Gender Differences in Libido Through History
AlterNet is a "progressive/liberal activist news service". They recently published an essay arguing that through most of Western history, women were considered more interested in sex and less able to control themselves than men. The stereotype was flipped in order to get women engaged in Protestantism. Do you think there's any validity to this argument? How were the sexual appetites of the genders believed to be different in your period of specialty?
Posted Mar 25, 2013, 6:09 PM UTC
113
I am aware of this flip, but as far as I know it wasn't to make women more protestant because a. The change happened throughout the western world, including Catholic nations.
b. Women tended to be more involved in religion then men, making such a thing unnecessary.
The reason for the shift, as far as I know, is more related to the spread of liberal ideals and the switch to a more "fraternity" system of social conduct. In a liberal space, where men were deemed worthy of having the right to vote, concepts like virtue and corruption (when given too much power) meant that now the men, who could achieve power via election into a position, were the ones more easily corruptible and swayed by base needs. Women, on the other hand, were considered "the moral compass" of the family and were put in charge of educating the kids and reminding her husband of his duties.
Part of this shift also meant that since men were the corruptible, sensual, body-oriented gender, women had to be the spiritual, moralist and passionless gender. So, while religion played a part in the passionless persona of the modern woman, it wasn't just religion but also the way liberal and modern society was shaped in general.
Sources:
Nancy Cott, Passionlessness
Stephanie Coontz, The Social Origins of Private Life.
Steven Seidman, Power of Desire and the Danger of Pleasure
Jan Lewis, The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic
When did this flip happen time-wise? When you say the cause was related to "the spread of liberal ideals", should I be thinking French Revolution liberalism? Or earlier than that?
Lewis dates this change to the American revolution - that is, that the shift from patriarchy to fraternity coincided with the shift from colony to republic. However, I assume this was the general timeframe in Europe as well, with the French revolution being one of the driving factors. According to some of my own research this shift was already established in Britain by the 1820s if not earlier, so I assume this was the general timeframe.