“Be a man.” “Good girls don’t behave like that.” “You’re the guy, you’re supposed to pay.” “A girl shouldn’t be this loud.” “You’re too soft for a boy.” Sometimes, one sentence can carry a lot of expectations.

As an adolescent, you’re already trying to figure out your personality, friendships, relationships, interests, values, and what kind of adult you want to become. That’s already a lot. Then the world adds another question:

Are you behaving enough like a boy or girl?

Imagine you’re a boy and something is seriously bothering you. You want to talk about it, but your friends are the type to turn everything into a joke. Maybe the last time someone opened up, they were told, “Guy, man up.” So you decide to keep quiet. Not because the problem has disappeared or because you don’t need support, but because you don’t want to look weak. That’s one way gender expectations can affect how you see yourself.

Girls can experience their own versions of this pressure. Maybe you’re naturally outspoken. You know what you want, you’re comfortable expressing your opinion, and you enjoy taking leadership roles. But you’ve heard that girls shouldn’t be “too loud,” “too stubborn,” or “too ambitious.” After hearing it enough times, you might begin to wonder whether you need to make yourself smaller to be accepted.

The pressure can also show up in relationships. A boy may believe he needs to have money before he can date because he’s expected to pay for everything, buy gifts, or always be the one providing. A girl might feel she has to look or behave a certain way to keep someone’s attention, or tolerate controlling behaviour because jealousy is sometimes presented as proof that someone really loves her.

And then there’s social media. Every day, we’re exposed to content telling us what an attractive girl should look like, what a successful man should own, how each gender should behave, and what kind of lifestyle means you’ve “made it.” When you constantly see those messages, comparison can slowly become pressure.

The danger is that you may start hiding parts of yourself, changing what you enjoy, staying quiet about how you feel, or making decisions because you want other people’s approval. Eventually, it becomes difficult to tell the difference between what you genuinely want and what you’ve been taught you’re supposed to want.

So how do you navigate that? Start by separating who you are from who you’re being pressured to become. There’s nothing wrong with being strong. There’s nothing wrong with being gentle. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to provide for the people you love. There’s also nothing wrong with needing help sometimes. The problem begins when you feel you must become something simply to prove that you’re “man enough” or “woman enough.”

You don’t need to perform your gender for your friends, your partner, or social media. You’re still growing. You’re still learning. You’re still discovering what matters to you. Listen to good advice, learn from people you trust, and continue developing yourself, but give yourself enough room to discover who you are without constantly asking whether you’re being “boy enough” or “girl enough.” You have much more to offer the world than how well you fit somebody else’s stereotype.

Article by Maryam Orahachi Bello