the basic social unit where I live, though. Having female-only social events is also good for me because my female friends seem much more outgoing and vivid when there are no men around: though again, if we didn't have a two-gender model, this probably wouldn't be true. So it seems like the needs are created by the gender expectations around me in the first place.

What about you?

[AVENCakes]

I don't really like polarized things. I don't even like highly-masculine women and highly-feminine men. The guys I get along with aren't overly masculine, they aren't prone to the stupider aspects or male culture and also aren't really feminine (my opinion, sorry guys)- it's probably why I don't get along well with a lot of transguys, many of them either naturally are or try to be very masculine to compensate for the body. Cisguys can be like that as well. The girls I get along with also aren't overly feminine, they're female- but they don't fit the stereotypes by any stretch. For some reason it doesn't apply to transgirls as much, but it can. I probably don't notice overly feminine traits because almost all my "friends" and playmates were female- so I got used to it. Like understanding a heavy accent won't be a problem for you when you had a few friends with it- but it will if you never really spent any times with that accent.

I like people who are different, and don't totally "fit in", I guess, and that's not always gender related. I think if the only way they were different was due to gender- I wouldn't want to hang out iwht them.

I also only like people one-on-one, with rare exceptions, so group things wouldn't work for me. I can try, but I always find myself fading out and becoming a third wheel or onlooker rather than a member of the group. I just can't deal with more than one person at a time, which is probably why I rarely have many friends.