A fairy tale:

once upon a time there were 10 women and 10 men on an island and 7 of the women developed a trait that the men started attributing to the female gender.  The other 3 women found this to be offensive.  They were thus faced with the options of trying to change the 10 men, the other 7 women, or changing themselves (3 women).

In their first attempt at changing the 10 men, the 3 women were somehow able to pass legislation to force the men to stop attributing that trait to women.  The men never mentioned it again (in the presence of a woman) but they still gave each other knowing nods and a wink whenever they saw a woman displaying that trait.  Legislation was thus not the fix to the problem.

The 3 women then tried indoctrinating their sons and taught them that just because some women are that way, not all women are that way.  This seemed to work up to a point.  Young people are usually idealistic but as they get older they tend to become more cynical and, as time went on, they joined the ranks of the older males that just nodded and winked at each other when ever a woman displayed that trait.

The 3 women then thought about changing the other 7 women but if those women were offended by the males, they would have changed themselves in order to not be associated with that offensive trait.  The 3 women realized that the other 7 women just couldn't change.

So (here's the fairy tale part) the 3 women gave up trying to change anybody and instead changed themselves to accept that the situation was just human nature.

The moral of the story is not that you can't change anyone.  The moral of the story is that it is easier to change yourself and let the everyone else do their own thing.  I've used men and women in this fairy tale but you could have picked almost any group that is at odds about a single issue (like abortion or gay marriage) but abortion is a hot issue and I couldn't have picked gay marriage and called it a fairy tale, now could I ;)