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While there are countless ideals surrounding a woman's reproductive system, one of the most daunting seems to be the overwhelming pressure to have children. In many cultures, it is seen as a woman's duty to not only bear children but to dedicate their lives to raising them. Of course, while many modern women have rejected the social norm of having children, society still accepts the notion that a woman's most meaningful role is motherhood. The article linked below is a prime example of the pressure to be a mother, as it works to actively retell the construct that women need children to live happy, full lives. The article lists why a woman, if she's young and married, should have a child, with reasons including: "Your Future Self Is Begging You To", "Kids Will Make You Happier", and even "It Will Make You A Much Better Person". The article explicitly reinforces the idea that in order to be her best self, a woman must be a mother. However, the ideas in this article are outdated and harmful, as women who choose not to or unable to have children are not morally inferior or inherently unhappier than those who do. Additionally, the article mentions nothing about men needing to have children, reaffirming the social construct that women are the only gender pressured to have children.

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Considering how many children I would like to have when I am 50 has brought me to the conclusion that I want as many as my husband and I can responsibly care for. So far we have five. When I was a teen and in my early 20s, nobody told me how fulfilling and meaningful I would find having children. So I suspect nobody has told most other young people either.

Easy confirmation of this can be had in the latest fertility data, at a record low during an economic boom, shocking demographers who have speculated money is a key reason people don't have kids. So I don't think refusing kids is about money for many people, especially for college-eduated, well-off women like me, who are having fewer children than poor women are despite our better resources. According to Lyman Stone's analysis, about half of currently married, childbearing-age American women will not have as many kids as they want. I think this "accidental" infertility is more deeply about choices and narratives than money.

The truth is, children are a reliably excellent investment in your long-term personal development and happiness. And you only have about a quarter of your adult life to make that investment. That, in a nutshell, is why, if you are young and married, you should consider having a baby this year. Here are nine reasons why that's true.

1. Your Future Self Is Begging You To

Strangers frequently make kind and even wistful supportive comments about the size of my family. I can't count how many times I've heard a Boomer say "I wish I had more" while looking at my squirming shopping cart.

It's not just the grandparent types. A childless mid-40s professional acquaintance told me privately that she wishes she could trade her career for some kids, and that her dogs can't fill that hole. It's physically too late for her now, and that loss gives her constant pain.

She's a lot more in touch with reality than today's advice columnists, who regularly receive messages expressing such anguish from women in their late 30s and 40s who see that their chances of building a family slipping away. Rather than validating their loss, typically the columnists brush it off. These women deserve better. Their pain is real, and it's real to an increasing number of people. If you can choose now to not face this regret later in life, it's a wise choice.

A handyman my husband follows on YouTube put this up as his 2019 Christmas message, which sums this all up better than I can. Trust him, and trust me: Your future self will thank you a million times for having children now. So do it.

2. It Will Loneliness-Proof Your Life

"Only around half of Americans say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions," found a 2017 study. In a 2019 article, Kay Hymowitz gave other extensive examples of the loneliness epidemic across the industrialized world.

"Local Japanese papers regularly publish stories about kinless elderly whose deaths go unnoticed until the telltale smell of maggot-eaten flesh alerts neighbors. " "In widely quoted research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ashton M. Verdery and Rachel Margolis uncovered a recent surge in the number of 'kinless' older adults. Lower fertility translates into fewer siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins, whether for hospital visits or emergency contacts."

You don't think about this when you're 30 or 40 and vacationing child-free in Belize and Taiwan. But you sure as heck will when you can't trade your frequent flyer miles for something more meaningful.

With five kids, I never go a day without a meaningful face-to-face social interaction. When I am 50 and the grandkids start rolling in, I'll be living even higher on the hog. Remember, the current American lifespan is about 85 years. When you or your wife are hitting menopause, you still have half of your lives ahead of you. Who are you going to spend it with? Who will be there when you're in need to give back some of what you've invested in them?

3. Pregnancy Is More Likely to Go Well Before 35

I've already written an overview of why, so I won't reprise it here. You can confirm by asking your doctor or a quick Google search. But it's just common sense, besides supported by every graph of every pregnancy complication and infant malady, that pregnancies in one's 20s and early 30s are significantly lower-risk than later pregnancies. It's so well-established that simply being age 35 is enough to put you in the "high-risk pregnancy" category, requiring special monitoring and tests as standard care, even if you're wondrously fit and healthy.

Don't yammer at me in the comments or on Twitter about how your mom had you at 40 and you're not disabled. I'm talking probabilities and generalities here. Anecdote is not the plural of data, and outliers don't disprove averages.

If you have a choice, the obvious choice is to have babies when it will be physically easiest for both mom and child. That's when you're younger than 35. (By the way, men, this is also true of sperm quality and dealing with infertility issues, which obviously affects both sexes.)

4. There Will Probably Never Be a Better Time than Now

Lots of people hold off kids until they feel "ready" someday in the nebulous future. But you will never feel "ready" to be a mom or dad. You'll just be older and still not have kids. Like marriage, having kids is one of those things you just have to figure out on the fly.

Of course, there are some exceptions, such as if you have a serious medical condition that would make it dangerous for you to try to care for children, if you and your spouse are both unemployed and you have no savings, or if getting pregnant would threaten your life. I'm not urging you to be truly stupid here.

But I am urging you to reassess whether you need to have paid off all your college loans or have a down payment on a house before getting your babies going. We did neither, and found we didn't need to. This was also true for multiple millennial friends, whose grandparents and aunts thought they were crazy but were all wrong. While we've had a dual income marriage most of the time we've had kids, which certainly makes things easier, we've been careful budgeters since the beginning and therefore know that we could have done our kids that whole time on a single income, too.

What I do urge you to do is be married to the other progenitor of your children before having kids, because doing otherwise is unequivocally unfair to the kids. But being married, having at least one job between you, and lacking an extreme caveat like a non-functional uterus are the true basic qualifications normal adults need, not a fantasy amount of money or roster of "life experiences."

5. Parenting Is Easier and More Fun When You're Young

During my first pregnancy, my boss surprised me by telling me it was so great I was starting in my early 20s. He and his wife didn't start until their 30s, and by their early 40s he was surprised how exhausted and sore it made him just to play with his still-young kids.

My boss was no couch potato. He regularly biked 20 miles to work. Still, it was obvious to him that the physical work and play of parenting was made harder just by starting on kids at an age that many educated adults now consider normal.

This is also true of holding your baby and toddler, getting up in the night with them, and chasing them down before they run into the street. Now, don't sterilize yourself over all this if you're older - kids are worth a few sore backs and knees - but again, if you get to choose, choose wisely.

A related benefit: Your kids will be at least in their teens or older, and thus a lot more self-sufficient and even helpful, about the time you might need to care for aging parents.

6. Kids Make You Happier

You might have seen the stories and polling about how parents are more anxious and less happy than single people. Obviously, having more responsibilities makes people less frivolous and self-centered. But what lots of these polls and stories ignore is the larger amount of connection and meaning parents have in life on average compared to non-parents.

Yeah, for about a decade of their eight-decade life, parents might not get to enjoy a daily latte savored over a morning hour of quiet, but they also have a toddler who runs over to hug them while shouting to the world, "Mine mommy!" Parenting is like a career: You get out what you put into it. And kids require more putting in. But the investment pays off.

In addition, those happiness measures have flipped to where parents today report themselves more happier and satisfied than nonparents, found a 2014 study: "parents are becoming happier over time relative to non-parents, that non-parents' happiness is declining absolutely, and that estimates of the parental happiness gap are sensitive to the time-period analyzed. These results are consistent across two datasets, most subgroups, and various specifications. Finally, we present evidence that suggests children appear to protect parents against social and economic forces that may be reducing happiness among nonparents."

7. Kids Aren't as Expensive as You've Heard

A lot of people will claim a major reason they aren't having a child is money. If you are living hand-to-mouth in a minimum-wage job in an expensive city, it makes sense to coat your womb with sperm Raid. But most people of childbearing age actually do have enough financial resources to sustain a baby, especially married ones.

Pew Research reports that "Millennials in 2018 had a median household income of roughly $71,400." For millennials with a college degree, that number was $105,300. If you can't make room for a baby with income figures like that, you need some better financial habits. A good place to start is Dave Ramsey's " Total Money Makeover." Georgi Boorman wrote a great, nitty-gritty explainer about how cheap kids can be while still living well, and coauthored a related book.

My husband, the family economist, estimates we spend $4,000-$5,000 per kid per year, including averaged medical expenses (we have a high deductible so have paid out-of-pocket for nearly all our health care so far, including births), insurance premiums, clothes, a bigger house's mortgage, diapers, toys, music and swim lessons, and food; not including their tuition. He says we could get that down to less than $3,000 if we needed to. The cost per kid goes down with each additional one, because kids share and pass things down, and once you've gotten a bigger house or car, the cost is less for each additional kid because the expenses stay roughly the same divided across more kids.

We have deliberately made choices that make our kids less expensive, and anyone can do the same. We moved to a part of the country with a low cost of living, so our mortgage payment for a 2,500-square-foot house is half the rent for my brother's 1-bedroom, 600-square-foot apartment in New York City. We also purposefully bought a small, 900-square-foot house for our first, and had four kids in there. Little kids don't care how big their room is, and if you have a small yard, parks are free.

Our kids wear hand-me-downs, clothes from Goodwill, and high-quality outerwear and shoes I buy from Land's End when they're 60 percent off or more (a tee can get junked but a coat or shoe needs to be warm, dry, arch-supportive, and reliable). I also buy clothes from the great sales at Children's Place. Just sign up for the emails and strike when it's hot. I outfit each kid's size and season of clothing for about $50 for little kids and $100 for bigger kids, minus shoes and outerwear. When they get older, they can babysit and mow lawns to waste their own money on new brand-name clothes if they want.

Not to mention that Republicans' tax overhaul doubled the child tax credit, so we get a whopping $10,000 off our tax bill every year for our five kids for the next nine years. It, plus our steal of a Midwestern mortgage, pays the private school tuition. You could use it to pay down debt, pay for birth expenses, or buy a family car (Ramsey tells you how to be smart about that too).

8. Kids Are More Adorable Than the Best Instagram Feed

You don't need a cute dog calendar when you have kids (although, heck, get 'em both). Kids are a living, breathing Instagram feed of adorableness. And silliness. This kind of thing makes my life worth living about 500 times a day.

9. It Will Make You A Much Better Person

Have you ever compared the difference between how some people treat their physical health versus how they treat their moral health? Nobody bats an eye if you go on some wild diet or grueling exercise regimen and pay thousands of dollars to do it. The pursuit of health justifies itself in our society, and all sorts of gargantuan efforts such as learning a completely new and much more expensive cooking palette and hiring a spendy personal trainer and gym.

The same is true about career development. Even though half of college graduates end up in jobs that don't require the $100,000 they spent to get that sheepskin, people still think that $100,000 dumpster fire is justified. People get career coaches and purchase solitude weekends to pursue "deep work," or spend thousands on specialized training to get ahead professionally.

You can either be the person who chooses to love more deeply, or the person who shrinks from that because you're scared and unwilling to endure discomfort to become better.

I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with these things. Yet I've rarely heard anyone talk in a parallel fashion about their character development. When's the last time you heard, "Yeah, I was getting kind of addicted to my screens and ignoring my friends, so I spent $1,000 for a detox and personal habits trainer - it was awesome"? Or "I realized that my overseas vacations and indulgence in designer shoes could instead provide for the physical needs of an eternal soul who would multiply the love in our home and world"?

Children are an excellent moral trainer. Whether you want to admit it or not, we all need one of those. (I guess God decided I need five.) A spouse does the same thing, but since the spouse is an adult the effect is often not as strong as with children. Children are wholly dependent on you putting their needs first. To be a good mother or father, therefore, becoming less selfish is mandatory.

There are other common personal training benefits: Career advancement. A higher likelihood of saving for the future. Better health and connections to your community. I have also noticed a stronger impetus to listen, observe, and otherwise try to understand and empathize with people with different personalities, as kids are often very different from you and each other, so loving them requires learning. Children are a huge investment in your social capital, as well, for they help you make new friends, spur you to volunteer more, and keep up connections.

Committing yourself to another person is very, very hard. But, as they say in the gym: No pain, no gain. You can either be the person who chooses to love more deeply, or the person who shrinks from that because you're scared and unwilling to endure discomfort to become better. It's up to you to decide which. And not making a decision is a decision. Tick tock.

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9 Reasons You Should Have A Baby This Year If You're Young And Married

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Considering how many children I would like to have when I am 50 has brought me to the conclusion that I want as many as my husband and I can responsibly care for. So far we have five. When I was a teen and in my early 20s, nobody told me how fulfilling and meaningful I would find having children.

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Gender reveal cakes are examples of objects that retell the gender binaries. The cakes depict boys through "masculine" objects and girls through "feminine" objects. The "Touchdowns or Tutus" cake assumes that if the baby's sex is male, he will like football, an aggressive, "masculine" sport. Whereas, if the baby's sex is female, she will be interested in dance, a graceful, "feminine" sport. In gender reveal cakes, girls are defined with the color pink and "feminine" artifacts, such as makeup or high heels, portraying them as delicate and pretty. Boys, however, are defined with the color blue and "masculine" activities, such as shooting or racing, portraying them as tough and manly. These cakes force stereotypes upon the unborn baby when in reality, it is possible for a boy to enjoy dance or for a girl to be interested in racing. By presenting objects as strictly masculine or feminine, gender reveal cakes reaffirm the ideal that women are docile and beautiful while men are active and strong.

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Drag superstar RuPaul is no stranger to controversy, but his 2018 comments about bio (cisgender women) and transgender drag queens have outed a bigger problem in the drag community. As included in the article linked below, when asked if he would allow trans or bio queens to compete on Drag Race, RuPaul answered, "Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it." Ru's comments were not only hurtful to the communities he discredited but fed into the larger issue of the lack of representation in televised drag. Despite being excluded from TV, the real-life diversity of the drag scene, from old-school activists such as Marsha P. Johnson to newer performers such as Juno Birch, has always included women. In fact, drag, as an art form, works to revise social constructs and present gender as something that can be molded, as stated in the article. In drag, there is no right way to be a performer, allowing artists to define gender on their own terms, without the worry of adhering to societal norms. RuPaul's definition of drag, a more socially palatable version that only includes cis gay men, not only reaffirms misogyny in the lgbtq+ community but directly violates the purpose of the art form. Drag was created to rework harsh binaries and perform gender in any way the artist sees fit, so why shouldn't the most popular drag television show convey that?

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When the announcement was made that RuPaul's Drag Race was getting a British version, the response on social media was rapturous. But as the search for queens got underway, criticism from the country's tight-knit drag community started to seep into the conversation. In critics' sights was the limited gender spectrum that has so far been presented on Drag Race, as well as comments RuPaul made (and later apologized for) in The Guardian in March 2018. "Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony," Ru said, "once it's not men doing it."

In December, cis female drag performer Lacey Lou wrote in an article for Gay Star Times: "The lack of representation of groups such as drag kings, cisgender women [and] transgender women... make [ Drag Race] damaging and out of sync with what's actually happening in local communities. We don't need RPDR in the UK, not as it is right now... Drag competitions should be based on talent, not on genitalia."

Tom Rasmussen, an author and non-binary queen told The Guardian: "A lot of the UK's very best drag can be found in basement bars... The polish which a show like RuPaul's Drag Race venerates is at odds with a lot of contemporary drag, as well as UK drag's basis in working-class, regional culture."

James Telford, manager of one of London's leading drag venues, The Glory, would also like to see so-called "bio queens" and trans and non-binary performers included on Drag Race. "The diversity in the drag scene is really thriving right now," he says. "Women are becoming big drag hits, which is refreshing, and a lot of my current faves are [cis] females. We're seeing a lot more drag kings too. Our venue celebrates that kind of diversity, as well we should. I actually think that gender clash brings more creativity."

So if the British version diversifies, who might we see on the show? Perhaps some of these greats:

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Meet the Trans, Non-Binary and Bio Queens Who Deserve a Spot on 'RuPaul's Drag Race U.K.' | KQED

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When the announcement was made that RuPaul's Drag Race was getting a British version, the response on social media was rapturous. But as the search for queens got underway, criticism from the country's tight-knit drag community started to seep into the conversation.

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Any American woman has heard the concept of "flattering" clothing. For example, if your body is an apple shape, you are instructed to avoid short shorts, or if your body is an hourglass shape, you will look the best in high waisted pants. These arbitrary rules, which only apply to women, contribute to the social construct that in order to look presentable, women must wear clothing that "flatters" their body type. Not only is this concept based on personal aesthetic (what does flattering even mean, anyway?) but it reinforces the idea that women need to look a certain way, often the most pleasing to men, to be accepted in society. These fashion rules reinstate the difference in the gender binary by giving strict rules for a woman's appearance while men, who also have varying body shapes, are never told to dress in a "flattering" way. These made-up fashion rules reaffirm the social norm that women must pay special attention to the way they present themselves while men are able to express themselves freely, without judgment.

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Despite all genders growing body hair, society shames women for growing theirs out. This is because body hair on women is seen as unconventional, as it directly violates a code of femininity. Women who are seen with visible body hair, especially on their legs or armpits, are labeled as unkempt, lazy, or even dirty. According to the gender binary, body hair makes women unfeminine and therefore, unappealing to men. However, more women have begun to make the choice to publicly grow out their body hair, including models such as Indea. Indea, an Instagram model, is known for accepting her natural body, and many of her posts feature her body hair in an empowering way. The photo below of Indea reworks the gender binary by showing women that they can have body hair and still be sexy, directly combatting the idea that they must be hairless in order to be desirable.

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The gender binary requires women to look presentable at all times. Often, being presentable includes an extensive regime of cosmetic tasks, such as styling hair, wearing makeup, and even wearing shapewear during pregnancy. Despite maternity shapewear's recent resurgence, with popular brands such as Kim Kardashian's SKIMS and SPANX hopping on the trend, using garments to slim a pregnant body are not a new idea. During the Victorian era, pregnant women continued to wear corsets to minimize the size of their growing bumps. Though the concept of constricting a pregnant body may seem ridiculous, it perfectly embodies the absurd standards of the gender binary. Maternity shapewear retells the misogynistic, and often fatphobic, beauty standard that women must look a certain way in order to be accepted by society. An important element of this unachievable standard is thinness, as being thin is a key component for a woman to look presentable. This is because if a woman is perceived as fat, she is automatically labeled as sloppy and unattractive, immediately affecting the way she will be treated in society, especially by men. By requiring women to adhere to this standard during a time where they are unable to control the changes happening to their bodies, maternity shapewear strictly reinforces the absurd gender norms placed on women.

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TikTok inspires the re-emergence of countless fashion trends, but one of the most influential has been the reappearance of androgynous male fashion. Newly rebranded as femboys, male creators of all identities have begun to explore feminine styles on their accounts, adding items such as skirts, eyeliner, and nail polish to their everyday wardrobes. Citing inspiration from modern musicians such as Harry Styles, Jaden Smith, or Lil Uzi Vert, these creators are pushing the envelope on what it means to be masculine, therefore rewriting the rigid male binary. However, as it is with any variant from the binary, femboys have come with significant backlash from certain viewers. Conservative audiences claim that they are "acting like girls" or "not real men" because of their fashion choices, trying to impose strict gender roles on their current expression. Though, negative criticism from the right has not stopped the femboys from trying to rid TikTok of toxic masculinity. Femboys continue to blur the lines between masculine and feminine, ignoring social norms and performing their gender as they see fit, without concerning the binary.

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Barney Stinson, the sharply dressed womanizer from the TV show How I Met Your Mother, is a prime example of the binary's double standard when it comes to sex. In the show, Barney has a reputation for sleeping with every woman he sees (as long as they meet the Western beauty standard), and this behavior earns him "legendary" status among his peers. However, what if Barney was Barbie? Would her behavior still be considered legendary? Absolutely not, as the gender binary has strict rules towards women's sexuality. If a woman has too many sexual partners or is perceived as being sexually promiscuous, she will be labeled as a slut who does not respect herself. This is because the binary paints women to be submissive, innocent beings, who should only see sex as a way to please their male partner. This idea is supported by the binary's notion that men, because of the testosterone levels in their body, have higher sex drives and consequently, are unable to control their urges. This idea is reinforced in How I Met Your Mother, as the women Barney sleeps with are often labeled as naive and unassuming, as only he is allowed to initiate the encounter. His character reinstates the notion that because of their biology, men should be allowed to be sexually promiscuous without judgment, while women are not only shamed for exploring their sexuality but are ultimately expected to be the less sexual gender.

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Almost every woman has been catcalled at least once in her lifetime. Whether a man has yelled an explicative, whistled, or offered what he thought was a compliment, these unwanted comments from strangers are, unfortunately, a common experience for women. Though there is no concrete answer for why catcalls occur, an explanation may be the binary's definitions of the genders' demeanors. The binary gives men permission to be crass and assertive, encouraging them to share their unfiltered thoughts no matter the circumstance. Women, on the other hand, are expected to be pleasant and accepting at all times, even if they are placed in an uncomfortable situation. Catcalls reinstate the idea that men are allowed to be aggressive without consequence, as their behavior is seen as the inevitable result of an influx of testosterone. While women, who are the victims of this harassment, are expected to either ignore the comment or take it with a smile, as the binary instructs them to be agreeable no matter the situation.

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Plastered on the coffee mugs of Millenials everywhere, #GirlBoss seems to have taken the corporate world by storm. In its essence, the GirlBoss movement is a 21st-century idea created to show women that they can have the same successes in careers that have been traditionally reserved for men. However, in addition to its problematic capitalist roots, as well as its tendency to be racially exclusive, the title of the movement itself raises red flags about how "feminist" the notion actually is. For example, would a man call himself a BoyBoss? No, because it is assumed that men will inherently be bosses. This assumption is rooted in the binary's belief that men are biologically smarter than women, and while this belief has been reflected in all elements of society, it has been one of the most prominent hurdles in the workplace. Therefore, by the movement putting a female moniker in front of "boss", not only is it diminishing the significance of the title, as it creates a separate category just for women, but it ultimately widens the workforce gender gap. This is because the GirlBoss movement, despite having the goal of equality, actually reinforces the ideas of the gender binary. It places women in another category than men rather than striving for actual change, proving the binary's rule that men will always be the superior, smarter gender. And until the movement redefines its concepts of female inclusion, #GirlBoss will never achieve true equality, no matter how much branded merchandise the movement sells.

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In the age of OnlyFans, an increasing number of women have decided to tap into their sexualities and use their bodies as a way to generate income. Of course, people still continue to shame these workers, which is the purpose behind Alex Cameron's sex work positive anthem, "Far From Born Again." In his song, Cameron praises sex workers for being liberated, "In control in command/She's just a woman in charge of her plan," while also calling out the men who shame them, "Same men tell that her to stop/Are the same suckers that pay." Cameron's lyrics, and music video featuring commentary from real-life sex workers, make an important statement about the hypocritical nature of the sex work industry. The gender binary shames women who use their sexuality to earn income, labeling them as whores who are morally corrupt, however, men who contribute to sex work, by funding and consuming the practice, are left unscathed. Cameron's song directly calls out this double standard, presenting the sex worker as intelligent, financially independent, and in charge of her own sexuality, while the men are described as bitter hypocrites, who, despite shaming the sex worker, still pay for her services. Cameron's song, and the ideas behind it, directly rework the logic of the gender binary, presenting sex workers as smart, empowered, and financially stable, while the men who condemn them are seen as angry hypocrites.

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In 2019, the career of Melissa Viviane Jefferson, better known as Lizzo, skyrocketed. Her music, including hits such as "Truth Hurts" and "Juice," seemed to get attention from audiences everywhere, and her music became so loved, she was even named TIME Magazine's Entertainer of the Year. However, Lizzo's cultural impact goes much further than her Billboard hits. Lizzo has dedicated her time in the spotlight to body positivity and empowerment, showing women everywhere that being fat, or black, is not something they need to apologize for. In fact, Lizzo has dedicated her platform to showing women, as well as young girls, that these traits are beautiful, special, and overall, something to be proud of. However, these ideas, despite being refreshing and important, are considered radical by the traditional binary, as whiteness and thinness are integral parts of feminine beauty. In opposition to social norms, Lizzo's message of pro-black body positivity revises the gender binary by showing women that they are still beautiful and worthy, despite having attributes that do not align with the binary's traditional view of feminity, such as blackness or fatness.

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Sexist jokes are not a new concept for comedians, but even comedy's most "feminist" male entertainers have profited at the expense of women. John Mulaney, for example, despite being praised for his off-stage activism, such as advocating for Planned Parenthood,  has still managed to incorporate sexism into his sets. In his 2012 Netflix special, New In Town, Mulaney joked that a movie like Oceans 11 could never be remade with an all-female cast, because, "You could never put together a heist with women...because two would keep breaking off to talk shit about the other nine." The comedian then goes on to make jokes about how women, even in the high-stakes situation of a heist, would continue to make snide remarks, such as, "I love how you can just wear anything," distracting themselves from the mission to focus on tearing each other down. This stereotype comes from the binary's idea of how women should interact, as the traditional binary requires women to judge and ridicule other women for not "correctly" performing feminity. Mulaney's joke feeds into this notion, by repeating that women, when grouped together, are passive aggressive and petty, reinforcing the binary's idea that women must be pit against one another instead of working together.

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Are you sick? No, I'm just not wearing makeup...

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Are you sick? No, I'm just not wearing makeup...

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To the surprise of men everywhere, not all women naturally have thick brows, dark eyelashes, or clear, dewy skin. However, women feel pressure to consistently wear makeup, causing men, and sometimes other women, to believe that something must be off if they choose to ditch their concealer. These reactions from peers are due to the binary's outline of how women should look. According to the binary, women must be presentable at all times, which includes tasks such as dressing in a "flattering" manner, styling their hair, and consistently wearing makeup. If a woman goes against this standard and chooses to go makeup-free, she is often seen as sloppy, sick, or if she makes it a habit, brave. Of course, there is no pressure for men to wear makeup or to present themselves in a certain manner, so this sexist standard upholds the idea that only women must adhere to these rules. The expectation for women to wear makeup reinstates the binary's ideal that a woman needs to look a certain way in order to be accepted by society.

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Gender-neutral names are on the rise. While some may argue it's because the names are cuter, as Charlie is most certainly trendier than Charles, parents are saying their choice for a unisex moniker comes from embracing the possibility of their child's gender fluidity. The article linked below explains that though parents may know the sex of their baby, they may not know the gender, which is why some are opting for a name that does not have a specific identity assigned to it. The idea of gender-neutral names opposes the binary for two reasons, the first being the idea leaves room for fluidity in gender and the second being it allows for the choice of a masculine or feminine name, such as the traditionally female Avery, to be given to a child of any gender. Both of these ideas go against the binary's strict two-gender system, as they allow for not only changes in gender, but masculine and feminine characteristics to be interchangeable between genders. Parents intentionally choosing gender-neutral names reworks the binary by allowing for their child's gender to be fluid throughout their lifetime, a concept excluded from the traditional binary.

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Whether Royal, Charlie or Salem, Skyler, Justice or Oakley, unisex names for babies are on the rise among parents more willing than ever to embrace the possibility of gender fluidity in their children and attempt to head off sexism on their behalf.

"We're definitely seeing more conversation today around the distinction of a truly gender-neutral name," said Linda Murray, global editor-in-chief of BabyCenter.com. "This generation is truly interested in gender-neutral names."

The Social Security Administration puts out a top 10 list of popular baby names every year based on its registrations, but it also keeps track of names on the rise in its top 1,000. Name-watchers said crossovers and more neutral names haven't overtaken the top spots but are more heavily represented in the broader ranking, especially among millennial parents.

Pop culture and honoring family or religious history are important in baby naming, as is the cool factor. But more names are being used for either sex regardless of which gender they were originally associated with, and neutral naming has become a flashpoint for debate.

"We chose a gender-neutral name, Riley, for my daughter," said Lori Kinkler, a psychologist in San Antonio, Texas. "We knew her sex, but gender is fluid and yet to be determined. Of all the difficulties faced by those who live beyond, or across, the binary, we didn't want name-changing to be one of them. ... I like that she feels she has options and knows she'll be accepted by us no matter what." Riley is 3.

Pamela Redmond Satran, co-writer of " The Baby Name Bible" and " Cool Names for Babies," blogs about baby-naming and is also co-founder of the baby name site Nameberry.com, which crunches about 50,000 names every which way.

Satran says the interest in embracing potential gender fluidity is "an important reason but it's not the only reason. In fact, a lot of people choose unisex names because they think they're cool or they're meaningful to themselves but they raise their kids in a very gender-specific way."

Millennials aren't the only ones to give their kids gender-neutral names. Kyle Good grew up in the 1950s, the middle of five children and the only sibling with a gender-crossing name, based on a performer her father liked.

"My partner is named Jerry, for Gerald, so when we get introduced as 'Kyle and Jerry' most people think I'm Jerry and he's Kyle," she said.

Kirsten Hammann, 45, in the San Francisco Bay area, and her husband named their daughters Teagan and Sigrid. She considers both names gender neutral.

"Sigrid is technically a girl's name but because it's so uncommon in the U.S. it reads as gender neutral to most people," she said. "The gender neutrality was not something my husband and I discussed explicitly and I would say it was more in my mind knowing firsthand the hurdles women face across so many areas of life. Whether we like it or not, names that skew a little masculine, or less feminine, are perceived as stronger, and I wanted that for my girls."

Satran said some gender neutral-names follow other trends, such as choosing traditional last names as first names (hello, Madison) or bits of geography and nature: Lake, Blue, Dakota. And spellings have long signaled gender in names that sound the same: Yves vs. Eve.

In a few countries, unisex names are forbidden by law: Portugal, Denmark and Iceland. Local registrars decide in Germany if an unusual name would negatively impact a child.

Sorry, Harper, but it's unclear where those rules would leave you. Harper is the 10th most popular female name in the Social Security Administration's 2016 rankings, the latest available. It ranked 793 among boys that year.

The top female name was Emma, followed by Olivia, Ava, Sophia, Isabella, Mia, Charlotte, Abigail and Emily. For boys, Noah was tops, with Liam, William, Mason, James, Benjamin, Jacob, Michael, Elijah and Ethan rounding out the top 10.

"We named our baby Avery Morgann. The intention was to give them more room to define themselves as they get older. Also, name changes are expensive and frustrating," said Portland, Oregon, parent C.J. Alicandro, who strives for gender neutrality in all ways for the 2 1/2-year-old.

"We wanted to set up Avery with an opportunity to not be limited as much as possible by a name and be able to choose an identity as much as possible, given the confines that are forced upon them," said Alicandro, a 31-year-old social worker.

Nameberry analyzed the 2016 Social Security Administration data into a top 50 androgynous name list focused on those with heavy gender splits. Charlie came in at 50-50, followed by Finley at 58 percent for girls and 42 percent for boys. Skyler was in third place (54-46), Justice was fourth (52-48) and Royal was fifth (42-58).

Rounding out the Top 10 were Lennon (50-41), Oakley (52-48), Armani (46-54), Azariah (55-45) and Landry (53-47).

Rebecca Connolly, 29, in the western New York town of Castile, said she and her guitar-playing husband chose Lennon Wallace for their 2 1/2-year-old son. Both she and her husband are fans of the late John Lennon, for his music and activism.

"I wouldn't say I intentionally gave my son a unisex name," Connolly said. "As a child I felt bad for all the Taylor, Jordan and Jamies I knew whose names didn't identify their sex. By the time I was having kids, 50 percent of the little girls I met were named Riley, Avery, Logan, etc. And I realized all soft-sounding boy names are now considered unisex. I hate the double standard that giving a girl a boy name is spunky and strong but giving your boy a name used by girls will get him bullied and called a sissy at school."

Connolly also has a daughter, Lucille Beatrice, and is pregnant with a second son. The current front-runner name for him is considered masculine, she said, declining to reveal it, "though with the boy name on girls trend going strong, maybe it'll be considered unisex by the time he's in school."

That's fine with her. "I plan to teach them there is nothing inferior about women so sharing a name with them is not a big deal. Being called a girl is not an insult."

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Why gender-neutral baby names are on the rise

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Whether Royal, Charlie or Salem, Skyler, Justice or Oakley, unisex names for babies are on the rise among parents more willing than ever to embrace the possibility of gender fluidity in their children and attempt to head off sexism on their behalf.

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When a young girl chooses baseball over Barbies, or overalls over a frilly dress, she may be labeled a tomboy. While the term isn't seen as inherently negative, it perpetuates harmful stereotypes about what it means to be a girl. Since girls are not traditionally seen as strong or adventurous, or really associated with any trait that is labeled masculine, partaking in "masculine" activities is seen as expressing masculinity. The notion of tomboys directly retells the binary's definition of how boys and girls should express their gender, as it reiterates the idea that girls partaking in certain activities makes them masculine. In reality, elements, like wearing pants, playing sports, or being rambunctious, are gender-neutral. Therefore, labeling these activities as masculine, and the people who participate in them as expressing masculinity, takes away a young girl's right to perform her own version of femininity. There is no right way to be a girl, and othering the girls whose preferences do not fit the binary's definition creates a dangerous label, one that reinforces strict rules on how to perform their own gender.

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