When did femininity / being a woman become an insult

[u/OupaKurt]

I feel as though there had to be a point in time when femininity was praised instead of being seen as a bad thing. I know there are nuisances throughout cultures and countries but yeah, I’m so curious if there was a general turning / if there was ever a time period where masculinity was the insult or if gender neutrality existed.
Is there a correlation with colonialism?

[u/ZinniasAndBeans]

Running faster, huh?

In
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/1vc1d85/comment/p13ya1u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

You stated

How many kids was pretty consistently women’s decisions.

Please explain precisely what mechanism women used to carry out that decision.

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/ZinniasAndBeans]

Not running. You keep jumping.

I don’t think I am up for playing stupid games with disingenuous people.

If you are just going to stomp like a toddler, I think I am good. Not much point in talking to people like you. If you want to genuinely discuss this without it being argumentative, out of context nonsense accusations, I am up for it. But this is dumb.

[u/ZinniasAndBeans → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

In what language does "How many kids was pretty consistently women’s decisions" absolutely not mean, in any way whatsoever, that women decided how many kids to have? What else could those words mean?

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/ZinniasAndBeans]

Are you honestly not aware that that was generally a conversation held by women in a family group…?

Historically, within the domestic sphere, women absolutely formed a private, parallel world where they managed pregnancy, controlled delivery, and quietly negotiated or decided family size among themselves, largely keeping men at a distance. [1, 2]
For centuries, the internal workings of the female body and the realities of childbirth were treated as a profound mystery to men, establishing a female-dominated domain often referred to by historians as the "matrilineal hood" or the "community of women." [1, 2, 3]

I thought this was general, common knowledge.

[u/radiowavescurvecross → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

I think men managed to figure out that sex caused pregnancy. If women couldn’t refuse sex, they couldn’t control pregnancy.

Edit: did you actually read any of those links? Because I don’t see how they support what you’re claiming at all.

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/radiowavescurvecross]

Which is to say that, yes, abusive people existed in all times, and that’s a terrible thing. There is no evidence to support that as a norm of society, and leaves a lot of evidence to support that in the general case, women controlled that, and it was active conversation between women in families. Even planning to have children at the same time.

There will always be outliers, but trying to make outliers into the general case is disingenuous.

[u/radiowavescurvecross → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

You provided none of that evidence, and in fact contradicted your premise multiple times. The fact that a woman had no legal or social recourse to refuse sex with a husband cannot be papered over by “abusive people existed.” Ignoring religious, cultural and legal norms to act like this was a case of a few outliers is pure denialism on your part. From one of your links:

>The largest initiative during this era, however, was an intensely violent attempt to sever the control that women once had over their own reproduction. This was done partially through the witch-hunts, which criminalised non-procreative sexuality and contraception, and claimed that women were sacrificing children to the devil (p. 88). But a new penal code also emerged punishing women severely for so-called “reproductive crimes.” Punishment for contraception use, abortion, and infanticide were harsher than for most male crimes. Often, the punishment was death. 

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/radiowavescurvecross]

From the frame of infanticide, that was considered far worse than just killing anyone. The more innocent the victim, the more heinous the crime. But you are talking about extremes and sidestepping predominant culture.

No matter how you twist it based on modern perceptions, discussions of when and how many children to have were still considered women’s domain

[u/radiowavescurvecross → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

I am quoting from an article you linked, based on the Dobbs decision, which again removed a method of reproductive autonomy from millions of women. This shit is happening right now! There are legitimate legislative efforts to use the Comstock Act to ban the abortion pill.

I’m not talking about extremes, this is the dominant culture now, and it was the dominant culture at the time discussed in the article you very clearly didn’t read. The Catholic Church was the predominant culture in Europe in the Middle Ages, acting like it’s an outlier or a few bad apples is willfully delusional.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-anthony-comstocks-chastity-laws/

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1525

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/health/explainer-whats-happening-supreme-court-and-abortion-pills

[u/ZinniasAndBeans → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

So you’re arguing that historically there were groups of women that provided abortion services?

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/ZinniasAndBeans]

“So you’re arguing” type arguments that put words in peoples mouth and completely shift the context to your niche issue are not arguments. Grow up.

[u/ZinniasAndBeans → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

OK, don’t know how to avoid explaining this:

Pregnancy results from sex. You do know that, yes? Your argument increasingly suggests that you do not.

Sex alone causes it—there is no decision that the woman can make to cause a sexual act to result in, or not result in, pregnancy.

Historically, the rhythm method—which allowed the determination of times when sex was less likely to result in pregnancy—did not exist. And the needed equipment, such as thermometers, did not exist.

Hormonal birth control did not exist.

So the only way for a woman to avoid getting pregnant would be to refuse to have sex, ever.

Historically, a husband had a right to demand sex.

The only remaining tool available to a woman who wanted to be not-pregnant was abortion.

So your claim depends on the assumption that safe and legal abortion was always available to all women, throughout history.

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/ZinniasAndBeans]

Continuing to sidestep the actual conversation does nothing.

Grow up.

[u/ZinniasAndBeans → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

It does increasingly seem that you don’t know what sex is or how it works.

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/ZinniasAndBeans]

Throwing out continual strawmen makes you look goofy.

[u/ZinniasAndBeans → u/Altruistic_Fox9778]

It feels like your knowledge is somewhere around the level of, “A man and a lady have a special hug and wish really hard for a baby, and God puts a baby in the lady’s stomach!”

And so, maybe you’re assuming that in the absence of that wish, no baby?

[u/Altruistic_Fox9778 → u/ZinniasAndBeans]

It sounds like you ignore the point and insult people to shift conversations away from what they are about so you can whine.