Yes, this is a new post. If you scroll down you'll see my previous post has acquired a new title. Who would have thought that I could talk about mentruation so much?
Anyway, after having attended class and participated in class discussion, I feel as though I have a better undertsanding as to what this article was actually saying. There were certain things I just did not pick up on through the first read.
So, menstruation means one big thing in particular. Essentially, a females sense of self is deeply embodied in her physicality. In other words, she becomes aware of these sudden changes in her body and because of that she realizes that she is becoming a woman. So, femininity and maturity in women are both deeply embedded in menstruation. It marks such a deep physical change and also demonstrates a powerful change towards maturity.
Males, on the other hand, don't ever really experience a truly profound change in their bodies. Yes, their voices change and they may experience nocturnal emissions and other changes, but none as startling as a females. They don't just wake up one day and realize, "whoa, something's different." And even if they do, no one else has to know about it. Other people don't notice. Whereas with females, it's completely opposite. They must now carry their purses to the bathroom every month. They may have a paper bag in their locker with extra supplies. On some occassions, they may leak all over their clothes. Take the example of a girl in the article. "For example, Mary, aged 15, described how she had been called Bloody Mary for almost two years after a humiliating incident when the teacher would not let her leave the classroom to go to the toilet, and she had stained with blood both her skirt and the chair she was sitting on." The humiliation a boy may feel when accidents happen in the home, is nothing to that of a females when they occur at any moment.
Since boys do not have any dramatic physical changes leading to their manhood, or at least none as drastic as girls, many people tend to define their manhood based on works and acts. When males start taking responsibility, or maybe do hard labor, they are considered "men," at that point. To be a man, then, is to work hard and maybe even to take care of the others around them. In that respect, it is a lot easier for a male to lose his manhood or to have his manhood threatened. But because females experience so much of their femininity through their periods, their womanlihood is almost never threatened. ALMOST.
My professor had actually gone as far as to say that it was never threatened. But, as I sat in class, I remembered strangely enough the movie Erin Brokovich. It just sort of popped into my head instantaneously. What happens to women when everything that is considered feminine, in otherwords their physicality, is changed? There's a woman in this movie who sits speaking with Erin about her experiences with cancer. "Do you think that if a woman's got no breasts and no uterus she's technically still a woman?" Since females have such a strong sense of femininity through their bodies, whenever those portions of their bodies that make them women are challenged or changed, they are severely threatened. This connection of losing portions of your body that amplify a strong sense of self relates strongly with the Murphy article I read called The Damaged Self.
Now as I was driving around today, I thought once more of something else. The radio was on and the DJs were for some reason discussing who aged better, men or women. They had several people call in and a vast majority of them felt that men aged better than women. Immediately I thought again about what it means to be feminine, and how closely it ties in to menstruation. Perhaps the reason that men age better is the same reason why women appear more mature at an earlier age. Their masculinity is not inherently tied into their physicality. Men exhibit, once more, small signs of aging: hair loss, increased weight, gray hair. Women on the other hand, go through menopause. Once again, they wake up one day and suddenly things are different. They no longer get regular periods and in a brief amount of time this period stops all together. Because of this profound loss, women don't age as well because not only are they losing their youth, but they are also losing that which identifies them as women. As women grow older, they lose much more of themselves than men do.
Personally, I never thought that such a simple thing as my period could have such a strong affect on how I define myself as a person. Truly amazing.
I'm sure having said that I have gotten rid of most of the male population that reads this. Having said that, here is what I have to say about a certain article I read in sociology. And yes, it's about menstruation.
I found the article in no way stimulating or revolutionary. Although the author pointed out that there has never actually been a study done on the profound affects of menstruation on the early female populace, it in no way revealed anything new to me. Perhaps if you're a male, you'd find the article more fascinating. In fact, I offer it as suggested reading to any of you who are not in my sociology class. Just get a hold of me and I'll hand over my sociology text to you and you can read all about how being suddenly one day afflicted with this bleeding out of your lower extremities can profoundly affect your early adolescence and in many ways your adulthood.
Now, here is my assignment for this class:
"In the first article the authors examine young peoples accounts of becoming moral agents, of being able to make and to be accountable for their own choices. She also suggests that the story of maturity is highly gendered. And finally she looks at the tension between the notions of choice and nature that inform their understandings of maturity.
In the second article the author looked at girls' sense of their embodied experience (memories, feelings and perceptions). What is our understanding of them and how do they come about? To what degree do we have individual agency within these frameworks? What is the significance of collective interpretations of embodiment within social contexts of power and value?"
Okay, so first of all, let me just say that I think I need to give my professor an English lesson. The usage of the words "them" and "they" is completely confusing to the reader. These pronouns, oh yes, I dare say it, have no antecedent. I have no clue to what the "them" and "they" is referring. Furthermore, what are the "frameworks" we're discussing here? And the last question...WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!
So, here's my best guess. "What is my understanding of the young peoples accounts of becoming moral agents and of the girls' sense of their embodied experience and how did that understanding come about?" Okay. Here we go. I freely understand and accept most of what these young people discussed. They explained that young men are not allowed to cry in front of others because it makes them look wimpy. Whereas girls are permitted the free expression of any form of emotion at any given time. Part of that reason, is that girls have the excuse of their period. They can say, "It's that time of the month" and get away with being cranky or upset at nothing. Whereas boys, the only time they feel able to cry is in a close group of their male peers in whom they can trust not to tell anyone else. This is mainly because females will see males as "wimpy." Additionally, a female's sense of self is very closely tied with her physical sense of self within this young adult context. Hence, the ability to blame mood on her monthly experiences.
NEXT! "How much individual agency do we have within these frameworks?" Individual agency? What does that mean. Since the article discusses the growth of adolescents into moral agents, this what I am assuming my teacher is alluding to. Therefore, I feel as though we have quite little moral agency within these frameworks. The youth described growing up and maturity as a change from when you are young and don't know right from wrong to when you are older and can discern the difference. They also explain that it is our parents who initially instill these concepts in out mind through physical reinforcement and perhaps with candies and treats. This then moves from the physical reinforcement to a social reinforcement, where you are awarded socially for following a certain path of moralistic behavior. In this case, and based on the description of these youth, we as people have little individual control over how we mature and come to develop.
AND THIS ONE'S A DOOSIE! "How would these ideas affect our society?" So, if we apply this youthful idea that we are in fact to be held accountable for our actions as soon as we are aware of what we are doing and how it affects other people, then society would be profoundly changed. In terms of a political approach, those who murder when they are very young could easily be put to death or sentenced to life imprisonment as they are clearly fully aware that their actions are wrong. Children at the age of, we'll say 12, would have the right to vote or serve our country. They should be able to marry freely if they see fit. If they want to live on their own and get a job and work for a living they should be able to. They should be able to drink alcoholic beverages as they wish and drive as they please. Obviously, none of this works within the contexts of our society. Would you actually allow a twelve-year-old the chance to drive away to Vegas on a drunken whim to marry a boy they've been "going out with" for two weeks? Now obviously this is a very American approach to the concept of morals and perhaps I should return to my Dutch roots of last week. OF COURSE they should be able to. Children can figure out what's best for them. They know when it's right.
If you ask me, I don't believe much in the laws of American society. Or in any society besides the Christian society. And based on that, I have to say that children are responsible for their actions the moment that they do wrong and they KNOW they have done wrong. That probably takes us to about the age of....4. At four, children are accountable for their actions. If they become accountable at that point in God's eyes, then they are therefore accountable in my eyes. What does that implicate for our society? I don't believe in the death penalty. It's wrong. Plain and simple. So no, a four-year-old who murders someone...which would almost certainly never happen as four-year-olds, for the most part, do not yet know what DEATH is let alone murder...will not be killed for their actions. Do I believe in life imprisonment? No. Therefore a four-year-old will not be imprisoned for life for his or her actions either. What do I believe in? The eternal life that God gave all of us through His Son, Jesus Christ. If a four-year-old realizes what she has done is wrong, she can learn to repent as well. Same goes for anyone else in this world, no matter how much innocence they have lost. Do I think we should let serial killers or unabombers run free to kill innocent people? There things become shady, because clearly these people are doing the will of Satan. Life imprisonment, in this case, would at least give the prisoner a clear chance for salvation with God. But is this punishment by mankind just? Is it right for man to condemn anyone who has sinned? Is it right to leave a man to suffer in prison? Perhaps there is something in God's word that I have not yet come across that tells me that, yes, it is just to imprison those who murder. I know in Exodus, God does say that those who kill should receive the same in return. Oddly enough, though, He also says the same of those who commit adultery, of those who divorce, and of those who steal. And of course, this doctrine was in the Old Testament, prior to the coming of our savior, so what validity does it have over us today? Sometimes it is truly difficult to apply the religious truths of so long ago to the society we have come to know today.