Short Post 3/1

The “Hormonal Hurricanes” article by Fausto-Sterling discussed the changing and sometimes ridiculous ideas of women’s body and health throughout history. These are ideas that I have read about and discussed at multiple times during my college career and yet the still manage to disturb me. I think that the reason these ignorant seeming ideas bother me so much is because they make me wonder about the medical theories and practices for modern women. Looking back at beliefs such as higher education depriving women of the energy they need to be reproductively successful it seems obviously false. It must not have been so clearly obvious to the people at the time because if it is still being written about today it clearly was reasonably popular. This leads me to question what beliefs we follow today that future generations will consider ridiculous. Women’s health issues are a particularly vulnerable area because for so long the medical profession was dominated by men. This has long term consequences because men may not be as motivated to further research in a field that does not affect them and also they simply do not know the experience of being a woman. A perfect example of this that Fausto-Sterling brings up is that women experiencing PMS were considered hysterical and told that their symptoms were imaginary. It would be extremely frustrating to be told that the experiences you are having are simply a figment of your imagination.
So what contemporary beliefs could be the modern equivalent to believing that the amount of food you eat translates to your brain power? I have often considered this question, but Fausto-Sterling made a suggestion that kind of surprised me. She brought up how contemporary psychologist and biologist contribute the majority of sex differences to hormones in our body. As a psychology major I have been taught this many times and I have never really taken the time to question it. This reminds me of the fact that often when information is presented to us as Science we take it as undisputable fact. The problem with this is looking back on all the supposedly scientific claims about women from the past. Clearly sometimes science is subjective, biased and/or just plain wrong. This article reminded me of why it is important to question even what is believed to be fact.