Short Post 3/1

Hormonal Hurricanes: Menstruation, Menopause, and Female Behavior

I never realized how much discrimination women faced based on their biological functioning. It seems like in the past, women’s premenstrual changes were more noticeable and were thought of as extreme changes in a woman’s behavior. Today, I don’t see that in our society. Its basically impossible to tell whether a woman has her period or not at any given time just through daily interactions. But that made me question why do we hide it so much? We don’t talk about this issue because it is considered taboo, especially when males are present.
It caught my attention when Fausto-Sterling brought up young girls and boys’ perceptions of menstruation. She says that “in one recent study most premenarcheal girls and boys of the same age believed menstruation to be a physically and emotionally disruptive event, while another found that 85 percent of the premenarcheal girls studied thought it inappropriate to discuss menstruation with boys.” It’s a very confusing thing and because it’s a taboo topic, a lot of young kids don’t get the right information about menstruation.

Lean and Mean

I agree with a lot of what Douglas is saying and I can see how the media makes it seem like every woman needs to be thin in order to be beautiful. I don't know if I completely agree with her logic of why girls are mean to one another. I don't think that girls are mean to one another because they feel angry by the pressure to be thin. I think some girls are just inherently mean sometimes. Especially at age 15 or 16, girls focus pretty much all of their attention on themselves. I like that Douglas included the statistics that show that only a minority of students actually experience bullying. Douglas should have also talked about the extent of bullying. Some students experience one or two minor incidents while other go through years of torment. I think there is a huge difference between those.

I didn't experience bullying in school but I did experience discrimination by boys like Douglas mentions as another issue that girls face but it doesn't get much attention. I felt like boys in my classes were always willing to get me to help them out with a math problem or have me write out the group essay, but when it came to respecting my intelligence and feelings, that wasn't so important. It was really frustrating and I remember going home on multiple occasions and venting to my mom that some cocky guy had insulted me in front of the entire class and I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. Thats definitely something that I'm glad is over. In college I feel like girls are respected more because we feel more confident in this setting some how.