Good question. The thing about this “assumption of male superiority” is that it’s deeply baked into the bones of all of our systems. It’s not personal - for the most part.

Let me give you a few examples:

1. Have you ever read the book “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Perez? She does a masterful job of explaining the subtleties of how our culture sees men as the “norm,” and women as the “other.”

https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/

2. How about the data bias in AI training that uses gendered language assumptions to assign higher status roles to men, and lower status roles to women?

Umm…. 3. The unpaid care economy. According to research done by Equal Measures: “Unpaid care work, including household and care responsibilities, is a significant sector, equivalent to 10.8 trillion dollars globally, with women contributing 75% of this value.”

What else…

Oh yeah. 4. We’ve never had a woman as president. Though this is a complex and sticky topic for a number of dark reasons.

I could go on with more examples, but you get the gist.

Not only is maleness the norm and femaleness othered, there is also a bias towards centering other factors as well. Obviously race. White people, neurotypical people, straight people, healthy people, slender people, educated people, etc…

Our culture is built on what Sylvia Duckworth calls “The Wheel of Privilege.” I wrote about that one here -

https://kaiamaeve.medium.com/domination-is-a-hell-of-a-drug-1b808b10e97a

Ok. I’m sitting waiting to pick up my kids from after school theater practice and got a little carried away. Does that answer your question? 😂