Uniform Anonymity (I)

Uniform Anonymity (I) - When I was little, I just could not wait to finally grow up and become distinct from anyone else. No, I did not attend Catholic School, nor was I ever forced to wear any type of school uniform, and yet, I clearly yearned to gradually become my best individual version. Sure, we girls all did weird and crazy stuff like coloring our hair, catching up with the latest makeup trends, wearing all kinds of outlandish clothes, walking or rather staggering around in the most current fashionable high- heels, etc. Most of us smoked (pot), drank alcohol and God knows took many more avenues simply to explore life to the fullest. In retrospective, I consider that wild decade between my mid- teens to my mid- twenties fairly normal, though. For the most part, my peers took the same route. No doubt, life started to get in the way by taking on a more serious note altogether, once the fun university years were over and work became top priority. Needless to say, the summary of my life experience, plus the personal environmental influence as well as my internal (spiritual) development has inevitably left a mark on the way I appear both in public and privately, on how I speak, act, think and feel today. And even if, I am no longer into the sort of girlie stuff that I used to curiously experiment with in my youth, I would definitely want to see myself a perfectly unique mixture between a dynamic and mature woman with tomboyish qualities and someone who has stayed young enough at heart to pull off the child whenever needed. Has my generation (born in the mid 1960s) bent the gender roles? Yes, quite dramatically, in fact. However, and this is finally getting me to the point here, we more or less all remained faithful to our sex. In short, guys my age continuously appear as males, and gals still act like gals overall. Quite intentionally, I would prefer to just exclude the "natural" quota of gender- confused folks like gays and bisexuals at this point for the simple reason that I feel that confusion problem stems from somewhere completely different and should therefore be discussed separately at a different time. Anyway, nowadays I look around and what I get to see in alleged gender- confusion frankly just floors me. What in the world has happened, I seriously wonder, that little and, mind you, immature kids feel the serious need to change their sex? Besides the hereditary component, the immediate environment in which a child is brought up, goes to school and mainly interacts with parents, peers and teachers, in fact, proves to be of the second most impacting influence on a youngster. Judging from actually seriously discussed social trends such as putting transgender bathrooms into schools or offering sex transformations to juveniles - just to name a couple of examples, the latest generation is clearly steered into a direction which is just not harmful but certainly utterly misleading. This is by no means the kids' fault but inarguably on mostly liberal politicians, sociologists, doctors and psychologists who purposely encourage such awkward and dangerous ideas. So, rather evidently, the pendulum is eventually swinging just towards the opposite extreme with regard to how the sexual roles used to be stereotyped. Was that common concept still being followed quite rigorously up to the 1940s and 50s, at least, both sexes knew how to dress and behave accordingly by displaying couth, taste and proper manners. Don't get me wrong, as necessary as the Women's Lib Movement was as to one day close the gap in terms of gender equality, for good, it ultimately led to softening and blurring the lines between the sexes to the extent that women just felt they needed to make lots of male domains their own. As a result, more and more females are now just delving into a form of collective anonymity which itself is becoming ever the more uniform and gender neutral in character. - To be continued next week.