Genre

“My God, had women written histories
Like cloistered scholars in oratories
They’d have set down more of men’s wickedness
Than all the sons of Adam could redress.”

Gender as a form of genre: imposes its expectation, the genre actively shapes the way we participate and reinforce it

I am different people with many different people, the only thread holding my “self” together as a cohesive personality is the common genre of my identity, which imposes itself on each sub-genre of self.

it is comforting to know the rules of something so you can obey them and be in harmony with others, feeding the “follow the herd” instinct

top down processing: taking things your experience and dropping it into a category.

“call a thing with wings and feathers and a beak a bird”