LECTURE 5: THE BODY Flashcards
What was there a lack of?
Knowledge of conception/ reproduction, esteemed doctors believed a woman could give birth to rabbits (Mary Toph).
What was the model/system in place?
The humoral system which linked the macrocosm (world, environment) and microcosm (the body).
What was the opinions of moods?
They were somatic (relating to the body), emotions were a physical thing.
Popular and elite culture.s?
This understanding was shared by both cultures.
It was a psychosomatic model (mind-body), health related to the humoral balance.
Character/ emotions and bodily health were all connected. It was a system based on regiment and the idea that the individual maintained themselves.
The relationship between men and women?
They were essentially the same. The difference was a matter of degree (balance of the humours).
This was the one sex model, it was a vertical system and women were simply a lesser version than men. This is discussed in Lacqueur’s book Making Sex.
What was the one sex model?
A model of genital homology. It suggests male and female reproductive organs are essentially the same structure and have the same function. But women’s were on the inside and men’s on the outside. This was because women were colder (humors) and can’t push out their genitals. It was a vertical system and men and women had a different combination of humours.
The physiology in the one sex model?
Men and women were the same.
How does the one sex model explain reproduction?
Two seed theory, both provide the seed for conception. Sex brings pleasure for both women and men and pleasure here is discussed in functional terms.
Rape was justified if the women conceived as conception was equated to pleasure.
What did Sharp say in his The Midwives Book 1071?
‘great agreement between the womb and the brain’.
Women were less able to control themselves’ had a lack of self-management so were less intellectual because less blood went to the brain.
Women’s and sexual desire?
They were uncontrollable. Mary Toph desired rabbits and the brain was connected to the uterus and so this desire effected the growth of her ‘children’.
The application of gender?
It was applied to inanimate objects as well as women and men. It was also linked to authority, a good king had masculine traits and a bad king had feminine traits.
What replaced the one sex model?
The two sex model at the end 18thc. The bodies became gendered.
The two sex model and anatomy?
Women: wider pelvis for children, and smaller heads to lack of intellect. These physical characteristics simply reflected preconceptions of gender from the humoral system as women were thought to have weaker brains. There were no new discoveries.
What rose in the 18trhc?
Neuron science. Nerves were a feminine feature and muscles were a masculine feature, they gendered.
Wax model for science?
Female: modest position, long hair, knees crossed. Again, an example of inanimate objects being gendered and gender being applied to the body.
