In many neighborhoods, the cultural norm is nursing, something you'll see women doing openly in cafes and restaurants.

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It is only our cultural norm that is defining who does which task.

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It would be hard to imagine a more crippling cultural norm.

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Because society has perpetuated this as a cultural norm, men tend to engage in street harassment as a way to prove their masculinity, says Northeastern University associate professor of sociology Kathrin Zippel.

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It had become a cultural norm, he says, transferred from generation to generation, from father to son, and from doctor to trainee - but it is a norm that is increasingly being challenged.

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Coaching and developing others is the cultural norm.

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Then it was accepted as a cultural norm.

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"The cultural norm is to sit, which is why sitting is the smoking of our generation: everyone does it, and it's so common, asking someone to be active definitely seems weird to everyone I ask, " she says.

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This cultural norm is reversed in some African countries I have visited, where a healthcare visit which does not result in an injection of some description is generally judged by the patient or parent to have had a failed outcome.

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Asian Americans striving to achieve leadership positions in this country (both men and women) often feel they are pushing up against very similar cultural headwinds as those women still face in professional environments where white men are the leadership norm.

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