5 string, Im 35 and your memory must be going mate. I remember growing up seeing the boomer generation - your generation, my parents- in 'gel sh!t in their hair, bracelets, necklaces, skinny jeans and shirts with little designs and jewels on them'. I can supply the photos and youtube vids if you want ;-)
What were rockers (prog, blues, punk, new wave, hard, heavy metal, hairband), electrofunkers, soul and funk fellas, discokids wearing during the 70s and 80s ;-)
Thankfully it was your generation that has helped allowed men to wear ''gel sh!t in their hair, bracelets, necklaces, skinny jeans and shirts with little designs and jewels on them'.
Your generation thankfully overturned the then traditional western notions of masculinity and femininity, which are anything but traditional(women in all classes have always worked outside tthe home for example) and have existed not for thousands of yrs, but from only 1800ce ie.the stifling ‘work camp’ Victorian Temperance uppermiddle class ideal of masculinity and femininity that was ushered in, unfortunately by the 19th C ce revolutions in Europe and the social regimentation of the Industrial Revolution.
What is going on now, is a process of returning to more naturalistic masculinities and femininities, that we see echoed but not exactly in the histories
Also guess, which gender is first recorded as wearing high heels, stockings and suspenders, leggings, short dresses ;-)
besides anything a masculine man does, wears becomes masculine.
if a masculinity is scared of a piece of cloth, what does that say about the true strength of masculinity