This is my response to this week’s Flashback Track Friday prompt, where we are asked to:
Share a piece of art that challenges gender roles.
My teenage years coincided with the Eighties.
I can remember lots of unwritten rules, which seem like nonsense now.
For example, there are two big, professional soccer teams in my home city, Liverpool and Everton. One was supposedly Catholic and the other Protestant.
Go figure! Someone please tell me how religion influences sport in this way.
Okay, the same was true in Glasgow, between Celtic and Rangers, and all of these teams did have genuine religious origins. Everton, my team, was originally a church team, a hundred and fifty years ago. But in the 1980s????
Or, when I was sixteen, I had my ear pierced. But I had to be careful; for the left ear meant I was straight, the right that I was gay. Huh?
Thank goodness that much of that nonsense is behind us.
But KK deliberately asks about gender roles, and the first thing which sprang to mind was this Queen track, where they’re all hilarious, I think. Now, everybody knows about Freddie’s sexuality, but it was far less well-known at the time, and seeing these guys in very obvious drag, performing traditional “women’s” tasks, surprised a lot of people.
Mister Bump 
I had to think about gender roles and taking your lead P I thought of Annie Lennox in the 1980s and this song sprang too mind
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I think there has been this “creep” since about that time. We don’t bat an eyelid now but back then it would have been far more unusual to challenge stereotypes.
Dare I say it -the election of Thatcher might have helped the notion that “a woman can do a man’s job”, although you know my thoughts on her.
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Yes that’s why I chose that video then in 1982-83 it was a very risqué video today women and men can dress as they wish in a handful of parts of the world
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True. There’s a long way to go. But we have to keep trying and we do get small results. We defeated apartheid in our lifetime.
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Yes although the long term effects of apartheid have ravaged South Africa decades later 😞
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I won’t open the door on Thatcher !
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I’ve heard the song and enjoyed it. A first to see the video though. Thanks for sharing.
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glad you enjoyed it. They had the world at their feet at the time.
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I agree
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Odd, when Queen made their hit in the states there was never any doubt how they were sexually. But I didn’t care
neither did a lot of fans. All I know is they had fantastic harmonies, great voices that sang terrific songs. Who
cared? Only people with narrow minds and tunnel vision. I found it interesting about the division of the soccer teams
didn’t know that, I would have expected it of Ireland but not of all in the UK. Then I remembered my history and
how it all began or shall I say changed in 1532 with Henry the VIII, amazing.
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No I’m not sure why the religion, either. It was never something that particularly interested me. But both cities have strong links to Ireland, I.e. Catholicism.
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Just love this tune; I believe you shared it with me a while back but it’s so appropriate as a response this week. So when’s the last time you wore an earring? Woman’s clothing is so comfortable I’m surprised when I hear a man hasn’t tried in a pair of pantyhose or a dress at some point.
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I let them close when I started work. The first one I went to a shop, the second.. a needle, surgical spirit and you can guess the rest.
I wore tights in the winter as a cyclist. But of course they badge them differently and charge 10x the price.
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I remember about the earrings. What is someone didn’t know and got the wrong ear pearced lol Woe to them for
the taunts they must not have understood. I am sure they went “huh”?
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I wonder if there was ever any truth in it? It’d be like an 80s Grinder.
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Interesting article on it….https://amatopiercing.com/2019/06/01/the-gay-ear-debunking-the-myth-for-pride-month/
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That’s a really good article. I never heard that phrase before. It’s interesting that totally opposite standards appear to have evolved.
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I loved that video, it was very empowering
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I don’t remember, but I suspect at the time it was quite shocking.
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I was a kid, I thought it was fun
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I guess I was about 14. Seeing someone cross-dressing was unusual.
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