Sex, Gender and the Body Flashcards
(51 cards)
Characteristics of Sanguine:
hot, wet prone to optimism, blood, spring, air
Characteristics of Phlegmatic:
cold, wet prone to apathy, phlegm, winter, water
Characteristics of Melancholic:
cold, dry prone to sadness, black bile, autumn, earth
Characteristics of Chloric:
hot, dry prone to anger, yellow bile, summer, fire
What were the 4 Body humours?
Yellow bile,
Phlegm,
Black bile,
Blood
What was the humoral theory?
Ideas followed by medicine studies in Medieval and Renaissance Early Modern period
Concerns of the humoral theory:
Too much of one element could cause disease – need a perfect balance of all elements
What were ‘naturals’?
Natural things such as predisposition (what was inherited), age, environmental conditions, corruption of the basic elements, astrological conditions, gender, contributed to a person’s humoral contribution, all bodies unique
What were ‘non-naturals’?
Lifestyle (how much rest, sleep, exercise, food) a person may have
Physical body affected emotional health
Female Body:
Viewed in a negative sense – women were ‘failed males’
Deviation from the male body
Women’s body cold and wet – sign of their weakness
Binary opposite of the male body
Women seen as a deviation – product of weaker left testicle
Male Body:
Man, hotter and dryer than women
Galen viewed male body as superior to female as due to nature it was stronger
Men product of stronger right testicle – thus they were the stronger gender
Reproductive organ external as subjected to more heat
‘One sex model’:
Idea that due to women having less heat they have internal reproductive system
More lustful due to desire for the greater perfected gender
Women had a menstrual cycle as had internal reproductive system = failed man
Challenges to the ‘One sex model’:
Arguably there is a clear distinction between the models of the gender thus simply not ‘one sex model’
What were the 4 elements?
Fire,
Water,
Earth,
Air
Physicians:
Balance the elements – too much of one element add more of the other
Ill associated with a blockage – natural approach to bodily emissions as seen as part of the healing process
Body depicted to be made up of fluids
Key Historians to remember:
Ulinka Rublack
Lyndal Roper
Galen =
Viewed male body as superior to female as due to nature it was stronger
Gender and Religion:
15th/16th century – Adam + Eve represented the biblical story of the fall
Eve responsible for the fall – due to her weaknesses
Eve created second = symbolic that Eve represented a second-class citizen
Eve responsible for original sin – tempting Adam to eat the apple
Virgin Mary – saves the image of women
Marriage and motherhood represents hat women should inspire to
Patriarchal society – inheritance would follow the male line
Legal status of women equivalents of minors
Post reformation period = emphasis on the family and motherhood – particularly in Protestant religion who believed chastity was impossible thus marriage made it legitimate
Protestantism and women – Luther believed women were born to be wives and mothers
Women ruling over men:
Social class shaped one’s experience of gender
Large family associated with power and prestige
Women and Work:
Brewing and manufacturing jobs dominated by women
Skilled labour taken over by men
Women continued to work yet work was unrecorded
Often women worked all there lives
Religion and Masculinity:
Protestants reformation argued celibacy was impossible
Catholic reformation = greater enforcement of celibacy
Gendered experience – nuns had little freedom
Fatherhood – revival of the image of St Joseph, Joseph became central as throughout the Early Modern Period Joseph was depicted as an active father
Men seen as more rational thus man a greater figure in children’s lives
Women regarded as being inferior to men
Male insults = cuckholds: suggesting man couldn’t control his wife thus she would commit adultery
Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany = Ulinka Rublack
Luther = “although women had brought about the Fall, they were sanctified by bearing children”
“Protestantism had relatively little regard for life-long virginity; its praise of motherhood drew on older traditions”
Childs welfare more important than that of the mother’s health – “Luther famously expected mothers to die themselves rather than let their offspring perish”
“Motherhood was increasingly policed by secular authorities in both Protestant and Catholic town and territories. Contraception and abortion were punished, and miscarriages monitored”
Wurttemberg women =
women who didn’t want to go into labour thus as a result miscarried – these women were “accused as criminals, for such behaviour fundamentally challenged the view that motherhood was natural and sacred”
Manhood, Credit and Patriarchy in Early Modern England c. 1580 – 1640 = Alexandra Shepard
“The association of female honour and reputation with chastity is perhaps the least contested principle of social evaluation in Early Modern England”
“A wife’s honour is contingent of her being solitary, silent and withdrawn, while her husband should be locked into a web of commercial concerns and familiar with other men’s business”
“Ideals of household order, which enshrined patriarchal hierarchies of age and gender, were central to the language of social description and critique in early modern Europe”
