This division was mainly along class lines, with the middle-class, educated women in the feminist camp, and the rest of us hanging around in bars, dressed in butch and femme attire and coupling up along those lines. Feminist theory rejected the notion of gender rules, and recognised masculinity and femininity as socially constructed rather than innate. I and many other feminists were often severely punished and discriminated against for refusing to conform to gender. Our butch sisters, who had rejected femininity only to embrace stereotypical masculine appearance and behaviours, often suffered more that those of us attempting a gender-neutral stance. These women did not wish to pass as men — they were very proudly lesbian — and wore their butchness as a badge of honour. Men picked on them, often violently, probably because they saw their own masculine identity as under threat if women can embrace it, and get some good-looking femmes to sleep with them, what does that mean for men? Today, the old butches are a dying breed.