Sex Text Book Excerpt 1960's UK

(Sorry this is late, but at least you'll get two this week!)

Recently a friend put this on my facebook wall. After reading it, I was mortified at the lessons taught to young girls. I find this article problematic in too many ways to count, but below is a list of a few of the things I found problematic with the excerpt.

1. 1. First is the notion that one must be (fakely) beautiful:

The article, simply by addressing the idea of “face-cream or hair-rollers” suggests that these are practices that women do and partake in (just not before the man falls asleep). Also less subtle language such as “But remember to look your best when going to bed,” shows that women must try to be beautiful for their husbands, while men do not need to do this. Not only does this reinforce unrealistic standards of beauty, but it also creates a double standard in which a woman has to look beautiful for her husband, but he does not have to for her.

2. 2. Also, it suggests that women should exist only to please their husbands:

She should be beautiful for her husband; she should not go to the bathroom right before bed because her husband will want to; she should wake up before her husband to make him a cup of tea; she should please her husband sexually; she should obey her husband. All of this suggests that the wife, the woman, is simply there. She is an object for her husband.

3. 3. It argues that women are less important than men:

The article states that “If he feels that he needs to sleep immediately then so be it,” suggesting that his wishes are much more important than hers are. However, if this line was a little subtle, the article blares this message in the reader’s face later by saying “a man’s satisfaction is more important than a woman’s.” Not only is his satisfaction more important, but so too is his well being. The article allows for a man to sleep more than the woman, who has to wake up earlier than her man to make him tea and go to sleep later than him so that he won’t see her hair-rollers and face-cream. A woman, according to this excerpt, should get less sleep than her man should.

4. 4. It completely disregards the possibility of women’s pleasure, at all:

As somewhat previously mentioned, the article, although in a “sex education school textbook” completely disregards the woman’s ability for pleasure. Not only should she “not pressure him in any way to stimulate intimacy,” but she should also put his pleasure above her own. The article states, “When he reaches his moment of fulfillment a small moan from yourself is encouraging to him and quite sufficient to indicate any enjoyment that you may have had.” This suggests that the woman does not have a moment o fulfillment. It also suggests the idea of acting. It tells her exactly how she should act (letting out a small moan). Now if the husband does “suggest any of the more unusual practices [the woman should] be obedient and uncomplaining.” Thus she should do anything sexually her husband asks, but she cannot ask for anything sexually. This leads me to my next point:

5. 5. In addition to that, it also leaves room for husbands to abuse and rape their wives:

The article leaves a lot of open room for husbands to rape and abuse their wives. If he wants to do any “unusual practices,” she should go along with it. Even if she does not want to have sex, she should “obey.” I feel like this leaves a lot of open room for a husband to be sexually abusive to his wife, since she should not complain, but simply be quiet.

After reading this article, I'm left with just a couple of feelings. Pure anger at how idiotic this was. Pure happiness that, although there are still gendered messages being embedded in young minds, they are not quite as bad as they were.

Tell Her She IS Beautiful.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=303321059703

Women, you are beautiful.

So, today's topic is beauty. You see, everyone is beautiful, but we can't say that. Not in a consumerist society that always needs to sell something to someone. We cannot possibly be beautiful the way we are, right? Afterall, Covergirl tells me I need to hide my wrinkles; Special K tells me I'm too big (because I can no longer fit in a child's chair without getting stuck), and Proactive tells me I need to have smooth, perfect skin. The makeup industry, the plastic surgery agencies, the lotion companies, the gyms, the diet pill producers, and the diet food businesses all thrive off of women disliking their bodies. They target women with their guns shaped like lipstick and celery, and shoot a bullet of "reality" at them through commercials. What do they say? Overwhelmingly, they say you are ugly. But women (and men), you are not ugly. I know, I know, this is just too hard to believe, even that James Blunt and Jesse McCartney don't have you fooled with their heartwarming songs. Women, you are beautiful. Take the time to tell your daughters, your sisters, your moms, your friends, your coworkers that they, too, are beautiful.

As bell hooks says, "Girls today are often just as self-hating when it comes to their bodies as their pre-feminist counterparts were" (Feminism is for Everybody, 35). By disliking ourselves, we are breeding the self-hate gene in all the young girls around us. We are teaching them to believe that they are ugly. Therefore, I ask you: if you do not see your own beauty for yourself, see it for them. bell hooks says, "Tragically, even though females are more aware than ever before of the widespread problem of life-threatening eating disorders in our nation's history, a large group of females from the very young to the very old are still starving themselves to be thin" (34). We can help stop these viscous eating disorders. We must show girls the beauty within themselves by first seeing the beauty within ourselves. My mom and my grandma always used to be self-deprecating when it came to their looks. They were both beautiful and amazing people. Yet they taught me that I, too, should not be completely satisfied with myself. Sometimes, it is hard to see your own beauty, but try. I know that there is a fine line for women to walk. If you find yourself beautiful, people often call you vain. Vain was just a word made up to make people feel bad about feeling good about themselves; don't let that prevail. I'm encouraging you, be vain. See yourself for what you truly are: beautiful. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You deserve to see your own beauty, and every girl/woman you know deserves to hear she is beautiful.

Tell her she's beautiful whenever you can.

"The Yellow Wallpaper," the rest cure, and S. Weir Mitchell

This post contains spoilers about “The Yellow Wallpaper”

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about women, madness, and treatment in the late 1800’s. Since the author, herself, was under S. Weir Mitchell’s care and the rest cure, it is thought to be closely linked to her true experiences.

The nameless narrator, who some (myself included) believe is actually named Jane, goes with her husband, John, a physician, to a country house for the summer. She is essentially on the rest cure, which prohibits her from writing, reading, and doing much work at all. Her bedroom is a big room, which has hideous yellow wallpaper throughout it. She simultaneously begins focusing more and more on the wallpaper and losing her sanity. She begins to see a woman behind the wallpaper and many more outside “creeping.” At the end, she believes herself to be a woman who was hiding in the wallpaper and she creeps around the room as her husband passes out on the floor. (This is a very literal reading of the short story. Another reading I like is that the wallpaper is a domestic pattern (marriage, domesticity, etc.) of life out of which she wishes to break. She sees many other women who do not live within these domestic patterns, but they seem to try to hide this from others by “creeping.”)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” shows the ways in which women’s illnesses were treated in that time. I have actually read parts of S. Weir Mitchell’s “Fat and Blood: An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria.” According to this “essay” (although it seems much longer, like a book), the proper treatment for neurasthenia and hysteria (both considered women’s diseases) was to make them overeat and rest. In addition, Mitchell states that the caregiver should not indulge the patient and not let the patient have what she wants. Thus, Mitchell suggests that the patient never knows what is best for her. “The Yellow Wallpaper” contradicts this, however, by showing the narrator’s tailspin into insanity. She pleads with her husband to take her away from the house and to get rid of the wallpaper, but using the logic of S. Weir Mitchell, he refuses to give in to her “indulgences.” His inability to understand her needs by following Weir Mitchell’s medical doctrine ultimately causes the narrator’s lapse into sanity and shows to the audience that this type of “treatment” did not help anyone.

If you want to read S. Weir Mitchell’s manuscript about the rest cure, which I advise because it is both funny and maddening, you can do so at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16230/16230-h/16230-h.htm#CHAPTER_V . That link takes you directly to Chapter 5: Rest, the ones around it are also highly entertaining/maddening/scary. (I say that it is entertaining/maddening/scary because it is entertaining to think these people actually thought they knew what they were talking about, maddening to think that they actually treated women this way, and also scary to think that they not only treated women this way but also truly thought it was helping them!)

If you want to read “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it is available online as well. You can read it at http://gilman.thefreelibrary.com/Yellow-Wallpaper. I strongly encourage you to read this short story if you have not. I think it is one of the best short stories I have ever read and I take something new out of it every time I read it.