My father was a school teacher during a time when females dominated the profession. They still do. Through my adolescent years I received conflicting messages as teachers tried to push me to excel in the academic areas that society deems acceptable for women, while discouraging me from things that were usually considered men territories.

On a macro level this taught me that my family was strange and I remember for a short period of time flipping the roles my parents played in the work world. I would tell others that my father was the biologist and my mother was the teacher. I believed it fit more with what the structure of society expected from a normal family and I was at an age where being a normal family was of utmost importance.

My friends at the time also fed into the gender difference beliefs as they began to eye the...
[ View Full Essay]