Thursday, February 27, 2014

She's just hormonal...

Today, I thought about my previous piece of writing, and how I began it. I referred to my current medical situation, in which my hormone levels are off the charts, and thus causing radical mood swings. I am the embodiment of the term, "hormonal."

In fact, how often have I, with my girlfriends, either in recounting a situation in which I was extremely "moody," or at the moment noticing the emotions of another woman, do we make the quick calculations that tell us: aha, I/you/we are pre-menstrual. And reduce our current emotional state to our biology. We refer to ourselves and other women as "PMS-ing" or "hormonal." And men have even more colorful terms for our situation.

While in more contemporary times woman has embraced the natural ebb and flow of her cycle (dictated by her anatomy), and particularly the freedom she has during these "hormonal" phases, even within this new found sense of empowerment, there lies a subjugation.

Take for example, my previous piece of writing, or the entire journal that I have created in which to express this crisis of the feminine. From the outset, everything I assert is couched among the declaration of being "hormonal." I put forth assertions regarding the continued oppression of woman, that even through feminism, in the form of repression of our anatomical organs: our ovaries, our uteruses, our cervixes, our vaginas, but what weight do these assertions carry in light of the confession that I am currently in a "hormonal" state? And here I refer back to all the conversations I have had with girlfriends in which we proclaim, "Oh, I'm PMS-ing!" which is intended to discredit the emotional state of the time, but also discredits the intellectual state.

Historically, woman has been viewed as the inferior sex. Woman is weak. Woman is fragile. And the recommendation to avoid especially intellectual affairs has been asserted in light of this. Modern feminism sought to defeat this fallacy. Woman is intellectually capable. Woman is strong. Woman is equal.

And yet, we, women ourselves, in contemporary times, assert our biology as an excuse for behavior.

I cannot be held responsible for my actions. It is my biology that causes me to act irrational. I cannot be held responsible for my words. It is my biology that causes me to speak thus.

Woman is fragile and subject to her anatomy. And so, cannot be held responsible. Woman is not in control of her faculties.

Lorraine Bobbitt is not guilty.

Eve did not sin.

Woman is sinless. Woman is pure. Woman is holy.

So that woman carries no burden, we cannot be held responsible for any action or behavior, and  have no control of will. And here we can see the reasoning behind the hystery of woman: that woman cannot vote, cannot own property, and in the end cannot have any authority over her own destiny.

But, as a result, what a burden it is upon man. For then the care of woman is the responsibility of man. Her social well-being is the responsibility of man. The future of our species dictated by woman is the burden of man--the holy tabernacle is placed in the hands of man.

And how did man fair?

Indeed. In this light, we can deduce that every coitus in the generation of every future generation has been an act of rape.

For, if I am incapable of reason, action, and will, then the very mutuality of sex is undermined. And every sexual act becomes violence against woman.

Over and over and over, how many rapes have we endured, survived, repressed?

And yet, I am hysterical. I am Woman: Woman is enslaved to her biology.

...

I ask my reader (in light of this deduction): is my current intellectual "rant," and this current journal in which I express the feminine crisis which is the result of my biology unjustified and illegitimate?

1 comment:

  1. This reminds me of a video that I saw once about female "hypo agency." The part that I'm talking about starts at about 3:20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgcjtE0xrE&list=PLyeQSigo3HO5tMT_lbCtqeONoXsYWlBCG

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