Bowie was an inspiration for those outside the box - he made it not just ok to be different, but made being different something to admire and aspire to.
UK columnist Caitlin Moran wrote this before his death, as part of a piece entitled "10 Things Every Girl Should Know": "When in doubt, listen to David Bowie. In 1968, Bowie was a gay, ginger, bonk-eyed, snaggle-toothed freak walking around south London in a dress, being shouted at by thugs. Four years later, he was still exactly that - but everyone else wanted to be like him, too."
The world is duller without him. But as @JeSuisDean wrote on Twitter, "If you're ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie."
So many people, including NZ musicians like Lorde and Brooke Fraser have shared their personal experiences of meeting him - the clear take-home message is he was genuine and without pretence, even turning down a knighthood.
Another pop-culture challenger to our societal norms is the lead character in the latest Star Wars movie, Rey.
Rey is a young woman but, as Daisy Ridley, the actor who played Rey in the movie, was quoted as saying on www.thedailybeast.com, "It just so happens she's a woman but she transcends gender. She's going to speak to men and women."
So it's puzzling that it's apparently nigh on impossible to find a Rey action figure - plenty of the other characters, but not the lead. Even director J J Adams was reported on Entertainment Weekly as describing Rey's limited presence in Star Wars merchandise as "preposterous".
I get it - there's an assumption that Star Wars is for boys and boys don't play with female figurines.
But I don't think that's true this time around - first off, Rey is a fantastic character with real spunk, and second, the world is changing - our kids see beyond traditional gender boundaries. It's hard to believe the marketing teams got it so wrong.
My boys, 6 and 4, are hopefully on a positive path to supporting equality - although there are plenty of opportunities for me to prompt them there are not rules about what's for boys and what's for girls. It is starting to sink in.
The other day I heard one son explain to the other that boys can like girl colours and girls can like boy colours - not quite the nuance I had hoped for, but give it time! A bouquet for The Warehouse on this front - they have announced a change to their marketing and in-store signage to remove the labels of "boys toys" and "girls toys".
I think Bowie would approve.
-Nicola Young has worked in the government and private sectors in Australia and NZ and now works from home in Taranaki for a national charitable foundation.
Educated at Wanganui Girls' College, she has a science degree and is the mother of two boys.
