Drenched In Assumptions

Sometimes I re-read my notes from a book or a conference I attended. Today I came across this:

Revision: the act of looking back - of seeing with fresh eyes - venturing an old text from a new critical direction is for women more than a chapter in a cultural history - its an act of survival - until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot understand ourselves.

Think about our view of women and men. What are the assumptions in which we are drenched?