THESE are sad times for the cause of sexual equality. In South Carolina this week, two female cadets announced that male prejudice was forcing their withdrawal from the Citadel, a military academy opened to women just a year earlier. In Washington, the Supreme Court heard arguments arising from Paula Jones's suit against Bill Clinton. And then there was another set-back, overlooked by most. This took the form of a modern morality tale called 'Beauty and the Beavis'.

The beauty in question was JonBenet Ramsey, a six-year-old whose doll-like smile won her a place on magazine covers. The day after Christmas, she was sexually assaulted and strangled; but it was less the hideousness of this crime than the details of her modelling career that captured the nation's attention. A whole industry of child pageantry was suddenly revealed. In hotel conference rooms up and down the land, thousands of small girls strive to prove themselves not by what they do, but by how closely they conform to stereotypes of beauty.

Then there was the Beavis, a character from an MTV cartoon whose inordinate success has spawned a recent film. Just as the child-model had to be a girl, Beavis is the archetype of teenage boyhood. He and Butthead, his companion, think of nothing but scoring with girls; when girls do not co-operate, they rob, guzzle pills, cause traffic accidents and enjoy it.

Although they involve children, both the Beauty and the Beavis stereotypes are sustained by adult enthusiasm. Mothers and grandmothers take girls to the pageants; men flock to watch Beavis in the cinema. This seems sad news for the cause of sexual equality, but perhaps it contains a grain of hope. A generation ago, after all, nobody would have thought girl beauties odd, and the sensibilities that Beavis assaults might barely have existed.

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