Up until even the mid 1980s, should you wish to insult someone you could say something like the following: Should all your children be girls. This is to be read: May you have no boys. Apparently women were not looked upon very favorably.
Here is a poem by the poet Fu Hsuan which sums up the attitude at that time:
How sad it is to be a woman!
Nothing on earth is held so cheap.
Boys stand leaning at the door
Like Gods fallen out of heaven.
Their hearts brave the Four Oceans,
The wind and dust of a thousand miles.
No one is glad when a girl is born:
By her the family sets no store.