I'm female...and I've thought a lot about my mom's horrendous behavior (and sadly now my sister's) and how actually if she had been male she never would have gotten away with half the stuff she did. She punched my dad in the face several times--once he even filed a police report, and the officers basically laughed at him. She said and did things with me that were sexually inappropriate, and if she'd been male it would have been clear to anyone that it was wrong. During the divorce she tried to claim my dad was a bad father, even falsely accused him of incest with me, harassed him and vandalized his apartment, tried to break him down psychologically so he'd given her more money in the divorce. If she'd been my father and he'd been my mother, it would have been clear that she was an abusive spouse who should have gotten nothing in the divorce--of course, she got everything and now doesn't work and just lives off that money, plus what my poor dad sends to her for rent, groceries, insurance and bills on top of the alimony. It's crazy. My dad is a battered wife.

Anyway, my mom is constantly making appeals to female solidarity--she blends in best among feminists, and they provide her cover. She treated my dad that way because "all men are pigs." Her sexually inappropriate behavior she chalks up to being a "liberated" woman. The weird thing is that a lot of women her age totally buy into her story of events--that my dad cheated with a younger woman, was a bad husband and a questionable father. It's all bullshit but for some reason other women give her support.

Honestly, coming to terms with my gender and being ok with my body has been one of the most difficult parts of all this. I want to reject the fact that I'm female, because I associate my body with hers. It's tough.

I'm rambling and not really answered the question posed here. I really hope I'm not offending anyone. I think women are held to lower moral standards sometimes. Men trust women with children, because they think women will just "figure it out" because of natural instincts or something. Meanwhile, when women lie, cheat or steal, they're sometimes presumed to be victims who are acting out instead of just bad, selfish people. Men who do these things are called bad people openly. So maybe women start to think they don't really have to live up to the same moral standards, as long as they're charming or beautiful or "perfect" mothers or "good" partners. Maybe. I don't know. But I do know that I've adopted my father's moral code--don't lie, cheat, steal or hurt others--and it's worked out well. My mother's--do what you wanna do, don't let the man keep you down--never worked out well for me.