On femininity & loss/return...

lizmonster said:

I formed an opinion back in college that may be entirely BS: the devaluation began when we stopped being nomadic, people acquired stuff, and men wanted to be certain their children (who would inherit their stuff) were related to them by blood. The only way to do that with certainty was to subjugate women, and the only way to keep women from rebelling en masse was to convince them that somehow their status was the natural order of things. But I'm one of those people who tends to believe that most human conflict eventually comes down to economics.

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I don't think this is so far fetched. The thing that has always bugged me, though, is why women--if we really are equal and not more inclined than men to passivity--so willingly knuckled under instead of fighting to regain their independence. Why weren't there ever any female "slave revolts"?

Some argue that it's because women need the protection of men in order to care for their kids and provide for themselves when pregnant. I think this is overstated. It's not inevitable that female mammals bow to a patriarchal system because pregnancy and birthing and lactation make them vulnerable, though. Some species live in female-dominated groups with the males at the periphery or living apart outside of the breeding system. The females help one another out, or the males help on the females' terms, even if the males are larger. In most dimorphic species, it's the males who primp, compete, and prance around waving bright colors or whatever, striving to be attractive.

The thing is, though, that our notions of femininity and masculinity are so tied up with power dynamics and the persistent concept that women are possessions of men that it's hard to ferret out which elements of traditional femininity, aside from roles involved in the care of nursing infants, have a biological basis, which are adaptations to the need for the care of nursing infants, and which are social constructs through and through.

It's also hard to parse when something traditionally feminine in our culture (like wearing makeup, wearing impractical hair styles and clothing, and loving shoes that damage our feet) are truly freely-chosen, fun expressions of our femininity, and which are really the result of social conditioning and are reflections and perpetrators of inequality and the need for women to be pretty at all times to have much value.

No wonder there are such clashes, even within feminist circles, over these things. On one side we have feminists who suggest that the things considered traditionally feminine are tools of the patriarchy, designed to keep us docile, submissive, and pleasing to men. On the other are feminists who insist that rejecting the traditional trappings of femininity is a reflection of misogyny or the internalization of the idea that feminine things are inferior on the part of women.

Most of us, of course, aren't completely one way or another anyway.

There have been a lot of complaints over on SFF forums about stories where a girl who "isn't like other girls and has little use for them." Such stories often center on her struggles to be accepted in the world of men within a strongly patriarchal culture that strictly defines gender roles to male-active and female-passive.

The so-called "heroine's journey" trope is supposed to take that full circle where the female character eventually integrates her feminine and masculine traits and finds wholeness in the face of patriarchal norms. But there's probably a reason this trope is common. I think many girls of my own generation related to this to some degree. There was still pressure to be ladylike, and being ladylike not only meant being decorative, but being passive in many ways.

Perhaps there's a generation of girls and younger women now, though, who don't regard traditionally feminine things as externally imposed or limiting in the way we did (even if they are still being pressured towards all things pink via advertising and the media). After all, my nieces grew up with pink, glittery princess dresses and dolls, but they were also allowed to play in the mud, climb trees, ride scooters or skateboards and so on, and they were actually encouraged to do sports (which they love). They were rarely, if ever, told they couldn't do something because it wasn't "ladylike."

Jan74 said:

Why can't I feel feminine wearing a sundress? Feeling feminine isn't a bad thing.

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You can. As long as you don't tell me I'm not equally as feminine playing defence in ice hockey (I always played a physical game, lots of checking and more than the occasional double minor for roughing and unsportsmanlike) or playing front row in rugby (for those of you who aren't familiar with rugby, front row is the front row of the scrum and you have to be very strong, tough and play a really physical game).

Thing is, you naturally fit into our culture's gender roles, and probably because of that you haven't questioned them much. Whereas I've spent my entire life having my femininity called into question (and my gender identity, sexuality and been subjected to homophobia) because my natural personality, tastes, etc, are for things that our culture has decided are "masculine". I've never let society's ideas about gender roles and the gender appropriateness of things stop me from doing what I've wanted to do. But there's this constant, relentless message that how I am is not "normal" for my gender. Yet all I've ever done is be myself. And I'm no less feminine than any other woman.

Also, I think a lot of women and girls are put off doing things they might otherwise have wanted to do by this relentless pressure to conform to a very narrow way of being feminine, combined with being seen as a freaky weirdo for not conforming. (And yes that is how many people make you feel.) I'm very fortunate in that my parents are feminists (yes even my dad and yes even in the 70s) so I only ever faced this kind of crap outside the home while my parents were very supportive of me doing what I wanted to do and not letting other people's attitudes get to me.

I think I like Lisa's way of looking at. Everything I do is feminine because I'm a female. That sure simplifies it and I don't have to justify how I feel in a sundress or a floppy hat. I feel more relaxed, at peace, joyful when I'm at camp, on the dock enjoying a book. Yep...that is where I feel the best. Feminine masculine, who cares whatever.

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I agree 100% with Lisa's way of looking at it, and it's my way of looking at it too. I've been known to tell people "I'm totally a lady because I play for a ladies rugby team"

I'm also just as feminine as this female Neandertal*, i.e. 100% feminine (middle palaeolithic spear 'n all**) by virtue of the fact that I'm female. Ditto female T. rex.

*image is of a scientifically accurate forensic reconstruction of a Neandertal woman who lived more than 40,000 years ago (I can't remember the exact date). She's found in the Neandertal museum in Neandertal, Germany, and apparently the staff there call her Wilma.

**okay I don't actually have a middle palaeolithic spear, but that's only because I'm not yet good enough at flintknapping to make anything other than early lower palaeolithic tools. But I can practice.

You absolutely don't need to justify at all your tastes, preferences and what you like doing. Enjoy your sundresses and floppy hats and whatever else, whether it conforms to society's gender expectations or not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with naturally conforming to gender expectations. The point is entirely that other people who don't conform to them are no less the gender they are because of it.

lizmonster said:

I formed an opinion back in college that may be entirely BS: the devaluation began when we stopped being nomadic, people acquired stuff, and men wanted to be certain their children (who would inherit their stuff) were related to them by blood. The only way to do that with certainty was to subjugate women, and the only way to keep women from rebelling en masse was to convince them that somehow their status was the natural order of things. But I'm one of those people who tends to believe that most human conflict eventually comes down to economics.

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This is not BS at all. It's an actual theory in anthropology and human cultural evolution. I studied these ideas at university (there was a book by someone with a last name like Erinberg, Errenberg something like that... I quoted her a lot in one assignment on this topic). The shift most likely happened in the late neolithic era as a result of changes that came from agriculture (including, but not limited to, the ability to accumulate wealth).

There is a lot of evidence to back it up, for example if you compare modern hunter-gatherer societies with non-industrial, agricultural societies, you find a fairly consistent* pattern that hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian (not just in gender roles, but also the lack of division between rich and poor, etc) and agricultural societies are more sexist (as well as often having social class divisions). Also agricultural societies tend to have religions that are more rigid and superstitious and more about what people can and can't do. It's got a lot to do with accumulation of wealth (as a nomadic hunter-gatherer you can't accumulate wealth), reliance on agriculture (if your crop fails you're in for a very shit winter, but if your hunt fails as a hunter-gatherer you'll only go hungry for a day or so because you can try again tomorrow) and also the emergent necessity to defend crops and lands, which leads to men becoming warriors defending the lands and the women... women start to be seen as property to be defended rather than as equals with the same agency as men.

*as always, there are exceptions, but when you look at the exceptions you can find economic reasons for it - women's status correlates strongly with the ability of women to provide economically. In a hunter-gatherer society, gatherers provide 80%+ of the food and is completely compatible with bearing children - being pregnant and/or in charge of small children doesn't stop you from going gathering, but in an agricultural society it probably will stop you doing heavy work on the farm or becoming a warrior - but you'll find in agricultural societies where women's status was comparatively higher, women were better able to contribute something important economically.

There are a lot of things that tie in with this and it's hard to do the topic justice in a forum post and I wish I could remember the author's last name. Okay I googled it, I think it's Ehrenberg. She wrote a book on this entire topic, though there were various other studies I looked at in uni from journals etc, in particular comparing hunter-gatherer tribes with non-industrial agriculturalists and how socioeconomic factors affected the status of women. One that springs to mind (a book, not a study in a journal) is The Forest People by Colin Turnbull - mostly it's about the BaMbuti people (hunter-gatherers living in the Congo rainforest) but there are some comparisons with the agriculturalist population that lived on the edges of the rainforest, who had starkly different attitudes to a range of things, including the fact that BaMbuti people have gender equality and the nearby agriculturalists are male dominated and a lot more superstitious in their outlook (afraid to break taboos, go against the norms of their culture, etc.)

neandermagnon said:

You can. As long as you don't tell me I'm not equally as feminine playing defence in ice hockey (I always played a physical game, lots of checking and more than the occasional double minor for roughing and unsportsmanlike) or playing front row in rugby (for those of you who aren't familiar with rugby, front row is the front row of the scrum and you have to be very strong, tough and play a really physical game).

Thing is, you naturally fit into our culture's gender roles, and probably because of that you haven't questioned them much. Whereas I've spent my entire life having my femininity called into question (and my gender identity, sexuality and been subjected to homophobia) because my natural personality, tastes, etc, are for things that our culture has decided are "masculine". I've never let society's ideas about gender roles and the gender appropriateness of things stop me from doing what I've wanted to do. But there's this constant, relentless message that how I am is not "normal" for my gender. Yet all I've ever done is be myself. And I'm no less feminine than any other woman.

Also, I think a lot of women and girls are put off doing things they might otherwise have wanted to do by this relentless pressure to conform to a very narrow way of being feminine, combined with being seen as a freaky weirdo for not conforming. (And yes that is how many people make you feel.) I'm very fortunate in that my parents are feminists (yes even my dad and yes even in the 70s) so I only ever faced this kind of crap outside the home while my parents were very supportive of me doing what I wanted to do and not letting other people's attitudes get to me.



I agree 100% with Lisa's way of looking at it, and it's my way of looking at it too. I've been known to tell people "I'm totally a lady because I play for a ladies rugby team"

I'm also just as feminine as this female Neandertal*, i.e. 100% feminine (middle palaeolithic spear 'n all**) by virtue of the fact that I'm female. Ditto female T. rex.

*image is of a scientifically accurate forensic reconstruction of a Neandertal woman who lived more than 40,000 years ago (I can't remember the exact date). She's found in the Neandertal museum in Neandertal, Germany, and apparently the staff there call her Wilma.

**okay I don't actually have a middle palaeolithic spear, but that's only because I'm not yet good enough at flintknapping to make anything other than early lower palaeolithic tools. But I can practice.

You absolutely don't need to justify at all your tastes, preferences and what you like doing. Enjoy your sundresses and floppy hats and whatever else, whether it conforms to society's gender expectations or not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with naturally conforming to gender expectations. The point is entirely that other people who don't conform to them are no less the gender they are because of it.

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^^^I agree with you! It is very individual for each person and each person has the right to define it for themselves. And you rock by the way....I'm Canadian....everyone is encouraged to play hockey here. We have a girls league, however the girls have the advantage they can join either league.

Roxxsmom said:

I don't think this is so far fetched. The thing that has always bugged me, though, is why women--if we really are equal and not more inclined than men to passivity--so willingly knuckled under instead of fighting to regain their independence. Why weren't there ever any female "slave revolts"?

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Historically and prehistorically, women have only accepted lower status when they haven't had the power to rebel against it. As mentioned in the previous post, economics has a lot to do with it. Putting it in the most simplest form, if you take an average hunter-gatherer society where women provide 80% of the food, if the men were to try to subject women to oppression, the women could simply refuse to share their gathered food with them, and then see how the men fare at hunting when they've had nothing to eat and have no carbohydrate in their system*. Similarly, if the men don't like how the women treat them, they can refuse to share the meat. The ability to provide food is a massive bargaining chip. And women can go gathering while pregnant and with small kids in tow. If the society is dependent on agriculture and men control the wealth and the food production (as is often the case for various reasons outlined in the previous post) then what do women have that they can bargain with?

*okay the average hunter-gatherer won't phrase it in terms of carbohydrate but they'll still "hit the wall" and be unable to keep hunting effectively when their blood sugar levels run out

Humans were hunter-gatherers for more than a million years before agriculture was invented and there is no reason to believe that palaeolithic humans weren't egalitarian like the BaMbuti people or the !Kung San people are (the latter, while they have the man is usually a hunter and the woman is usually a gatherer thing, value both roles equally and contrary to popular belief, it's not taboo or frowned upon for individuals to do like the opposite gender, just that there's no birth control so women who do hunt tend to give it up when they start having kids.) It's a widely believed myth that humans have always been sexist. The evidence strongly suggests that it's a post-neolithic era thing, i.e. only in the last 10,000 years, and not even in all societies, even today.

neandermagnon said:

Historically and prehistorically, women have only accepted lower status when they haven't had the power to rebel against it. As mentioned in the previous post, economics has a lot to do with it. Putting it in the most simplest form, if you take an average hunter-gatherer society where women provide 80% of the food, if the men were to try to subject women to oppression, the women could simply refuse to share their gathered food with them, and then see how the men fare at hunting when they've had nothing to eat and have no carbohydrate in their system*. Similarly, if the men don't like how the women treat them, they can refuse to share the meat. The ability to provide food is a massive bargaining chip. And women can go gathering while pregnant and with small kids in tow. If the society is dependent on agriculture and men control the wealth and the food production (as is often the case for various reasons outlined in the previous post) then what do women have that they can bargain with?

*okay the average hunter-gatherer won't phrase it in terms of carbohydrate but they'll still "hit the wall" and be unable to keep hunting effectively when their blood sugar levels run out

Humans were hunter-gatherers for more than a million years before agriculture was invented and there is no reason to believe that palaeolithic humans weren't egalitarian like the BaMbuti people or the !Kung San people are (the latter, while they have the man is usually a hunter and the woman is usually a gatherer thing, value both roles equally and contrary to popular belief, it's not taboo or frowned upon for individuals to do like the opposite gender, just that there's no birth control so women who do hunt tend to give it up when they start having kids.) It's a widely believed myth that humans have always been sexist. The evidence strongly suggests that it's a post-neolithic era thing, i.e. only in the last 10,000 years, and not even in all societies, even today.

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I would take it one step further and say that sexism probably corresponds to organized religion. As women were pushed out of the way(apparently there was a female pope and there were female catholic priests) as men took over and these hierarchies evolved, they being men shoved women down the ladder and we were powerless to stop it. It wasn't that long ago a husband had the power to have his wife committed to asylums for hysteria and all sorts of absurd issues....but women lived in fear of being imprisoned or killed. Women are physically weaker(in general) so by brute strength and no laws on our side being a woman for most of our recent history hasn't been great.

I think the answer for the OP (that has emerged from all the back and forth in this thread) is that he can have a woman be upset by the loss of her periods or not, and that upset may or may not be because menstruation is at the core of her feminine identity.

Thinking back to when I was a pre-teen, I remember being anxious about the fact that I didn't start until just after my 15th birthday. Most of my friends started by the time they were 13 or so, and I didn't know anyone else who "waited" as long as I did to officially hit puberty. I think I felt frustrated, because I wanted to feel "grown up," and I know menses suggested that one was, biologically, at least, a woman (even if girls in their pre teens or early teens are, in fact, anything but, and historically menarche came later than it does today). I worried that I was abnormal, or not as grown up as my peers. I was also a late bloomer in the breast department, though I was always tall for my age and sex.

Maybe the masculine equivalent would be a guy whose voice breaks much later than his peers, so he still has a "little boy" voice his first year in high school when his friends all sound gravelly and are starting, at least, to get some beard and chest hairs.

I'm guessing the girls who get their periods at 9 and have noticeable breasts while still in grade school also have angst, though. Anything that puts you out of step with most of your peers is embarrassing.

After I started, the luster quickly wore off, and I wouldn't have missed it. My body decided to make up for lost time, and I "enjoyed" cramps and unusually heavy flow from the very beginning, and it took forever for them to get even halfway predictable or reliable. It was a PITA. when I became sexually active and went on the pill, it was a relief, because it made them lighter and predictable, and it also smoothed out the lovely pimple bloom that happened around that time.

My feminine angst over that, such that it was, was replaced by frustration with my inability to fix my hair, clothes, makeup etc. in a way that looked "right." I always felt messy, wrinkled and rumpled compared to the popular girls. I never had a group of girlfriends who got together and fixed each other's hair and makeup, and my mom was never into those kinds of things (she always wanted me to have a pixie cut when I was little and complained bitterly over having to brush my tangled curls out while I squirmed and groaned over the pain).

I still have no idea how to put my hair up into a nice bun (as opposed to something that looks like a tangled little club with escaping wisps) or how to braid my own hair, and even something as simple as pulling my hair back into a ponytail or with a barrette takes many tries to get it right. It never seems to fall right. I always felt jealous of those girls who could, while sitting and chatting about something, idly put their hair up and hold it in place with nothing but a pencil.

Roxxsmom said:

I think the answer for the OP (that has emerged from all the back and forth in this thread) is that he can have a woman be upset by the loss of her periods or not, and that upset may or may not be because menstruation is at the core of her feminine identity.

Thinking back to when I was a pre-teen, I remember being anxious about the fact that I didn't start until just after my 15th birthday. Most of my friends started by the time they were 13 or so, and I didn't know anyone else who "waited" as long as I did to officially hit puberty. I think I felt frustrated, because I wanted to feel "grown up," and I know menses suggested that one was, biologically, at least, a woman (even if girls in their pre teens or early teens are, in fact, anything but, and historically menarche came later than it does today). I worried that I was abnormal, or not as grown up as my peers. I was also a late bloomer in the breast department, though I was always tall for my age and sex.

Maybe the masculine equivalent would be a guy whose voice breaks much later than his peers, so he still has a "little boy" voice his first year in high school when his friends all sound gravelly and are starting, at least, to get some beard and chest hairs.

I'm guessing the girls who get their periods at 9 and have noticeable breasts while still in grade school also have angst, though. Anything that puts you out of step with most of your peers is embarrassing.

After I started, the luster quickly wore off, and I wouldn't have missed it. My body decided to make up for lost time, and I "enjoyed" cramps and unusually heavy flow from the very beginning, and it took forever for them to get even halfway predictable or reliable. It was a PITA. when I became sexually active and went on the pill, it was a relief, because it made them lighter and predictable, and it also smoothed out the lovely pimple bloom that happened around that time.

My feminine angst over that, such that it was, was replaced by frustration with my inability to fix my hair, clothes, makeup etc. in a way that looked "right." I always felt messy, wrinkled and rumpled compared to the popular girls. I never had a group of girlfriends who got together and fixed each other's hair and makeup, and my mom was never into those kinds of things (she always wanted me to have a pixie cut when I was little and complained bitterly over having to brush my tangled curls out while I squirmed and groaned over the pain).

I still have no idea how to put my hair up into a nice bun (as opposed to something that looks like a tangled little club with escaping wisps) or how to braid my own hair, and even something as simple as pulling my hair back into a ponytail or with a barrette takes many tries to get it right. It never seems to fall right. I always felt jealous of those girls who could, while sitting and chatting about something, idly put their hair up and hold it in place with nothing but a pencil.

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Oh the pixie cut...yes I was a victim of that too! It wasn't until grade 5/6 I started growing my hair out. I learned how to french braid on my barbies, I once watched my friends older sister french braid her hair and I practiced and practiced till I could finally do it on myself...I was the only person among my group of friends who knew how to do it I would do it the night before and then in the morning my hair would be wavy. I had poker straight hair...but now my hair has turned wavy and slightly curlyish over the past few years which is really odd for me...but I'm enjoying the curl and new waves, I always hated straight her...maybe I willed my cells to curl my hair! When me and my best friend would go out to the bar she used to style my hair for me...big hair....the bigger the better, lot's of spray and a curling iron, oh plus I always had permed hair until my mid twenties. My daughter would never let me style her hair, I always wanted to braid it and do things with it and she would never let me! We laugh about it now.

As for the 9yr old getting their period that is so young. Usually it's around age 12+. I was 12 in grade 6, I was the 2nd girl in our grade to get it, one of my closest friends who was a year older than us was the last...she was upset, she felt behind. I still remember the day she came to school gushing to me that she finally got it....I was so happy for her!

Jan74 said:

Oh jeeze, well we'll have to agree to disagree. Hunting is not feminine, not in my opinion, to someone else maybe it is, but to me it's not. But nobody says a female can't hunt, or a male can't cook. We-llllll, actually, people DO say those things, like ALL. THE. TIME. Women can't do math! Women shouldn't be in STEM! Women shouldn't fight in wars! All of these things are things that many people DO say. That is the point, that men and women have freedoms to do many things and it's not a big deal. I think the disconnect here is that YOU and your family don't think it's a big deal, which is great! But the reality is that this is not the case for many people around the world. My point was when I'm going out for a hunt I don't feel feminine, when I get dolled up and do my hair put on some bangles and go out I do feel feminine, or if I toss on a sundress my floppy hat and curl up on the dock I do feel feminine. What is wrong with that? Why can't I feel masculine doing something and feminine doing something else?

The problem is if we tell girls they can't do xyz or boys they can't do xyz and that isn't the world we are raising our kids in. All of my kids are raised to know they can do and be whatever they want.

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Jan, to me it sounds like you've been raised in a wonderful household that doesn't limit you based on your gender identity, which is so great, and hearing that you're passing that on to your kids is really awesome. But I think because of this, you're speaking from a position of privilege. You're one of the lucky women who fit the gender norms and so the system has benefited you, PLUS you were raised in a household that believes in gender equality, so you weren't limited in the roles you had access to.

However, just because gender conditioning hasn't harmed you, doesn't mean it's not harmful. For example, you say that your daughter is great at math and you've always encouraged her to do math. That's great! But it doesn't cancel out the fact that for a large part of the population, there IS a bias against girls doing math, and they've done actual studies proving that even TEACHERS are biased and contributing to the math gender gap.

So...I'm glad that your daughter hasn't been harmed by this gender norm, I really am, I want all girls to get all the opportunities, but srsly, I am going to choke something if you keep insisting that prescribing gender roles is not harmful.

Jan74 said:

Hmmmm well that is one way of looking at it So do away with the language all together. I like that. Only men can be masculine and only women can be feminine? Is that what you mean? Does it mean I'm always feminine then no matter what I'm doing?

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It means that these are cultural concepts that are generational, locational, and ultimately not really sensible. They change. They depend on place, time, and social status.

People are not binaries. Gender is not biology.

Female is sex, and biological and chromosomal. Feminine is gender, cultural, generational, and individual.

To a Scot from the Hebrides in pre-WW II, knitting was typically a male activity. It grew out of net-making, and in the middle ages in England, the knitting guild was male only (women could knit, but not be members of the guild).

Waulking (treating wool with sea water; difficult and very physical labor) was feminine. Milking cows was feminine, so was killing chickens; they were the work of women, because men were off in the boats.

Putputt said:

Jan, to me it sounds like you've been raised in a wonderful household that doesn't limit you based on your gender identity, which is so great, and hearing that you're passing that on to your kids is really awesome. But I think because of this, you're speaking from a position of privilege. You're one of the lucky women who fit the gender norms and so the system has benefited you, PLUS you were raised in a household that believes in gender equality, so you weren't limited in the roles you had access to.

However, just because gender conditioning hasn't harmed you, doesn't mean it's not harmful. For example, you say that your daughter is great at math and you've always encouraged her to do math. That's great! But it doesn't cancel out the fact that for a large part of the population, there IS a bias against girls doing math, and they've done actual studies proving that even TEACHERS are biased and contributing to the math gender gap.

So...I'm glad that your daughter hasn't been harmed by this gender norm, I really am, I want all girls to get all the opportunities, but srsly, I am going to choke something if you keep insisting that prescribing gender roles is not harmful.

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Well I don't want you to choke anything that's for sure. Actually they have geared math where I am to suit girls so now the boys are falling behind, they changed the way they taught math because they recognized that girls were falling behind and weren't learning it....so now with this crazy stupid new core curriculum EVERYONE is falling behind because it makes no sense. They've had professors advocate to the goverment to change the curriculum and to nix this stupid nonsensical math program they insist of teaching and go back to some of the old school ways of learning. I could go on and on about the flop our province had made in the math department, but I'll leave it at that.

My parents only had girls, so who knows how life would have been if I'd had brothers. But yes I was raised pretty gender neutral as were most of my friends. I wasn't raised in a bubble, I think it's a pretty country wide initiative to change what is viewed as "traditional" roles. I've never said that there isn't a biased out there when it comes to men and women, I know there is, I see it all the time. Even within my own marriage we can fall into those traditional traps and it causes fights and friction and I get super pissed off. I've had some pretty good arguments with my husband over the gender trap. There is a reason why I believe the birth rate is falling, women today(my daughters generation) do not want to feel bogged down by domestic duties, because even today most women who work full time also do the majority of the household stuff. I've read some pretty interesting articles on women and children, Mcleans magazine recently published a great article and the cover said something like "There I said it, I hate being a mother" I once read a survey in a magazine that said something like 80% of women polled said if they had the chance for a do-over they never would've had kids. That is staggering....sorry I can't provide a link for it, I read it years ago, but it always stuck with me because of how high that number was. To me it speaks volumes.

One way of a man keeping his woman in line was keeping her at home and tied to raising kids. Our own goverment has dropped the ball when it comes to women in the workforce. If they really wanted more women working then child care would have been a top initiative for our country....the number one reason women can't work is because of child care, they can't afford it or they can't find it. Children hamper any kind of career advancement. It happened in my own career, I basically sacrificed my career for our family while my husbands excelled. This is the reality for many women and I know I'm not alone.

It's completely off topic but relevant today. Women are tired of being responsible for the kids, the house and working a career. So I agree much more work needs to be done regarding the gender stereotypes and getting men to take on more responsibility at home and losing the attitude that this is women's work and this is men's work. I've had great conversations with my own daughter about motherhood/career etc, however her and her boyfriend are fairly modern....actually he does the majority of the housework and she's not sure if she ever wants kids and at this time(even after 6yrs together and living together) they have zero desire to get married.

I think this millennial generation is making some great changes, the girls of today aren't like the kids of the 70's and 80's. Change will come.

neandermagnon said:

This is not BS at all. It's an actual theory in anthropology and human cultural evolution. I studied these ideas at university (there was a book by someone with a last name like Erinberg, Errenberg something like that... I quoted her a lot in one assignment on this topic). The shift most likely happened in the late neolithic era as a result of changes that came from agriculture (including, but not limited to, the ability to accumulate wealth).

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lizmonster said:

I formed an opinion back in college that may be entirely BS: the devaluation began when we stopped being nomadic, people acquired stuff, and men wanted to be certain their children (who would inherit their stuff) were related to them by blood. The only way to do that with certainty was to subjugate women, and the only way to keep women from rebelling en masse was to convince them that somehow their status was the natural order of things. But I'm one of those people who tends to believe that most human conflict eventually comes down to economics.

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You should both read Mary Beards "Woman and Power" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36525023-women-power

For the OP- i had years of no periods or unpredictable periods, followed by long-term infertility and multiple IVF cycles. At no time did I feel unfeminine. I just felt annoyed.

Stress or trauma? Old traumas don't go away, they fester. The vagal nerve system (CN X) 1) may be the largest nerve system in the body and goes everywhere (hence its name): ears, throat, face, heart, lungs, gonads, amygdala, adrenals. It is nature's subconscious system for detecting threats and safety.

1) How would you feel if, because of long term (i.e. whether acute/occasional or 'low' level/persistent) significant stress to both mind and body, you became amenhorreic (for the purposes of this question: prior to the age of 25)?

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"Feel" is the key words here. The nature of the 'stress' (or is it 'trauma'?) may determine the answer to this query.

2) How do you think this would affect your femininity (whether perceived or actual)?

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Her response will depend where she is on the stress (actually 'threat') curve ranging from sleeping well and being socially engaged to cautious of people to avoiding people to fear of people (read 'people' or situations), to sleeplessness, to high anxiety to panic.

3) How would you feel upon experiencing a second menarche (as it were) several years later (i.e. after the stress, both cause of it and the stress itself, ends)?

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"Stress" I take to be an on-going stimulus. The scars of 'stress' can be, but not necessarily be, trauma. The trauma remains even after the stress stops because the vegal nerve system is still overestimating the threat. Pharmaceuticals can reduce some symptoms but true healing from trauma often requires enthusiastic patient participation (once they feel safe).
Again, the 'feel' part depends on where she is on the Threat Curve.

FWIW
DrDoc

Can I suggest that there may be a cultural element, and that this has a lot to do with what the answer may be? There are a lot of responses that the period has "nothing" to do with femininity, and while I can very much accept that on a personal/modern/western level, my cultural sensitivity forces me to bite down the inclination to say that or agree with it. If you (the hypothetical you) associate your own femininity with your ability to carry a fetus to term and give birth, and you naturally associate periods with pregnancy, then losing your periods might cause a serious blow to your self-identity (though I would have to look at the research literature to see if traditional cultures have adapted this aspect with the effects of malnutrition, as I imagine many have).

I'm definitely not saying I'm the right person to answer this - I don't even have the medical knowledge to know if someone whose periods have ceased is still capable of pregnancy, and any experience I have with infertility in people who don't want it is from fiction - but I am just very concerned at applying a 2018 industrialized viewpoint to a situation that might be different in a more traditional society.

The whole notion of "femininity" is culturally constructed.

But since the OP was asking about the personal perspective of people here on AW right now, one might reasonably infer the OP is looking for the input of people with a 2018 industrialized-society viewpoint. Because that's mostly what you find on AW. For other viewpoints, you have to go to different places where more people from different backgrounds are available to speak about their own experiences.

ManInBlack said:

Can I suggest that there may be a cultural element, and that this has a lot to do with what the answer may be? There are a lot of responses that the period has "nothing" to do with femininity, and while I can very much accept that on a personal/modern/western level, my cultural sensitivity forces me to bite down the inclination to say that or agree with it. If you (the hypothetical you) associate your own femininity with your ability to carry a fetus to term and give birth, and you naturally associate periods with pregnancy, then losing your periods might cause a serious blow to your self-identity (though I would have to look at the research literature to see if traditional cultures have adapted this aspect with the effects of malnutrition, as I imagine many have).

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Your "cultural sensitivity" can rest assured, knowing that many women from different cultural backgrounds and various age groups have responded to this. I myself was speaking from the PoV of someone raised in a strict Asian culture that placed a ton of value (and still does) on periods and virginity and all that fun stuff.

I'm definitely not saying I'm the right person to answer this - I don't even have the medical knowledge to know if someone whose periods have ceased is still capable of pregnancy, and any experience I have with infertility in people who don't want it is from fiction - but I am just very concerned at applying a 2018 industrialized viewpoint to a situation that might be different in a more traditional society.

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Also, you do realize that many of us got our periods way, way before 2018...right? And many of us HAVE dealt with infertility...not in fiction, but like, personally? Believe it or not, women are capable of taking other cultures and situations into account. If you bothered to read all of the answers provided in this thread before mansplaining, you'll see that there's a wide variety of experiences being shared.

ManInBlack said:

I'm definitely not saying I'm the right person to answer this - I don't even have the medical knowledge to know if someone whose periods have ceased is still capable of pregnancy, and any experience I have with infertility in people who don't want it is from fiction - but I am just very concerned at applying a 2018 industrialized viewpoint to a situation that might be different in a more traditional society.

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You know you might, in the context of cultural sensitivity, want to think carefully about telling a bunch of women from all over the world, of various cultures, how to discuss menstruation with an appropriate level of sensitivity. Because women, of various cultures, have been talking about apart from men for thousands of years. We've got that down.

Also you can get pregnant without ever having a period ever. Periods aren't necessary for pregnancy. They never have been.

Regarding the parts of the thread where appearance, beauty treatments, grooming etc were discussed, a couple of thoughts:

1. That varies a lot depending on situation. Talking purely about the UK, people are a lot dressier in cities than in the country - or at least in farming areas which are not also weekend home hotspots.

2. As well as men wearing pink, they also used to wear heels - which brings me on to my main point - the whole elegant dressing, heels, make-up thing used to be an upper class phenomenon for men and women - you were showing that you were one of the elite. Then through the period of the industrial revolution, increasing wealth and lower levels, growth of the middle class, it became a way of showing you'd arrived for people to stop working, or work less, and be one of the elegantly dressed set, sitting in the bow window of your newly-refronted house and waving to the passing neighbours.

3. Watched a programme a while back on the history of advertising on TV, and they showed an advert for a nicely turned out 1950s lady vacuuming her lounge. By contemporary sensibilities, it was really sexist. But they interviewed young housewives from the period (now older ladies) who said that back then it looked wonderful - because up to that point, cleaning had to be done with your hair in a turban, overalls, by hand and in a cloud of dust (hence the turban).

Oh and really like the point earlier about "women's work" varying with the culture - washing wool etc.

Bolero said:

3. Watched a programme a while back on the history of advertising on TV, .

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I would love to see that program. I don't suppose you have a link?

The people at Society for Menstruation Research have a ton of info on this topic, FYI. http://www.menstruationresearch.org. Also check out www.redtentmovie.com.

This topic has been hotly debated in the thread, obviously, but also online.

Prince_Alecksiiz said:

OK... not entirely sure how to address this, for all the flak I may or may not get, so here goes...

This is addressed primarily to (cis-)women (and others, too, if you've had to help friends through this sort of a thing):

1) How would you feel if, because of long term (i.e. whether acute/occasional or 'low' level/persistent) significant stress to both mind and body, you became amenhorreic (for the purposes of this question: prior to the age of 25)?

2) How do you think this would affect your femininity (whether perceived or actual)?
3) How would you feel upon experiencing a second menarche (as it were) several years later (i.e. after the stress, both cause of it and the stress itself, ends)?

Please note: question 1, without the stipulation, I'm sure answers might be a bit different, but it is important that the amenorrhea comes about because of the mentioned significant stress itself, and the long period of time over which it occurs (3-5 years, for the sake of providing a range).

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mccardey said:

I would love to see that program. I don't suppose you have a link?

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Sorry, not immediately, it was a while back. I will go google and see if I can spot the right one.

Edited to add And ten minutes of google later nope. An awful lot of programmes on ads, but not spotting the right one. It was on UK TV ads.

As a young woman born without a uterus, I came in here expecting a disaster, but I've been loving the replies here.

Not having a period only bothers me insofar as it's another reminder I can never get pregnant, but as others have mentioned, that's not a 100% correlation for most women, and many women would view that as a positive.

Bolero said:

Sorry, not immediately, it was a while back. I will go google and see if I can spot the right one.

Edited to add And ten minutes of google later nope. An awful lot of programmes on ads, but not spotting the right one. It was on UK TV ads.

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Thank you anyway. (I had tried but my google-power failed me).

Brief highlight for those who've commented on this thread that if a society primarily values women as child producers, then periods disappearing/not producing children would be a big thing.
Yes, but....things are rarely that simple.
Historically women did have economic value too - worked in family business, had their own trade separate from family business, worked in the dairy/other food preservation on farms. Women's economic value dropped during the industrial revolution as they were no longer working at home, and it was harder to fit child raising around earning money, so it became a bit more either/or - the stay at home child raiser didn't earn money as easily.
Just a thought.

Bolero said:

Brief highlight for those who've commented on this thread that if a society primarily values women as child producers, then periods disappearing/not producing children would be a big thing.

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Not so much, actually. The period marks the lining of the uterus being disposed of.

And, again, women have been getting pregnant without having periods for a very long time.

Pregnancy requires ovulation. Not menstruation. Poor nutrition or stress may stop periods, but ovulation still may be occurring.