Gender and the baggage we bring with it does influence how we view things. This was brought home to me when someone re-did "Dead Things" by prior to it Dawn making a wish that Buffy and Spike could walk in each others shoes for a change and suddenly it became Spike the Vampire Slayer and Buffy the soulless vampire and... woah! "Dead Things" became even more disturbing.

We really can't escape gender norms and sexual politics when we view things. It was actually an interesting exercise. I became more aware of how gender was influencing how we approached what was going on.