I'm not English so I get it, it's not that they dressed up as women specifically, it's that they did it constantly. After the Nth time it got a bit old. I know that men dressing up as women was a UK comedy staple at the time, but it always looked a bit too trite to me (even when I was a teenager).

It has nothing to do with feminism (for me, at least), it's just that I didn't find it funny.

But the joke wasn't that they were men dressed as women. Typically they played it completely straight. The joke was the character they were portraying, a type of character that was often a man or a woman.

When femininity was an important part of the sketch, they often had Carol Cleveland or other women play the role.

If you don't find it funny that's fine.

> it's that they did it constantly

That amounts to objecting to representing females. Rule was: "female unless awkward → one of the pythons; when awkward → Carol Cleveland".

The point was that the writers would also be the performers.

The Kids in the Hall did it too, extensively, in the 90s.

and again in 2022