[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Videostar

Women never used to behave that way, so that would suggest it's not a natural female way of behaving...your point would hold water if women always behaved in such a crude Charlotte type way.

The way women have behaved, as indeed the way men have behaved, has been different at different times in history and in different places.

Which would suggest it is not about how a woman naturally acts, but how she is expected (and brought up) to act.

Even during times when female behaviour was more heavily regulated than now (and when I say more heavily regulated, I'm talking parliamentary committees looking into why the women working at the pit heads, the so-called 'pithead lassies' wore trousers whilst they worked, as this was considered to be damaging the moral health of the nation), there were always women who did not conform to that rigid behavioural code.

If women's 'femininity' and decorum was simply the natural way for a woman to act, they wouldn't need anybody to tell them that's how they must act. Yet the femininity you suggest is natural, has always been taught to girls. The same way 'good manners' are taught to all children. How else do children know it is rude to talk with their mouths full, or to point at people? Just as all children are taught these things, boys have to be taught they are not to hit girls when they play as they might with a boy. And girls have to be taught to be demure and not run amok like their brothers.