At an institutional level, the spread of heterosociality, epitomized by the entrance of women into public life and space, is closely associated with the progress of modernization.
The pervasiveness of heterosociality in contemporary life can lead to the obscuring of its social construction as a late development in Western history.
[5] Even in the twentieth century, rules of etiquette in some traditional villages dictated that men and women do not greet each other when passing in public.
Thus, for example, part of the hostility to the Elizabethan theatre lay in the fact that men and women freely intermingled in its audience;[7] while dance halls and cabarets later offered similarly controversial new areas for heterosocial interaction,[8] as too did amusement parks.
[9] In the 21st century, the challenge presented to traditional societies by the way the discourse of modernity encourages heterosociality over an older homosociality continues to be a live issue.