Some readers may be thinking that the last thing we need is another round of gender wars. With all the rage over ‘political correctness’ and ‘cancel culture,’ what we need is to defuse gender. To talk about it without pronouncing in advance the right way to talk about it. I get that, believe me. The way I grew up, we were always rolling our eyes at the ‘semantic police.’

And yet, our patterns of language and logic really do matter. Sometimes, they keep tripping us up when we have further to go. These are the kinds of hitches and snags I care about. Please know that I write about them in the spirit of disarming gender—the hope of reaching a more productive common understanding. When I say we have some ‘bad’ habits, I mean bad as in limiting or hindering. They’re holding us back from making a better world together. I don't mean bad in a moral sense. I’m not trying to scold you; I’ve got my own problems to worry about.

Just as there is no need to moralize these habits, there is no need to politicize them. No political party or orientation owns the tendencies I’m about to summarize. They are rampant from left to right, and most of us fall prey to these patterns. Let me be the first to admit openly that I am still plagued by them, despite how hard I’ve worked to shake them. Changing something embedded in our routines takes time, practice, collaboration, and endless grace. I want to make and mend mistakes together, not perch my virtue on your sins, which—let's face it—I will commit again myself.

If you’re looking to be put off by piety here, you won't find it. What you will find is an alternative way to address gender, in three steps:

• • First, I distill my venting from Chapter 2 into five habits I think we need to lose, complete with practical suggestions for how to leave them behind.

• • Second, I explain what is ‘wrong’ with these habits—not why they are improper, but what they do and how that holds us back.

• • Third, I map out what I think is a more promising way to go.