[Callers] When Did Gender Role Terms Become a "Problem"

I'm trying to make sense of the discussion of this and another forum I frequent. When did gender terminology become a "problem"? And, is it a problem that is this serious? I have been dancing and playing for dances since 1979, and calling since 1981. I "get" referring to "actives" and "inactives" as "ones" and "twos", or something similar, since modern contras tend to have both couples active most of the time. This I can deal with. I have run a family dance series since 1990 and also have led many school-age dances. Most dances I use for these events can easily be danced without reference to gender. This makes dancing much more easy for children to buy into. Leading historical dancing as part of learning about history does tend to go best if boys and girls dance the part of their gender. So, when did referring to males and females as something gender-neutral become the fashion? I've called many dances that had gender imbalances. Heck, one almost-a-dawn-dance I led had twice as many men to begin with. Those of us who wanted to dance danced the women's part. It wasn't a big deal. A popular square and contra dance I ran for many years had 80 or so women from a sorority show up one night. They were dressed in western attire. We just adapted the program to make them feel comfortable. (A side note to those who know our Pittsfield Grange. The band counted 15 squares this dance. The hall usually feels crowded with 8 squares.) The first time I remember resistance to gender roles was during the early 90s. Two of my female caller friends tried to change traditional square dance calls to more gender-free ones. This didn't work well at all for most singing squares! One of them wrote an article for the CDSS News that shared her viewpoint. I wrote a response that the editor heavily edited so that my point was completely missed. A caller/morris dancer from Minneapolis then "roasted" me in his response. This from a man who danced in an all-male morris side that women weren't allowed to join! This whole process forever soured me on the CDSS. I learned from many older callers, both square dance and contra, who followed the traditions of the communities they called for. To use artificial terms for communities that had no problem with gender terms was just wrong. I was especially offended by "outsider" callers trying to change things that had worked for sometimes generations. Who the heck are we to force our views on others? Things will change if there is a reason for them to change. Dancing is PLAY, not a means for social engineering. John B. Freeman