@technolyze @georgia its just an example, the point is that it has to be connected to something real otherwise it is rendered irrelevant, also it changes depending on the society, the times, etc. but it always has to communicate something real, otherwise it serves no purpose.
For example in a society where men have short hair because they fight and women have long hair because it signals good health being able to keep a long healthy hair, if a woman were to choose to have short hair, she would be signaling not that she fights, and not that she is not healthy enough to have long hair, but maybe that she has some psychological thing that makes her different, and that could be a good or a bad thing, or interpreted as attractive by a subset of the men and unattractive by others, etc.
Or maybe that makes her seem like an easy sex opportunity but not stable for a long term relationship with children, or whatever.
There is also deception, many people will imitate the performance without having the underlying quality, and if enough % of the population does it, usually the whole standard changes