Revising

So, I've had a story idea for a long time, long enough that in the past five years I've worked on it for NaNoWriMo twice (both drafts vastly different) and poked at it many other times.  For one reason or another, I picked it up again.  And I've started making some MAJOR changes.  

There are a number of things that are the same, particularly in that my main character is rather disenfranchised with the world--that at least, has been consistent.  In fact, it's part of the main drive, finding what provokes you to care again, or at least finding what makes my main character care again and otherwise come to terms with their own mediocrity.  This means I've had to do a lot of thinking regarding what my character cares about in the first place.  I cannot discover my character as I write; I really need to understand.  Ordinarily and even in this blog, I work through the process, finding what I really want to say by talking through it, so this is a bit of a shift for me.  This time as I was hashing out some specifics, I asked myself why my character had up unto this point always been a guy.  Somewhere along the way, I had made a strange assumption that a male character might be easier.  

Eventually, I figured it out:  I associate disenfranchisement and/or numb feelings with a male figure more than I do a female figure.  This is reflected in movies and books already.  A female character tends to care about things and is expected or at least allowed to show emotion.  A male character is often expected to be stoic, unflappable.  

Somewhere in elementary school, it's no longer okay for young boys to cry.  Instead of finding support when emotions are running high, they're supposed to suck it up or "man-up."  A man who is in touch with his emotions or is "too sensitive" is weak, even undesirable.  Is there any wonder, then, that statistically there are more male suicides?
  
So I'm torn between two thoughts:  do I want to have a female character that makes it more normal for women to be distant if they choose or emphasize that there's a lot going on in my character's mind, even though he might seem distant?  

Whether I like it or not, there is a set of societal implications that will immediately land on my character as soon as I make a decision, even if I choose a character that rejects pronouns.  What set of assumptions do I want to work through?  

I'm most familiar with the female expectations--pressures on appearance, assumptions of frailty, etc.  And there's certainly that idea of "write what you know."  And yet, I appreciate the challenge of trying to think further outside of myself.  

Where that leaves me, then, is to go back and ask the character what is right for that character.  I still haven't fully decided, although I'm certainly leaning a direction if only for experimentation's sake.  The difference is now I'm walking into the discussion with my eyes further opened to some of my own biases.  With this interesting moment of clarity about some of the preconceived ideas that I have accepted, I very much wonder what other ideas I also need to work through, how many other concepts I have accepted without thinking through them.