When I was growing up in the 1960s, the big cultural thing was that people would surprise one and that one couldn’t judge by appearances. This got us the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and the gay rights movement. There were Westerns like The Big Country and Destry Rides Again where a big point of the story was about not judging things by the way they seemed, but by the way they acted.
Then came the 1980s, and suddenly it was all about appearances. What one did was suddenly less important than how one looked. There was a sudden resurgence in sex distinctions, in toys, in dress, in sports. It was as if the worst stereotyping of the 1950s had been brought back and reinforced. Toys and clothes for kids were suddenly pink and blue after a period when they had been gender free.
Nowadays, when I talk to young people, they seem confused. If a girl likes smashing things with a sledge hammer, she thinks she can’t be straight. If a boy likes musicals, he thinks he has to be gay. Anyone who doesn’t conform to that has to be gender mixed or something. It’s as if people are no longer allowed to have aspects of themselves that have nothing to do with their sexual preferences. In so many ways it is rather sad.