Body, Power, Meanness

Hormonal Hurricanes: Menstruation, Menopause, and Female Behavior

In this article, Fausto-Sterling addresses and invalidates the argument that justifies women’s inferiority in society. The biological argument that because men and women differ hormonally has long justified the inequalities between males and females, while also upholding the ideologies of patriarchy. However, Fausto-Sterling argues that the common perceptions that women are less capable, less intelligent, and less emotional stable than men are faulty. She criticizes and finds faults in all the research that have been conducted to understand females’ menstruation, menopause, and behaviors. She strongly believes that these researches are bias and tainted with preconceived notions that skew their outcomes; either researchers have set hypotheses that guide how the experiments is executed or researchers only collect data that support their hypotheses. In addition, Fausto-Sterling finds empirical data, such as interviews and surveys, to be also invalid because society has placed “fixed ideas about what to expect” into people’s minds (104). Ultimately, these false notions of women’s inferiorly are mechanisms that rationalize why women should stay at home and fulfill the domestic role in society.    

Fausto-Sterling also analyzes the double bind of being of a woman. Instead of focusing on the female’s cycle and what society has deemed as “abnormal”, Fausto-Sterling puts into question the “normality” of testosterone. For example she questions, “Why, for instace, do researchers looking at women’s hormone cycles and mood change fail to mention the monthly cycle of testosterone?” (105). Fausto-Sterling is dissatisfied with how society has deemed men to be the “normal” standard whereas women are seen as their opposite counterpart—“abnormal.” By questioning the normalized notion of men being the standard, Fausto-Sterling tries to emerge a new notion that women are completely normal (once society stop using men as the base line to compare women).      

Lean and Mean

In this chapter, Douglas problematizes society’s, especially young girls and older women’s, over obsession with the image of beauty: size 0 with 38D. Enlightened sexism has justified females’ extreme actions of altering their body to fit what society pins as beautiful—because being beautiful is actually empowering. In addition to this notion, television shows, clothing stores, and advertisements have fostered a culture where girls believe their “body is [their] capital, crucial resource in establishing [their] net worth as a female…” (215-16). Such culture has caused a dramatic increased in plastic surgery, breast implants, eating disorders, and dieting products. What I found absurd is the fact that America has spent more money on dieting products than on education (229).     

Douglas goes further to address the culture of “mean girls” and “queen bees” by drawing popular examples from the movie “Mean Girls” and the television show “Gossip Girls.” On her analysis of girl-on-girl hatred, Douglas points out the irony behind girls’ obsession with looks and being the “it” girl. Not only do girls evaluate themselves stepping on other girls, but also “what girls’ power really did, according to these fables, was magnify their essential traits—pettiness, cattiness, emotional vapidity, materialism, and a desperate need for a guy” (241). Instead of developing a sense of empowerment, females’ obsessions with beauty and popularity have further perpetuated female stereotypes. What enlightened sexism have claimed as empowerment only backfired and continued to make female look bad.