In our culture, all of the self's dimensions and traits considered superior are defined as male. Males therefore are associated with what are considered the self's superior dimensions and traits and as such, males are expected to possess these traits and are considered the superior gender because of this. They are to be strong, aggressive, independent, intellectual and adventuresome. Within the self, the superior male dimensions are to control the inferior female dimensions, except if the self is female, and then inferior female traits are to be in control. Females are to be weak, yielding and dependent, emotional and fearful.
Females then come to be seen as an inferior gender controlled by dominant inferior female traits.
Both genders, however, find themselves conflicted about their paradoxical nature and at odds with their paradoxical traits. They are in a power struggle with themselves. Self-expression with accountability does not conform to this approach or this tradition. Instead, it assumes that all of our paradoxical capacities are equally desirable and equally legitimate and all of them are equally necessary. Further, it assumes that the relationship between these contradictory forces is one of interdependence that is to be expressed in reconciliation not conquest.