Follow Up: Responding to Rachel

I too found this week’s readings to be very strong depictions of various aspects of women’s power. I found Fausto-Sterling’s “Hormonal Hurricanes: Menstruation, Menopause, and Female Behavior”, to be particularly frustrating though as it relayed the idea that society claims women’s bodies need to be feared because they are abnormal. It is unfair that because men’s bodies are understood in the scientific world but female bodies and the processes they go through are not as well understood, women are considered abnormal. Fausto-Sterling calls for increasing research on PMS in women, its severity, as well as its affects on women. A better understanding of the monthly cycles that women go through would allow males & females for that matter to better understand as well as appreciate women more. What is particularly unjust with the whole lack of knowledge on the topic of menstruation is that this lack of understanding is quite often used as an excuse to deprive women of their equal rights and opportunities. This oppression based simply on a lack of knowledge can be fixed with a deeper comprehension of the female anatomy and processes.

I also enjoyed reading Valdes’ “Ruminations of a Feminist Fitness Instructor” and believed it to go well with the theme of women’s power. I think that Valdes brought up an interesting point about women and how we “comprise a third-world nation within the borders of our own developed country” (25). Although I see what she was getting at, I agree with Rachel in that I think it was a very extreme way of saying that women are still inferior to men. We have come a long way over time and I think it is wrong to belittle our achievements and progress as she did. I also don’t necessarily agree with her point about the gym and why women go to the gym. I too see exercise as one of the many methods of living a healthy life, whereas Valdes claims that “the female obsession with thinness and fitness is an extension of the hurt we suffer at the hands of a patriarchal society, a society that even convinces us to hurt ourselves, so that we are kept from the real business of our lives” (31). I think that this is all a bit excessive.

Her reading related well to our discussion in class on Tuesday about women’s perceptions of their bodies and what they feel they need to look like. In response to Rachel’s question, I think it has a lot to do with the media, but I think it is hard to draw the line between what society is pushing upon women and what women inherently want for themselves. I believe that it is a commonly held idea that people have a desire to be fit and healthy, in turn resulting in a body with less fat. Is it fair to blame everything on the media? At what point can we say that a woman is going to the gym because she wants to be fit and feel good and not that she is suffering “at the hands of a patriarchal society”?