Word: unisex
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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American has cut the 4? cost of laundering each washroom towel by switching from cloth to paper. By eliminating the more expensive blue cloth towels and going to all white, Eastern is saving $10,000 a year. The line has also adopted a unisex philosophy in passing out toy pins: formerly the wings given to girls were marked "Stewardess" and those given to boys were stamped "Pilot." Now they say "Eastern Air Lines." Savings: $9,000 a year...
...being exposed to the conventions of society. To many Women's Liberationists, masculinity and femininity are outmoded sexist concepts, and the current blurring of sex roles is a welcome development. To Charles Winick, professor of anthropology and sociology at the City University of New York, the rise of "unisex" in the U.S. has ominous connotations for the future of the nation. In a survey of 2,000 different cultures, Winick found that some 55 were characterized by sexual ambiguity. Not one of those cultures has survived...
...addition to sexual crisscrossing, unisex is characterized by blandness and the avoidance of extremes. Says Winick: "Light from her cigar may provide the only brightness" on modern woman's "barely there" face. Houses are becoming sexless: they contain few leather club chairs or boudoir chairs-or even boudoirs. In interior decoration, the most popular hue is a noncolor, beige. Names too are sexually equivocal; one child out of five has a name like Robin or Leslie or Dana...
...does it all matter? Because, Winick explains, until people have acquired what psychiatrists call sexual identity, and until they recognize the reality of their sex, they cannot accept or cope with other realities. Says Winick: "America's survival potential may be substantially undercut if unisex continues because it will impair our ability to adapt to new situations...
Sexual Honesty. Gernreich is also convinced that unisex is the wave of the future. In his 1970 line, he has already carried that concept through to its logical (as far as he is concerned) conclusion. He has eliminated all sexual variations in the clothes by designing miniskirts, leotards and pants suits for men and women alike. Men in miniskirts? "Sure," says Rudi diffidently. "Is a boy in a skirt any the less a boy?" By wearing the same clothes, he insists, male and female only "enhance" their bodily differences; by promoting uniformity of dress, he argues, he is also promoting...