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>Why IS it ok for men to tell women to 'Smile' all the time, yet rarely tell other men that? Is every man out there somehow the arbiter of women's attitudes?
>Why IS it ok to tell girls that like playing with 'boys' toys that they're wrong wrong WRONG and should be in the 'pink' aisle? Why are toys 'gendered' anyway? Geebus Crispy! I grew up on Legos and Lincoln Logs and making models.
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>As a man, a fairly rare man, who will step up when he sees "men who pulled garbage against women"; you need to understand that we see this every day. EVERY day. And not just because 'we go looking for it', but because it's being stuck in our faces all the time. And when your daughter hits around the age of, oh, four or so - this is what she's going to be drowning in.

I've told men to smile - or cheer up.

My daughter just turned five. She plays with Disney princess dolls but also plays with cars and Legos. She kicks a soccer ball with me, tries to shoot baskets with me, and also runs around the yard picking flowers. She gets exposure to all sorts of things. At preschool she (more or less) spends an equal amount of time playing with boys and girls.

I'm not saying the conditioning doesn't exist - but I also think there are over-reactions to harmless gestures. I once held the door open for a woman who was carrying some heavy books. I was just trying to be polite and would have done the same for a male. She yelled (and I mean yelled) at me, demanded I shut the door, and said that "seemingly simple gestures lead to sexual dominance".