Imagine growing up as a child in a world without gender. Every morning, you’re allowed to decide which clothes you want to wear simply based on how they look or what the weather is like outside. When you get dropped off at your kindergarten, you face the difficult choice of whether to play with trucks or baby dolls. Too conflicted, you pick up a book about two giraffes that adopt and raise an alligator together. Your teachers don’t refer to you by he or she but rather by your name or “hen,” a Finnish gender neutral pronoun. After nap time, you run to the dress up corner and throw on a kitchen apron to play house, a lab coat to be a mad scientist, a police officer outfit to play cops and robbers or maybe even a princess dress. When you go to the bathroom, you simply go find the nearest toilet without having to figure out which door is for whom. At home, your room is painted a neutral olive green. Your parents allow you and your siblings to play with all the same toys. For some children in Sweden, gender neutral lives like these are a reality.

From a simple greeting of Good day Ma’am/Sir to the bathroom one uses, gender is ever present in our lives. In more recent history, the concept of gender has been divided into a binary of male and female, with each being assigned to a person at birth based on the baby’s genitalia. This categorization not only affects the clothes and colors with which the baby is associated but even which names are deemed appropriate. Through fairy tales, television shows and other media, these constructs of gender are constantly reinforced and reconstructed. Little girls are taught to look up to princesses, value beauty and dress modestly. Boys are taught to admire the princes and value strength and are allowed leeway in their behavior because boys will be boys. From our very first days, we are socialized to understand the world in this black and white, girls-versus-boys mentality. In recent years, however, popular culture has begun to challenge many of these stereotypes.

With the emergence of Mulan, Wonder Woman and other female superheroes, we are led to believe that women can also be strong. An increasing number of men are using makeup and other beauty products, which shows that men are also challenging masculinity by participating in stereotypical female behavior (fun fact: Makeup was originally designed for male use). As the distinction between gender boundaries continues to fade, what is the purpose of clinging so tightly to binary gender roles as we have done for the past few centuries?

We need to rethink the role of gender and its importance in our society. Currently, gender is ingrained in society to its very core. But do we really need to separate male and female restrooms if stalls are appropriately designed to protect privacy? Is it really necessary to divide toy stores based on what a child might be interested in as opposed to what brand the toy is so that you know the quality of the product you’re buying? The ridiculousness of gender doesn’t present itself until gender is placed under heavy scrutiny. Otherwise, it seems like a natural and unquestionable entity. To deconstruct the gender binary, we need to question it in our everyday lives.

Of course, the deconstruction of the gender binary isn’t as easy as it seems. For centuries, U.S. and European societies have been promoting androcentrism as a cultural practice that empowers men. Growing up, boys are generally conditioned not to cry, not to express their feelings and not to be weak. This teaching leads to what is known today as toxic masculinity. The negative effects reverberate to this day in the wage gap between men and women and the alarming rates of sexual and domestic violence against women.

To overcome the gap, one needs to see beyond the gender binary. However, in erasing gender norms, we must not erase the scars created by this violence but rather work to understand that all bodies differ and each personality is unique. Everyone should be allowed to express their feelings, share emotions and work toward any aspiration they desire. Placing people into boxes based on rudimentary characteristics is how discriminatory and oppressive systems are created and maintained. By dismantling notions of gender, we can create a more egalitarian world.