Dominance: Physical or Psychological

• Your style of dominance is seen in your response to aggression, territorial activities around strangers or social customs around friends. Dominance traits are often instinctual, creating patterned responses to specific stimuli. Males tend toward physical dominance, raising their voices in social situations or engaging in physical exchanges such as shaking hands or putting their arms around a woman's back. Females tend toward psychological dominance, reacting to a conversation or asking subtle or piercing questions about something previously said.
  
  

Emotion: Methodology

• Both genders have the capacity for very strong emotion but each tend to have their own methods for addressing those feelings. Emotional reactions are largely unrelated to personal choice and exist as a physiological response to emotional distress. Males tend toward avoidance, growing quiet when the conversation turns emotional or redirecting an emotional conversation to a different topic. Females tend toward addressing their emotions, either externally through conversation or internally through self-reflection.
  
  

Social Customs: Perceptual

• Gender social customs are largely based on an individual's own perceptions of gender differences. Old stereotypes such as males being sexually dominant or women being sexually subservient were largely based on the social understandings at those times and no longer apply to modern gender differences. What is significant is how you perceive gender difference. If you believe that men are sexually dominant and act in response to that belief, you are exhibiting male-dominant traits. Similarly, if you believe that only women should wear certain clothes, such as skirts or dresses, and you choose to, you are choosing to exhibit female-dominant traits. Examine how you express your gender through social customs, clothes and even in your opinions of others.
  
  

Ask Yourself

• The final determination for your gender identity is your own -- less a choice and more of a realization of your personality, ideology and beliefs. If you feel you identify with one gender more closely than another, you are showing a connection to that gender. Your answer does not necessitate significant changes in your life but understanding your gender identity can help you understand yourself better and even accept yourself more completely.