# Do men control all womanly things? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 18, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371 "2003-03-18T21:14:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/21 "2003-03-21T06:34:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sqweels \* > \*\*Really? In those days women were little more than property and they had sex whenever the men who possessed them demanded it. And men had little regard for the techniques for avoiding pregnancy. \*\* Fresh from teaching the Women’s Studies major, are we? ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/22 "2003-03-21T07:11:09Z")
**Andy,** are you suggesting that the birth process was _not_ controlled by women, or that they were not replaced by doctors at the beginning of the Industrial Age? ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/23 "2003-03-21T07:30:14Z")
So, why is it up to the men to invent a comfortable bra? This make as much sense as bitching about the toilets seat being left up. If you want a comfortable bra…invent one, damn. If you want the seat a certain way adjust it when you use it. If you don’t want it to get pissed on put it back up when your done. Is that so damned hard? If you want a better form of birth control, then you should all get together and find one. There are more women than men in this world and surely y’all are as smart as we are, smarter in my opinion. You’ve got more votes, more brains, plenty of money and ALL the pu\*\*y…just hold out for what you want. Organization is the problem. Men don’t control a damned thing. Hell, everything we do practically is for you. If it were truly up to men and we weren’t constantly trying to get y’alls attention. All most of us would ever do is eat, fuck and/or get drunk…😃 😉 ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/24 "2003-03-21T22:38:34Z")
**Andy** , read closely. I was referring to something in a _book_. I said it was ONE THEORY. I did NOT say that was my opinion. [sub]sheesh ~ now I might have to withdraw my nomination for Most Imaginitive User Name ~ [/sub] ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/25 "2003-03-21T22:44:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by t-keela \* > \*\* All most of us would ever do is eat, fuck and/or get drunk…😃 😉 \*\* You say that like it’s a _bad_ thing. ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/26 "2003-03-21T23:00:03Z")
I was smiling when I said it, really I was. BTW I’ve just crossed off the first two and am about to start working on the third.\ ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/27 "2003-03-22T01:03:12Z")
**t-keela** , I think I wubs you. Bite the worm for me will ya, hun ? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/28 "2003-03-22T02:59:16Z")
Darn it, how can I even hope to control womanly things if I can’t even get a date? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/29 "2003-03-22T05:20:01Z")
Of course, if men could get pregnant, then wouldn’t they really be women, and subject to the same strictures women are under? How is a man who can get pregnant different than a woman? ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/30 "2003-03-22T06:34:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NinetyWt \* > \*\ ***Andy** , read closely. I was referring to something in a _book_. I said it was ONE THEORY. I did NOT say that was my opinion. > [sub]sheesh ~ now I might have to withdraw my nomination for Most Imaginitive User Name ~ [/sub] \*\* Aw, **NinetyWt,** I’m just joshing with you. I’ll use a smiley next time. But _where_ did that book come from? ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/31 "2003-03-22T06:35:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NinetyWt \* > \*\ ***t-keela** , I think I wubs you. > > Bite the worm for me will ya, hun ? 🙂 \*\* How 'bout I drink the tequila and you bite the worm…\ I just polished off the last of the margaritas and tequila shots…had a ribeye steak while ago and well…here I go again It’s a rough life but… What was the OP again? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/32 "2003-03-22T06:52:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by saoirse \* > \*\ ***Andy,** are you suggesting that the birth process was _not_ controlled by women, or that they were not replaced by doctors at the beginning of the Industrial Age? \*\* No, I’m objecting to the whole feminist faux-grievance approach. Under the faux-grievance approach, women are considered victims no matter what men do. For example: > [@](#): > > However, the medical “model” was the male body. I won’t even go into how ridiculous this claim is. What it comes down to, though, is that male bodies were the ones dissected to explore anatomy, and men were the ones who functioned as guinnea pigs for medical tests, drugs, etc. Thus feminists say they are disadvantaged because the studies were done on men. If the studies had been done on women, feminists would say it was men controlling women’s bodies for the benefit of men. And then the book gets _really_ absurd: > [@](#): > > Pregnancy and birth were treated as an anomaly to the body. Some women feel that pregnancy and birth are mis-managed by medical society’s view of them as aberrant states instead of normal processes of a woman’s body. I’d like to see just **one** citation from the evil patriarchy’s medical textbook in which men thought that the process by which humans – and most animals around them – reproduced was some sort of “anomaly.” Maybe, just maybe, the book has in mind the theory that hormonal changes can throw off the results of tests. If so, that theory hardly seems either evil or farfetched. ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/33 "2003-03-22T17:00:37Z")
welllll, okay, **Andy** , I forgive you. [sub]you delicious thing you.[/sub] Finally found the book ! Back in the way way back of the shelf. The title is “Giving Birth ~ Alternatives in Childbirth” by Barbara Katz Rothman, copright 1982. She writes about her experiences in birth, beginning with her first child in 1973. > [@](#): > > I did not want my conciousness being raised in the delivery table. I was a feminist and I was pregnant. Theose terms should not be mutually exclusive, but in 1973 it often felt as though they were. This was several years ago, when feminism was young. A lot of women you know today would have been considered “feminists” then just by virtue of career choice. (let’s don’t dive off into feminatizism, please.) Here’s the stuff about the “male model” of the body, **Andy** : > [@](#): > > As recently as 1961 the _American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology_ was still referring to women’s “inherent disabilities” in explanations of menstruation \“woman’s awareness of her inherent disabilities is thought to craste added mental and in turn physical changes \ result problems that concern the physician who must deal with them” Now this is what she says \*without a cite \* > [@](#): > > The working model of pregnancy that medicine has arrived at \ a pregnant woman is a woman with an insulated paracitic capsule growing inside her I don’t think this is the rule today. I originally brought this up because going back and looking at how things “used to be”, whether reality or just perceptions, helps us understand why someone tosses out things like the OP mentioned. Hey ! You could get in on the SDMB book swap, and I’ll send this little gem to ya ! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/34 "2003-03-22T17:02:55Z")
and, of course, that would be “_create_ added mental” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/35 "2003-03-23T06:10:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NinetyWt \* > **welllll, okay, Andy, I forgive you. [sub]you delicious thing you.[/sub]** I’m glad I’m back in your good grace, **NinetyWt.** And your username is actually … uh … one of my favorite wattages of light bulbs? Now bear with me as I try to add in quotes that aren’t carried forward when you hit the quote button: > [@](#): > > Finally found the book ! Back in the way way back of the shelf. The title is “Giving Birth ~ Alternatives in Childbirth” by Barbara Katz Rothman, copright 1982. … Here’s the stuff about the “male model” of the body, **Andy** : ## quote: ## As recently as 1961 the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology was still referring to women’s “inherent disabilities” in explanations of menstruation \“woman’s awareness of her inherent disabilities is thought to create added mental and in turn physical changes \ result problems that concern the physician who must deal with them” Does she prove an exact cite? I can understand why such language could sound grating to modern ears. Buuuuutttt… I note that some lawyers have argued what amounts to a PMS defense for their clients. Essentially they’re arguing that PMS is a debilitating condition so that punishment should be mitigated for actions taken under its influence. Also, that there exist medicines to treat the condition, which would place it in the context of a malady – one “inherent” in being a woman. And then there are women such as [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=170413&highlight=hate) who says “Everytime I have to go through those bloody dirty five days the same sick feeling comes inside me .Just because of this partiality I hate God .” Mind you, **I’m** not saying it’s an “inherent disability.” But there are plenty of attitudes coming from women that would support the view. Men can and do pick up on these things. > [@](#): > > Now this is what she says \*without a cite \* ## quote: ## The working model of pregnancy that medicine has arrived at \ a pregnant woman is a woman with an insulated paracitic capsule growing inside her My objection here is that this is Katz Rothman giving _her_ paraphrased version of what she claims men think. Given her leanings, we have to take this with a grain of salt as a political broadside rather than a statement of fact. > [@](#): > > Hey ! You could get in on the SDMB book swap, and I’ll send this little gem to ya ! 😃 I actually have quiet a collection of some radical-feminist books, including one called “Men Are Not Cost Effective.” (She’s absolutely serious about that topic.) Maybe I could scrounge up some sort of “Iron John” type book to trade. But this would be less like a book swap and more like mutual disarmament. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/36 "2003-03-23T16:22:15Z")
So, what did y’all decide? Do men run women and their stuff? I still say no, women run everything and some folks just aren’t aware of it. Why are they not aware of it? Well, it’s an illusion of power that women have allowed men to have. That way they can still bitch whenever they want to and we can’t really do anything about it. When all else fails, shed a few tears and that’s it…out to dinner, some flowers, maybe jewelry? I’m sorry sweetheart…etc. When all the while, we are/were just doing what comes naturally or doing what we were told to do in the first place. Men are SUCKERS and loving it.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Matthew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Mr.Matthew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Matthew)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/37 "2003-03-23T16:41:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rogue4007 \* > \*\*Until the Women’s Health Initiative was launched 1991 by the National Institutes of Health, women’s health issues were largely ignored. In 1990 the General Accounting Office found that women were largely excluded from research. > > Why is it that women live longer than men then? \*\* Many genetic diseases are sex-linked. If a disease is caused by a recessive gene on the X chromosome, men are more likely to exhibit it since they only have one X chromosome; there is no chance that a dominant gene on another X chromosome will compensate for the recessive. Women, by virtue of having two X chromosomes, are less likely to suffer from a sex-linked genetic disease. Genetic factors aside, men used to hold riskier jobs (physically and in terms of stress), deal with stress less effectively, smoke more, drink more, and are less likely to go to the doctor than women. [All of this paragraph is IMHO and based on personal observation. YMMV.] ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/38 "2003-03-23T18:39:35Z")
**Andy** , the cite is “Weight, Temperature change, and Psychosomatic Symptomatology in Relation to the Menstrual Cycle”, by Abramson and Torghele, appearing in the _American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecolgy_" 81 (1961) p. 223 Ancient history, no? Actually, my user name is probably your favorite weight of axle-grease. 🆒 It’s from a joke about people who think slowly. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by t-keela \* > \*\*So, what did y’all decide? \*\* IMHO, the answer to the OP is: no longer true. However, I’m old enough to remember Mom and Grandma talk about women’s struggle for empowerment through the years. There’s a grain of truth inside the legend. But, rather than beat the same old tired drum, it’s time for women to put their minds and engergies to other causes. > [@](#): > > dinner, some flowers, maybe jewelry? I’m sorry sweetheart… _Stop it_, **t-keela** , you’re giving me the _vapors_. \ 😛 ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-men-control-all-womanly-things/162371/39 "2003-03-25T13:51:19Z")
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