The Culturally Constructed Body: From Ancient Myths to Modern Misconceptions

1. The CulturallyConstructedBodyProf. Juliet DavisDept. of CommunicationThe University of Tampa

2. On one hand, the body is a biological entity. • But everything we believe we “know” about the body is perceived through culture—therefore, the body is culturally constructed.

3. Emily Martin”Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause” from The Woman in the Body, 1987.

4. Ancient Greece to 17th Century Britain: • Human bodies possess more “heat” than animals and are therefore more perfect; male bodies possess more “heat” than female bodies, and are therefore more perfect. • Men’s and women’s bodies are similar—but because women’s bodies are relatively cooler and less perfect, they are incapable of developing organs outside of the body. • This was a “biological fact” for hundreds of years.

5. 19th Century: More “Biological Facts” • Edward Tilt:blood turns to fat after menopause • Havelock Ellis:Menstruation is pathological. Women are “periodically wounded” in their “most sensitive spot” and “even in the healthiest woman, a worm however harmless and unperceived, gnaws periodically at the roots of life.”

6. Patrick Geddes, 19th Century Biologist: ”It is generally true that the males are more active, energetic, eager, passionate, and variable; the females more passive, conservative, sluggish, and stable. . . . The more active males, with a consequently wider range of experience, may have bigger brains and more intelligence; but the females, especially as mothers, have indubitably a larger and more habitual share of altruistic emotions. The males being usually stronger, have greater independence and courage; the females excel in constancy of affection and in sympathy

7. 20th Century • Belief that engaging in sports would harm women’s reproductive organs. • “Biological Fact” for males: As recently as the 1950’s the majority of Harvard medical students responded that they believed masturbation caused blindness and insanity in males. • Women’s races longer than 200m were banned until 1960 when the 800m was reintroduced. • The women’s marathon was not added until 1984.

8. 20th and 21st Century • Lack of research on female biology leads to widespread and dangerous misconceptions about medical treatments for women (heart attack, menopause, etc.) • Belief until the 1990’s that males were the suitable subjects of research and that female biology should either follow male biology or was too problematic to study. • Common belief until end of 20th Century that heart attack was a male medical issue. • NIH initiative in 1996 funded research for women.The first significant studies of menopause were funded. • Until 2002, doctors believed that estrogen prevented heart attack in women. Studies undertaken to prove this actually proved that it caused heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer. • Until the 90’s, women’s hormones were not studied because it was believed that they “fluctuated too much.” • Studies on obesity were only conducted in men, even though it affects primarily women.

9. 21st Century • Belief that women are biologically: • Not suited for upper management of corporations (only 6% of upper management are women). • better “nurturers” than men • Suited for housekeeping • Belief that performance of feminine behavior is biological rather than cultural

10. Emily Martin”The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” from Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16 (31), 1991.

11. Menstruation is described as the failure of the egg to fertilize. It is about the egg dying. At best, it is a sloughing-off. Cultural mythologies about women not being as worthy as men are supported in medical texts.

12. Image by Lennart Nilsson Medical Physiology edited by Vernon Mountcastle (1980):”Whereas the female sheds only a single gamete each month, the somniferous tubules produce hundreds of millions of sperm each day.” Nothing about all those nasty little deaths. No sloughing here—even though semen consists of soughed matter as well. Sperm depicted as powerful—even though recent studies have found that they have weak forward force and that many sperm are not ideally formed and are unable to penetrate the egg (this is normal). Sperm production and performance, on the other hand, is “remarkable” and “amazing.”

13. What would the Pope think? • Religious Logic to Ponder: • If masturbation is wrong because it spills the seed (kills sperm) that could fertilize an egg, then how do women fit into this logic? • Is masturbation O.K. for women, then, because it doesn’t kill anything? • Is menstruation murder?