Does gender identity influences in how we think?

The story of Stella vs. Stello

One of the exercises that we did through the training course by AHEAD in Gender Mainstreaming, was to examine the Stella’s story and rank the different characters that intervene in the story. It was a difficult process since we had to agree five people to one ranking, but we gathered the main opinion of the group minus one person. To further this analysis it was propose to analyse how inverting the gender identity would change our perspective on the situation. The first reactions were that it would definitely change but after a couple of minutes we were not that sure. Within this short article I would expose my own opinion.
Inverting the Stella’s story would sound like this: A handsome boy is in love with a girl across the river to which he can only reach by one boat, the woman boat’s owner tells him that she would only help him to cross the river if he sleeps with her. Stello asks his father and father tells to take his own decision. He decides to sleep with the owner of the boat and when he reaches her lover, Vitala, extremely sad for what happened and tells she everything he has done, she rejects him. Stello later on meets Gorana, a friend of Vitala who understand he and opposes to the opinion of Vitala.
It is important to underline for me that the story of Stello it is not as credible as the Stella’s story. We do not live in an equal society therefore the fact of changing the gender identity it does influence in the outcome of the exercise but in both cases the structures of power are maintained and therefore there are oppressions.
In my opinion, in both cases the position of the owner of the boat is the worst since he/she is only benefiting by himself and profiting by the needs of a young girl/man. The fact that in the second story is the boy the one who accepts to have a sexual relationship with an unknown women would have not seen as bad since the notions of masculinity in society, but this does not meant that he has not been oppressed and given other options, because he has not, and he does not feel proud about the sexual exchange. The role of the lover as the one who rejects him by what he has done, it is less credible when the lover is a girl, since women are supposed (stereotype) to be more flexible about infidelity and the idea of ‘romantic love’ for which she may consider more the fact that Stello has crossed the bridge to be with her than what he has actually have had to do. In any case the lover either girl/boy is in her rights to reject Stello/a and this is what happens in the story. To conclude the role of Gorana is difficult to picture since her first action is to hit her friend for not understanding Stello, which very rarely would happen due to the different education that girls/boys learn in relation to feminity/masculinity; secondary and in accordance with the gender expression the girl would listen and support Stello.
I think it is an interesting exercise to do, either with Stella and/or Stello; our gender identity is a social construct element part of our socialization and therefore it has a big impact in the way we act, that is one of the reasons why for me in the second case, Stello’s story, is less credible, but besides gender identity there are other important oppressions and hierarchies in which we live and experience that are important to be point out in the case of woman and/or man.