Sunday, February 12, 2012
Ideology versus biology
As Professor Halberstam had explained in a lecture, during the early days when there were no paternity tests and when little was understood about female reproductive processes, ideologies were created that women need to be controlled and protected. Pregnancy is made to look as if it is a kind of sickness and weakness as an excuse to confine women within their homes so that they don't engage in sexual activities with other men, as a way for the man to control his woman and ensure that the child is his. In addition, the discovery that the female orgasm is not necessary for reproduction has caused female pleasure to become suspect and seen as something dangerous that needs to be controlled. Of course, there are many other beliefs and ideologies in different cultures that shape gender roles, but i can kind of see how from these two ideas, women are made to stay home to raise/spend time with their children while the men go out into the world to hunt for food and go to war, thus producing these biological arguments that men are naturally stronger and more knowledgable whereas women are naturally more empathetic and gentle. These characteristics that define men and women have been passed on through generations and are still widely held today.
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This is kind of related, I'm reading a sociology book called "Do Gentleman really prefer blondes?" and it talks about how there's this phenomenon where blue-eyed men tend to date blue eyed-women, but there's no correlation between same color with brown/green eyed men. The speculative hypothesis is that BECAUSE there were no paternity tests back in the day, this was a way for blue eyed men to ensure their mate's children were really his: if the woman cheated with a man wit a different color, the recessive blue would not appear in the child.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, there is some research that indicates that the female orgasm, because it contracts the vaginal muscles, acts as a vacuum that helps pull up and retain more sperm into the cervix, which can increase the likelihood of producing a child.
But when discussing the reason why women were cloistered in the home, in my all girls school we read a novel called "The Red Tent," and our teacher mentioned that women were feared and seen as godlike because they could bleed every month and not die...this is a very interesting way to look at it, following the notion of men seeing something, fearing it, and subordinating it to regain control.
While the characteristics you write about get passed on to the next generation, do you have any thoughts about why females continue to accept them? I ask because in lecture a very interesting point made by the professor raises the question of why women conform to a situation when they may not always be happy with it. Professor Halberstam says it can have to do with fitting in, security, stability, and other such benefits. Your thoughts?
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