Class-to-class connections

Today, the topic of two of my classes (ENG210 and TE448) revolved around homosexuality and the gender roles assigned to boys and girls. In ENG210, we read Coud9 by Caryl Churchill. One thing that Churchill did her play was cross-casting. Some of the female characters are played by men and a male character is played by a female. Therefore, when seeing the play, those who are homosexuals are actually with someone of the opposite sex. For example, Betty is played by a man and her servant, Ellen is played by a woman. When seeing the play and they kiss, you are actually are seeing a man and woman kiss, not two women kissing. I wonder if this makes this scene more comfortable for the audience. Edward, who is played by a woman, is a young boy who likes to play with dolls. His father does not like this though because he wants Edward to be a manly man. This belief points to a big topic what was discussed in both classes. Why are certain things considered manly and other things considered girly? We thought in English that maybe by giving children both toy trucks and dolls that we might be able to break away from these labels. I think it would be really interesting to see if this is true. Due to the deeply engraved ideas of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman, I wonder how long it would take to break free of this.