What brought this up? It's one of those things one looks back on from the perspective of age. In this case, seventy-seven years of living on this planet, and being at a place in life where few would find it - me - particularly feminine. I recently got a haircut and held a chat with the woman doing it on how hair changes over the years and does or doesn't fit in with fashion trends, particularly since I currently do not have a hair on my head over two inches long, just how I like it for practicality. Let's top it off with my finally watching "The Devil Wears Prada" on TV. Yeah, I know, but it was free (promoting the new movie sequal) and I was bored enough that a tiny bit of curiosity pushed the decision.
Societies have - as far back as we can tell - had different ways of setting the genders apart, presumably so they can get together in approved ways with approved rituals. The more leisure one has while still surviving, the stronger the differences. It is a luxury, after all, only available when survival is mostly taken for granted. When the next bite of food is assured, unimportant things can become rules. Childhoods include play, the need to work is pushed off, and older lifespans are expected and achievable. A lifespan of 40 is much different than four score and seven. Femininity goes beyond reproduction of the species and turns into status, where it gets complicated.
I was born into the time when status was key. As a species we'd spread across the planet into every survivable space and even into many not so survivable. We weren't ready to acknowledge it yet, but were were already overpopulating, destroying our resources. Where societies decreed one man could only "have" one woman, choices had to be made, limitations imposed. The choice became heavily laden with concerns for status. She had to be amenable, attractive, healthy, wealthy enough to contribute to his holdings. If she managed to survive childbirth, he was pretty much stuck with her. If she died, he was free to switch, publicly. Privately he still did pretty much what he wanted with whomever he wanted. But in order to be secure about which children were his, she had to be restricted to just his attentions.
Have you noticed yet that these rules developed along the lines of possession? The feminine had become a matter of ownership. She was his property. Matriarchies disappeared, patriarchies arose. The "rules" for what was feminine revolved around possession. If the male, the "owner", had to be out doing things, according to his set of imposed rules, he needed assurances that his property would be there and waiting for him upon his return. He could hire bodyguards and build fences and walls. Those were costly and even risky, unless the bodyguards were eunuchs. Or societies could develop approved fashions. What was approved was whatever imprisoned the female, kept her property.
In some places and times, this meant keeping her hidden. Veils, even burkas were required if she appeared among unrelated men. Adding beauty to them kept her happier, a relatively small price to pay. Changing the kind of beauty, styles, color, amounts of ornaments, kept her bound to the person able to pay for those new things, and in turn his need for status kept him, at least to some extent, paying for those changes. Maybe you couldn't look upon his woman but you could admire the outer coverings.
There were other ways fashion kept her bound, and more literally. In China feet were bound to stay tiny, painful, and mostly useless. She literally could not walk away. Western societies demanded tiny upper torsos, requiring binding again, this time preventing the deep breaths needed for movement, for work, for any kind of independence. Pregnancy then required months of being kept out of sight since that bulge violated the size requirement, while it also served to keep the prized female out of the sight of others who might desire her, as well as her without options to observe and value other males.
Women mostly weren't schooled either, and in places still aren't. An education gives one options. One can provide one's own livelihood, think one's own thoughts and not depend on the masculine viewpoint to make all decisions. Feminine became more self-defined, at least by some. It may well have cost a price unwanted, or welcomed for being unpaid and thus a divide to separate one from the expectations of others. Much depended on whether the price to be paid became one's life, whether from violence imposed from without, or being prohibited from earning enough to stay fed and sheltered. Having new territory to spread into generally added options, especially if it became an escape from a determined foe, aka owner, or at least into a new society with easier rules for a single independent female to survive in safely. If she came equipped with, or quickly learned the local plant lore, she became valued. Other job skills could save a life, offer a future, and may have avoided the trap of being labeled a "witch" for having too much knowledge with concoctions feared poisonous, ammunition against ultimate destruction ... or its eventual cause.
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